Download Chapter 17 Section 3 “A promise of Freedom

Chapter 17 Section 3
“A promise of Freedom
 At first, the Civil
War was not a war
to end slavery.
But, once soldiers
got down to the
south and saw
slavery, people
started to rethink
the aims of the
war.
 Lincoln was against slavery, but he did not
set out to free the slaves. He wanted one
thing, to save the Union. When the
opportunity came for him to free the slaves
without risking the Union, he did so. Lincoln
had to be careful, though, because four of
the slave states were fighting with the
Union.
 Lincoln decided that he would free all slaves
in the Confederacy. Those four states
fighting with the union got to keep their
slaves.
 Lincoln issued the Emancipation
Proclamation on January 1, 1863. This
freed all slaves in the south. This doesn’t
mean that 3 million slaves just walked out
of the south, but the emancipation
proclamation was important. It changed
the goal of the war.
 Now northern soldiers were fighting to
save the union and to end slavery.
 Also, now that the war was about slavery,
Europe refused to buy southern cotton or
to send the south anymore supplies. This
crippled the southern economy.
 Northern
Abolitionists
loved the
emancipation
proclamation
and
southerners
hated it.
 African Americans were eventually allowed
to fight for the union army. In the
beginning, black soldiers were
discriminated against. They were given
manual labor jobs and were paid half that
of white soldiers. As the war went on, the
pay became equal and black soldiers were
allowed to fight on the front lines. More
than 200,000 fought for the union army
and almost 40,000 gave their lives.
Sergeant William H. Carney
Colonel Robert Gould Shaw,