#OnThisDay
JANUARY 16, 1865: SPECIAL FIELD ORDER NO. 15

Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, which set aside 400,000 acres of land in the South to be divided into 40-acre plots for formerly enslaved Black families. Although later revoked, this order inspired the phrase “forty acres and a mule”.

zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/sp…

Jan. 16, 1865: Special Field Order No. 15

Demands by Black ministers after the Ebenezer Creek Massacre led to the short-lived land distribution during Reconstruction known as Special Field Order No. 15.

^{Zinn Education Project}