William Tecumseh Sherman

William Tecumseh Sherman, a Major General in the Union Army, issues Special Field Order No. 15 (January 16, 1865), allocating roughly 400,000–500,000 acres into 40‑acre plots and authorizing use of decommissioned army supplies for newly freed Black people across the coastal South. In the series his wartime directive functions as a concrete precedent invoked by characters arguing for slavery reparations and reparative policy; the order’s later rescission frames Sherman as a pivotal, contested figure whose military authority produced a brief, consequential promise of land that shapes modern political and moral claims.