1860-1870 THE CIVIL WAR
The Civil War transformed the country and the Conley Family. As it was for all Americans, the stakes were high. The Conley Brothers waited out the conflict in isolation.
The Civil War divided the new country, and imperiled the Conley Family.
RECONSTRUCTION
As at the End of The Civil War, promise was in the air. The U.S. Army occupied much of the South, and the former and current state capitals were filled with Federal Marshalls from the Union Army. Northern business people flooded towns across the South, buying the most fertile land in America at bargain prices.
The Northerners, although deeply biased, were considerably more relaxed with education, business transactions, and other advances for people of African, Jewish, and Scots-Irish descent. Voting was approved for many kinds of non-white males, ensuring Northern control of Congress. The Conley men voted together as shown in the Federal Record below, wherein the Conley name was misspelled as Connally by record keepers.
As they retreated from larger towns across The South, the Confederate Troops burned government buildings and their records. This voting record, recovered from the ashes, and kept in the National Archives, is an example.
