What was General Sherman’s Special Field Orders No. 15, and why is it significant?

• A. Set aside land (40 acres per family) for freedpeople; symbolized potential land reform but was reversed and not sustained.
• B. Granted full citizenship to freedpeople nationwide.
• C. Created a national system of sharecropping.
• D. Guaranteed 40 acres of land to each freedperson.

Answer: (A)

Special Field Orders No. 15 was a wartime attempt to reshape land ownership for newly freed people. General Sherman ordered the confiscation of certain coastal lands along the Sea Islands and parts of Georgia and South Carolina and set aside 40-acre parcels for each freed family, with access to use the land and its resources. This represented a bold move toward land reform, showing that emancipation could include economic independence and Black ownership of property, not just freedom from slavery.

Its significance lies in what it demonstrated and what happened to it. It showed that the Union saw land ownership as a pathway to genuine emancipation and civil equality, a radical shift from the plantation system. But the plan was short-lived: President Andrew Johnson reversed the orders later in 1865, returning the land to former Confederate owners, so the policy was not sustained. This highlights the broader Reconstruction conflict between military measures during the war and the political decisions that shaped postwar policy, and it helps explain why the issue of land for freedpeople remained contested and unresolved.

The other options don’t fit because the orders did not grant nationwide citizenship, create a national system of sharecropping, or guarantee land to every freed person.