Why didn't Special Field Order No. 15 last? (Sherman)?

Question

I'm sure this sounds like a homework question because of the specificity, but I'm curious for my own self. But from what I can find, it was only effective for one year. Why didn't it continue, and what happened to the families that benefited from it? Did they have to leave, or are they still there now to some effect?

Answer 1

Probably a better question for the History section than Social Science.  As a practical matter, for the most part the American Civil War was not about confiscation of property.  The Emancipation Proclamation did not apply in areas that were not under revolt at the time of it going into effect. Union soldiers, largely, did not actively seek out slaves to "free" them; normally the "contrabands" simply gravitated to Union locations.  Very few individuals had the real estate confiscated (the most notable exception being the Arlington home of General Lee).  Indeed, the large scale deliberate property distruction by Sherman and in the Valley were designed to deny Confederate forces the wherewithall to continue to fight as opposed to being a confiscation for the purposes of redistribution of wealth.

Special Field Order 15 is the exception, in that it represented a wholesale redistribution of wealth.  Even then, Sherman's purpose was not so much to effectuate a redistribution of wealth as it was designed to provide a "stay put" alternative to the large numbers of blacks who were following his army.  Once the war was ended, and the need to free the Union forces from the huge number of followers disappeared, not even the Radical Republicans were that sold on continuing Sherman's plan.