1866

On February 23, 1866, Erasmus Corwin Gilbreath was commissioned into the 15th United States Army. On April 24, 1866, Gilbreath married Susan Corse of Baltimore, Maryland. After a couple weeks stay at Carlisle Barracks, Gilbreath received orders to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Gilbreath and his new wife moved to the South.

Gilbreath was one of 200,000 army officers and soldiers assigned to occupation duty in the ex-Confederate states. Those states had been devastated economically, physically, socially and politically by the war. The Civil War fundamentally changed the cultural landscape of the South. A massive federal effort was mounted to reunite the nation and address postwar challenges.