Background
- 1865, after the Civil War ends, most veterans return to their farms or head west for new opportunites. Blacks roam free, and immigrants replace the millions dead.
- meanwhile, the North, prosperous from the war, begins to focus on reconstructing the South, where laws still favor whites, and the KKK and others form and terrorize.
- 1868-1870, the 14th and 15th Amendments are added, and blacks are made equal citizens and given the right to vote. President Andrew Johnson fights the changes, but the South was reformed.
- 1876, President Rutherford B. Hayes ends reconstruction.
- elsewhere, the U.S. purchases Alaskan territory from Russia, and then centers on governing all its land, including the western frontier.
- meanwhile, Buffalo Bill killed thousands of buffalo to feed railroad workers, and the government lent land & money that built the Transcontinental Railway. Other fortunes also exploded, including John D. Rockefeller in oil, and Andrew Carnegie in steel.
- as railroad tracks moved west, so did more settlers. And as Buffalo disappeared, many Indians starved and were pushed onto reservations. Military forts followed them, and various Indian Wars ensued. Also in 1876, Col. Custer and his men make their last stand after attacking Dakota Indian country at the Little Big Horn.