USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -scalawag, after the American Civil War, a pejorative term for a white Southerner who supported the federal plan of Reconstruction or who joined with black freedmen and the so-called carpetbaggers in support of Republican Party policies.

Detailed explanation-2: -Scalawags were white Southerners who supported the policies of Reconstruction. This meant that they backed the Republican Party or assisted Black freedmen and Northern newcomers. Therefore, the majority of Southerners saw them as traitors.

Detailed explanation-3: -Scalawags had diverse backgrounds and motives, but all of them shared the belief that they could achieve greater advancement in a Republican South than they could by opposing Reconstruction. Taken together, scalawags made up roughly 20 percent of the white electorate and wielded a considerable influence.

Detailed explanation-4: -Two of the most prominent scalawags were General James Longstreet, one of Robert E. Lee’s top generals, and Joseph E. Brown, who had been the wartime governor of Georgia. During the 1870s, many scalawags left the Republican Party and joined the conservative-Democrat coalition.