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" Waving the bloody shirt " and " bloody shirt campaign " were pejorative phrases, used during American election campaigns during the Reconstruction era, to deride opposing politicians who made emotional calls to avenge the blood of soldiers who died in the Civil War.
Bloody shirt, in U.S. history, the post-Civil War political strategy of appealing to voters by recalling the passions and hardships of the recent war. This technique of “waving the bloody shirt” was most often employed by Radical Republicans in their efforts to focus public attention on.
Biographer Hans Trefousse notes that the congressman waved the bloody shirt in support of Charles Sumner’s civil rights bill, for example, and he conjured up images of Ku Klux terror during his 1876 congressional race.
"Waving the bloody shirt" and "bloody shirt campaign" were pejorative phrases, used during American election campaigns during the Reconstruction era, to deride opposing politicians who made emotional calls to avenge the blood of soldiers that died in the Civil War.
This was supposed to be a mockery of the concept of “waving the bloody shirt.” In April 1871, Massachusetts Congressman Benjamin Butler had made an impassioned speech on the floor of the House. He spoke about ongoing lynchings and racial tensions in the post-war South, encouraging military intervention.
BLOODY SHIRT was part of the expression "waving the bloody shirt," referring to a political ploy used in campaigns during the Reconstruction period, following the Civil War. This term described the attempts made by radical northern Republicans to defeat southern Democrats by using impassioned oratory about bloody sacrifice designed to keep ...
1 wrz 2008 · Allegedly, Benjamin F. Butler waved Huggins's bloodstained nightshirt on the floor of Congress to demonstrate the violence against southern Republicans. White southerners, however, inverted the gesture by using the phrase “waving the bloody shirt” to denote northern oppression.
