Scalawag

Scalawag

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In the United States, Scalawags were Southern whites who joined the Republican party in the ex-Confederate South during Reconstruction. They formed a coalition with Freedmen (blacks who were former slaves) and Northern whites and blacks, who were called Carpetbaggers to take part in running for office and governing the states where they lived. The two most prominent scalawags were General James Longstreet (Lee's top general), and Joseph E. Brown, the wartime governor of Georgia. Those who had not supported the Confederacy were eligible to take the "ironclad oath," as required by the Reconstruction laws in 1867 to vote or hold office. In the 1870s many switched from the Republican party to the conservative-Democrat coalition, the Redeemers, which defeated and replaced all the state Republican regimes by 1877.