Sherman's plan to aid newly freed enslaved people proposed what measure?

• A. Forty acres and a mule for African Americans
• B. Immediate universal suffrage for all races
• C. Land reform for veterans
• D. A new capital city in the South

Answer: (A)

The main idea being tested is land redistribution to freed enslaved people as a way to secure their economic independence after emancipation. Sherman proposed Special Field Orders No. 15, which set aside confiscated Confederate land along the Sea Islands and parts of the South for freed families, with the plan that each family would receive 40 acres of land and, if possible, a work mule. This is the measure captured by the option about forty acres and a mule for African Americans.

This approach aimed to provide a tangible, self-supporting foothold for newly freed people instead of leaving them to figure out their own livelihoods in a shattered economy. It was a wartime policy tied to Union occupation and land distribution, though it proved short-lived, as it was later overturned and not broadly implemented. The other options—universal suffrage, land reform for veterans, or a new capital city—were not part of Sherman’s plan.