How the South Won the War After the Civil War Hardcover | HISTORY/United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877) An impeccably researched, character-driven narrative history recounting the fascinating late-Reconstruction Era mission of General Philip Sheridan, a Union hero dispatched to the South 10 years after the Civil War to protect the rights of newly freed black men, who were under siege by violent paramilitary groups like the White league intent on erasing their postwar gains. On New Year’s Eve 1874, Sheridan made a splash on his arrival in New Orleans. Accompanied by family and friends, he claimed to be on vacation and bound for Cuba. In reality, he was in the Crescent City on behalf of President Ulysses S. Grant, who had asked him to undertake a vital mission: to investigate the activities of violent vigilante groups menacing the rights of former slaves, or freedmen.