Field Orders No. 15 targeted land redistribution in which area most notably?

• A. Appalachian region
• B. Sea Islands
• C. Great Plains
• D. Mississippi Delta

Answer: (B)

Field Orders No. 15 reflects an early Reconstruction effort to redistribute land to formerly enslaved people by confiscating large plantations along a coastal strip known as the Sea Islands off South Carolina and Georgia. This area was where Union forces planned to or could physically implement land redistribution, with the policy promising forty acres per family (the idea behind “forty acres and a mule”). The Sea Islands stand in contrast to the Appalachian region, the Great Plains, and the Mississippi Delta, none of which were the focus of this specific land-grant plan. This move captured the moment when Union forces attempted to transform the plantation economy, though it proved short-lived as political changes halted such redistribution.