TEXT B Staggering tasks
confronted the people of the United States, North and South, when the Civil War
ended. About a million and a half soldiers from both sides had to be
demobilized, readjusted to civilian life, and reabsorbed by the devastated
economy. Civil government also had to be put back on a peacetime basis and
interference from the military had to be stopped. The desperate
situation of the South had eclipsed the fact that reconstruction had to be
undertaken also in the North, though less spectacularly. Industries had to
adjust to peacetime conditions; factories had to be retooled for civilian
needs. Financial problems loomed large in both the North and the
South. The national debt had shot up from a modest $ 65 million in 1861, the
year the war started, to nearly $ 3 billion in 1865, the year the war ended.
This was a colossal sum for those days but one that a cautious government could
pay. At the same time, war taxes had to be reduced to less burdensome
levels. Physical devastation caused by invading armies, chiefly
in the South and border states, had to be repaired. This difficult task was
ultimately completed, but with discouraging slowness. Other
important questions needed answering. What would be the future of the four
million black people who were freed from slavery On what basis were the
Southern states to be brought back into the Union What of the
Southern leaders, all of whom were liable to charges of treason One of these
leaders, Jefferson Davis, president of the Southern Confederacy, was the subject
of an insulting popular Northern song, "Hang Jeff Davis from a Sour Apple Tree,"
and even children sang it. Davis was temporarily chained in his prison
cell during the early days of his two-year imprisonment. But he and the other
Southern leaders were finally released, partly because it was unlikely that a
jury from Virginia, a Southern Confederate state, would convict them. All the
leaders were finally pardoned by President Johnson in 1868 in an effort to help
reconstruction efforts proceed with as little bitterness as possible. According to the passage, which of the following statements about the damage in the South is correct
A．It was worse than the North. B．The cost was less than expected. C．It was centered in the border states. D．It was remedied rather quickly.