Question

What was the primary purpose of General William T. Sherman's Special Field Order No.15?

A) To establish a military alliance with Native American tribes
B) To redistribute confiscated Confederate land to freed slaves
C) To declare martial law in the Southern states
D) To recruit former Confederate soldiers into the Union army

Answer 1

General Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15 to redistribute confiscated land to freed slaves, with plots of forty acres provided along with the use of old military mules for cultivation. The measure was temporary and ultimately reversed.

Step-by-step explanation:

The primary purpose of General William T. Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 was to redistribute confiscated Confederate land to freed slaves. After meeting with former slaves in Savannah to discuss the meaning of freedom, Sherman issued the order, which designated land in Georgia and South Carolina for freedpeople homesteads. The lands set aside were from the Sea Islands along the Atlantic coast south of Charleston down to Jacksonville, once heavily involved in rice and cotton cultivation. Approximately 400,000 acres were allocated in plots of forty acres, and freedpeople were offered the use of old military mules for cultivating the land. However, this was a temporary wartime measure to address the refugee problem and was not permanently enacted, as the land was later reinstated to ex-Confederates after the war.