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Chapter 11
Liberation:
African Americans
and the Civil War
I. Lincoln’s Aims

Preserve the Union
– Everything else secondary
– Especially concerned about the border
states
– Call for 75,000 volunteers
– Black volunteers rejected
II. Black Men Volunteer and Are
Rejected
Fate of Union tied to issue of slavery
 Fate of slavery tied to the outcome of
war
 Black people understood before
northerners

• Anglo-African newspaper
• New York, Philadelphia, Boston
• Black men offered their services
III. Union Policies toward
Confederate Slaves
No coherent policy to deal with
 Union military commanders

– More concern for slave owner’s interests
“Contraband”

General Benjamin Butler
– Fortress Monroe, May 1861
– Refused to return three runaway slaves
– “Contraband”
•
•
•
•
Enemy property
First Confiscation Act, August 1861
John C. Fremont
General David Hunter
Lincoln’s Initial Position
 Reluctant
to move against slavery,
1861
– Border state loyalty
– Supported compensated emancipationcolonization
– Wanted to end slavery in border states,
April 1862
– Warned border states to accept
compensation or risk getting nothing, July
1862
Lincoln Moves toward
Emancipation

Victory and Union tied to slavery issue
– “Strike at the heart of the rebellion”
– Tells his cabinet, summer 1862
– William Seward warns Lincoln to wait
– Montgomery Blair feared fall elections
Lincoln Delays Emancipation

Waited for a victory on the battlefield

– Northern defeats, spring and summer 1862
– The Peninsula Campaign
– Seven Pines
– Seven Days’
– Second Battle of Bull Run
Antietam
– Justification for announcing emancipation
Black People Reject Colonization

Would not retreat from colonization
– Liberia
– Haiti
– Black people not interested
IV. Preliminary Emancipation
White southerners ridiculed it
 Many white northerners had little
enthusiasm

– Antiblack riots
– Northern Democrats almost all opposed
• Denounced Lincoln and Republicans

Most black people gratified
V. Emancipation Proclamation
Limited to areas still in rebellion
 Did not include border states
 Changes war goals

– Preserve the Union
– Make people free
Effects of Proclamation
on the South
Ended chance of foreign recognition
 Encouraged

– Slaves to flee
– Slaves to resist
VI. Black Men
Fight for the Union

Emancipation Proclamation
– Authorized black men to enlist
– Union defeats and the need for manpower
– Thomas Wentworth Higginson
– Robert Gould Shaw
Black Men
Fight for the Union (cont.)

Discrimination and hostility
– Segregated units
• White officers
– Often held racist beliefs
– Lower pay scale
• White privates $13/month
• Black privates $10/month
Black Men
Fight for the Union (cont.)

Combat
– Suffered disproportionately more casualties
– Battery Wagner
• William H. Carney
– Olustee
– The Crater
VII. Confederate Reaction to
Black Soldiers

Enraged
– Refused to recognize black men as
soldiers
• Treat as rebellious slaves
• General Order Number 11
– Fort Pillow Massacre
• Union response
• Union commanders angry
VIII. Black Men
in the Union Navy

Tradition of serving in the U.S. Navy,
1790s
– Integrated
– Early 19th century many black sailors
• Attempts to ban them from the navy
IX. Liberators, Spies, and Guides

Black men and women
– Robert Smalls
– Harriet Tubman
– Mary Elizabeth Bowser
– John Henry Woodson
X. Violent Opposition to Black
People

New York City Draft Riot, July 1863
– Draft
– Irish men angry
• Black men had replaced Irish stevedores, June 1863
• Rich white northerners could purchase an exemption
• Riot lasted four days
– Colored Orphan Asylum
– Churches
– Republican and abolitionists houses destroyed
Violent Opposition to Black
People (cont.)

Union troops and slaves
– Often treated slaves horribly
• Rapes and assaults were not uncommon
– Others found compassion for enslaved
people
• “I have no heart in this war if the slaves cannot
be made free,” a Union soldier wrote.
XI. Refugees

Thousands of black people escaped
bondage
– Some followed Union armies
– Others struck out on their own
• Faced re-enslavement or execution if caught
XII. Black People and
the Confederacy
Confederacy based on defense of
slavery
 Benefited from the labors of bonds
people

– Toiled in fields
– Worked in factories
– Permitted more white men to serve in
military
Black People and
the Confederacy (cont.)

Impressment of black people
– Military demands for manpower
• Slave owners contributed slave labor
– Built fortifications
• Government first asked then compelled
– Registration and enrollment of free black people military
labor

“Twenty nigger law”
– Exempted men who owned twenty slaves from
draft
Black People and
the Confederacy (cont.)

Confederates enslave free black people
– Davis counter proclamation
• “All free negroes . . . shall be placed on the
slave status and be deemed to be chattels. . .
forever.”
• Ordered Confederate armies to capture free
black people in the North and enslave them.
– Robert E. Lee, Pennsylvania 1863
Black Confederates
– Free black people volunteered
services
• Show loyalty and gain white acceptance
• Re-enslavement concerns
• Southern leaders generally ignored
offers unless for menial labor
Black Confederates (cont.)

Small number of black men fight for
CSA
– Some black civilians profit if South wins
• John Wilson Buckner
• William Ellison
Black Enlistments

General Patrick Cleburne recommends,
early 1864
– President Davis cease and desist order
– Most southerners considered arming slaves
appalling
– Defied southern assumptions
• “If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of
slavery is wrong.”--Howell Cobb

March 1865 Confederate Congress voted to enlist
300,000
• Receive same pay as white soldiers
• Slaves freed only with consent of owners and state
agreed
XIII. Conclusion

185,000 black soldiers and sailors served in
the Union military
– Most had been former slaves
– Almost 40,000 died in combat or of disease
during the war

Abraham Lincoln and the shift in public
attitudes
–
–
–
–
White man’s war
Colonization
Enlistment
Appreciation