counter them... wearing Federal uniforms and bearing bright muskets
and gleaming bayonets.... They are jostled from the sidewalks by dusky
guards, marching four abreast. They were halted, in rude and sullen
tones, by Negro sentinels."

The task of the Federal forces was not easy. The garrisons were not
large enough nor numerous enough to keep order in the absence of civil
government. The commanders in the South asked in vain for cavalry
to police the rural districts. Much of the disorder, violence, and
incendiarism attributed at the time to lawless soldiers appeared later
to be due to discharged soldiers and others pretending to be soldiers in
order to carry out schemes of robbery. The whites complained vigorously
of the garrisons, and petitions were sent to Washington from mass
meetings and from state legislatures asking for their removal. The
higher commanders, however, bore themselves well, and in a few fortunate
cases Southern whites were on most amicable terms with the garrison
commanders. The correspondence of responsible military officers in the
South shows how earnestly and considerately each, as a rule, tried
to work out his task. The good sense of most of the Federal officers
appeared when, after the murder of Lincoln, even General Grant for
a brief space lost his head and ordered the arrest of paroled
Confederates.

The church organizations were as much involved in the war and in the
reconstruction as were secular institutions. Before the war every
religious organization having members North and South, except the
Catholic Church and the Jews, had separated into independent Northern
and Southern bodies. In each section church feeling ran high, and when
the war came, the churches supported the armies. As the Federal armies
occupied Southern territory, the church buildings of each denomination
were turned over to the corresponding Northern body, and Southern
ministers were permitted to remain only upon agreeing to conduct "loyal
services, pray for the President of the United States and for Federal
victories" and to foster "loyal sentiment." The Protestant Episcopal
churches in Alabama were closed from September to December 1865, and
some congregations were dispersed by the soldiers because Bishop Wilmer
had directed his clergy to omit the prayer for President Davis but had
substituted no other. The ministers of non-liturgical churches were not
so easily controlled. A Georgia Methodist preacher directed by a F