James Ford Rhodes and John Roy Lynch, who both lived through the period of Reconstruction, were historians who wrote early accounts of the period. Although Lynch had been a Republican Congressman from Mississippi during Reconstruction, Rhodes wrote his works earlier, even though, unlike Lynch, he was one of the first non-participants to write about the era. Despite writing about Reconstruction as an observer, Rhodes’ work helped to set the terms of historical debate that Lynch would have to address. While Rhodes’ work serves as a primary source of how white men of his social circle viewed Reconstruction, Lynch’s writings reveal the contributions of African Americans to political life during that time. In this thesis I will show how Rhodes made a selective use of sources, as well as inserted his own prejudicial views regarding his disbelief in equality for African Americans. Lynch’s work would remain to be rediscovered by future scholars who have helped to define how Reconstruction is viewed today. The views of later historians like David Blight and Eric Foner reflect the influence of Lynch’s writings to show the possibility that Reconstruction represented in giving African American men a chance to be involved in political life and being considered equal before the law. When viewed together, the work of Rhodes and Lynch show how reading sources differently can lead to a historian making different conclusions. Rhodes based his work on literary sources, as well as newspapers, while Lynch referred to his own experiences, as well as official sources. As I will show later, Lynch’s writings emphasize the positive roles that African Americans played in Reconstruction governments, and in doing so proposes that African Americans should be integrated into the political life of the United States as both voters and politicians. By contrast, Rhodes’ expression of sympathy toward the defeated white Confederates and his emphasis on the “corruption” of Republican-led governments While Rhodes may no longer be useful as an authoritative account of Reconstruction, his work remains valuable as a record of a negative interpretation of the federal government’s actions immediately following the Civil War. This differs from the view that the “Dunning School” was more-or-less solely responsible for advancing that interpretation. Rhodes’ multi-volume History indicates that this criticism of the Republican Party during Reconstruction already existed before historians working within the academy advanced those views. Arguments made by Rhodes would need to be refuted, or shown to be irrelevant, before a perspective like that made by Lynch could gain a wide acceptance.