ABSTRACT
The decade following the end of the Civil War, generally called Reconstruction, was difficult for both the victors and the vanquished. By 1865, thousands of refugees, white and black, had entered Texas, and some contributed to the turbulence that followed the war. From the time Union armies' first conquered segments of the Confederacy, northern leaders were divided over how reconstruction should be accomplished. Granger's proclamation ending slavery directly affected the status of more than 30 percent of the population of Texas. A federal agency, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, offered some protection for blacks in their transition from slavery to freedom. In keeping with President Johnson's plan of Reconstruction, the governor set an election, on January 8, 1866, to select delegates for a constitutional convention to convene on February 7. Congress was further irritated when, following the suggestion of Governor Throckmorton, the Texas legislature refused to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
