Claim: 1866 and 1867 is considered the beginning of the Reconstruction era.
Evidence: In recent decades, most historians follow Eric Foner in dating the Reconstruction of the South as starting in 1863, with the Emancipation Proclamation and the Port Royal Experiment, rather than 1865. However, in his 1988 monograph specializing on the situation in the South, titled Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877, he begins in 1863.