September 1865
Events
- September 186540 Acres Reversed — Freedpeople Lose Confiscated Land
Gen. Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 (January 1865) had distributed 400,000 acres of Sea Island and coastal land to approximately 40,000 freed families — about 40 acres each. President Johnson's September 1865 orders reversed this, directing the Freedmen's Bureau to restore land to pardoned Confederates. Bureau agents evicted Black families who had planted and harvested the land for one full season.
- September 1865Sherman's "Forty Acres" Promise Rescinded by Johnson
General Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 (January 1865) had reserved 400,000 acres of South Carolina and Georgia coastal land for freed Black families — roughly 40 acres each. Approximately 40,000 freedpeople settled the land. President Andrew Johnson reversed the order in September 1865, returning confiscated land to pardoned former Confederates and evicting Black families. The broken promise of land redistribution condemned most freedpeople to sharecropping dependency.