Andrew Johnson wasn't a bad man but it was unfortunate that he was President after Lincoln's death--he lacked vision. But the country as a whole lacked vision as to how to enable the freedmen best to become independent and productive citizens.
I don't think there should have been widespread confiscation of property--the white men in the South believed that it was their duty to support their state in the war and before the war it was an unresolved question whether a state could secede. But the government should have bought a lot of the land and made it possible for the freedmen to acquire it as small farms, by homesteading or something similar. I don't think anyone wanted to spend that kind of money and the Northerners were just as prejudiced against black people as Southern whites generally were.
Pity NONE of the northerners knew what to do when they won.
Lincoln likely had the best idea with his “Send them all back” thought. Just look what Johnson turned their freedom into...
Slavery was already on its way out. It was an economic dead end, and those enslaved at the time of the war of Northern Aggression would likely have been freed WITHOUT the war within 20 or 30 years.
Yes, that’s a long time, but considering slavery exists TODAY in some lands, what’s a few years, really?