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African-American Studies
Unit 4
African-Americans & the Civil War
1861-1865
Mr. Campbell
Start of the Civil War

Spurred by Lincoln's election to the presidency in
1860 and South Carolina's continued articulation
of its 1832 doctrine of nullification, eight states
seceded from the Union between December 1860
and April 1861 and established a provisional
government.

In March 1861 in his First Inaugural Address,
Lincoln indicated that although he had no
intention of interfering with slavery where it
existed, He would not permit secession

Lincoln’s initial intent was to preserve the Union
and not end slavery

The Southern states formed their own
government which they called it “Confederate
States of America” or the Confederacy.

They elected Jefferson Davis as their President.

On April 12, 1861, Davis ordered the Confederate
troops to fire on Ft. Sumter thus starting the Civil
War
Lincoln’s thoughts on blacks

Lincoln, in fact, regarded blacks as the
intellectual inferiors of whites; believing the two
races could not coexist peacefully

He supported black emigration as the solution to
the nation's racial problem

In 1862, for example, he implemented a pilot
colonization project that used federal funds to
settle about five hundred blacks on an island off
the southern coast of Haiti.
Lincoln’s changed perception

By September 1862, Lincoln's initial position
regarding the war and slavery had changed

He issued a preliminary Emancipation
Proclamation: effective January 1, 1863, it
made the abolition of slavery a war aim--a
military objective

The efforts of the abolitionists, who constantly
reminded Lincoln of the military advantages of
freeing the slaves, helped produce this document
Impact of the Emancipation
Proclamation

An estimated five hundred thousand slaves (12.5
percent of the total slave population) ran away
from their owners during the war

The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to
the Confederate-held states and territories and
actually freed no slaves but it did encourage
more of them to escape

This loss of slaves eventually helped impair the
South's capacity to pursue the war.
African-Americans in the War

Northern blacks were initially rejected
when they volunteered to fight, since their
participation implied equality and blacks
were believed to be too servile and
cowardly to fight whites

"this is a white man's war," was the
Northern expression at the start of the
Civil War

By the summer of 1862, the official policy
of not using blacks had been changed

Due to the decline of whites in the North
volunteering because a series a defeats in
battle and lowered morale and willingness
to fight the government changed their
position to let blacks fight in the military

On July 17, 1862, Congress passed two acts
providing for the enlistment of black soldiers

The first was the Confiscation Act, which
empowered the President "to employ as many
persons of African descent as he may deem
necessary and proper for the suppression of the
rebellion."

The second authorized the employment of free
blacks as soldiers.

In November 1862, the First South Carolina Volunteers
became the first regiment organized officially after the
policy reversal--Thomas Wentworth Higginson was put in
charge of this regiment

The first northern black unit, the Fifty-Fourth
Massachusetts Regiment, was organized in January
1863, on July 18, 1863

The 54th led an assault on Fort Wagner, a Confederate
strong-hold that guarded the entrance to the harbor of
Charleston, South Carolina.

This battle proved the bravery and courage of African
American troops and facilitated their acceptance as
northern soldiers

The Emancipation Proclamation and the
War Department's establishment in May
1863 of a Bureau of Colored Troops,
designed to coordinate the raising of black
regiments, also fostered the use of blacks
as Union soldiers.

These two measures helped the North to
raise more troops and to ultimately win
the Civil War
Life of a Black Soldier

By the war's end about 186,000 blacks,
organized in 166 all-black regiments, had
served in the Union army (out of a total of
1.8 million)

26,000 blacks had served in the navy (out
of a total of about 188,000)

For the most part, whites treated black soldiers
with contempt; blacks were subjected to many
indignities and injustices

For example, they received lower pay until June
1864 (ten dollars per month for a private versus
sixteen dollars and fifty cents for a white of equal
rank)

Their training was generally poor; their regiments
were led by white officers; they were assigned
disproportionately to heavy labor and fatigue
duty; and they were often exploited, being given
more dangerous assignments

Black soldiers experienced the highest
casualty rate not only because of such
deployment (37,000 of a total 360,000
Union deaths)

Confederates refused to accept blacks as
prisoners so they were executed and this
also caused for high death rates among
blacks
Other services Blacks offered

In addition to taking up arms against the South,
African Americans rendered invaluable service to
the Union forces behind the lines

They were scouts, spies, nurses, cooks,
teamsters, carpenters, and laborers.

For example, Harriet Tubman, the famed
Underground Railroad conductor, saw duty as
both a spy and a nurse for the Union army.
Blacks in the South

The South's use of its slaves enabled it to release a large
number of white males for direct service with the
Confederate forces

Slaves were mobilized to work mines, repair railroads, build
fortifications, work in factories, and continue agricultural
production

the South never officially used slaves as soldiers, in the
final months of the war it did indicate its willingness to free
any slaves who would fight for the Confederacy. On March
13, 1865, Jefferson Davis signed the Negro Soldier Law
which promised slaves freedom for service in the
Confederacy
Riots in the Nation

Violence occurred during the Civil War in the form of antiblack riots in several northern cities, including Cincinnati,
Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Boston,
Troy, Newark, and Jersey City

These riots occurring mainly between 1862 and 1863,
riots were sparked by:
job competition between white and black laborers
the white workingman's fear that emancipation would
cause hordes of African Americans to come north, enter
the labor market, and depress wages
by inflammatory statements expressing Copperhead
sentiments of the Democratic press and Democratic
politicians
1.
2.
3.

The bloodiest of these disturbances was
the notorious New York City draft riot
of July 1863

It lasted for four days, during which
eleven African Americans were killed and
three hundred made homeless.
13th Amendment

December 1863, the Thirteenth Amendment,
prohibiting slavery in the United States and any
place subject to its jurisdiction, was introduced in
Congress

January 31, 1865, it had passed both houses in
Congress, and by December it had been ratified
by three-fourths of the states

This amendment, which fulfilled the unfinished
work of the Emancipation Proclamation, freed all
slaves
Freedmen’s Bureau

In March 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau, the
first federal welfare agency, was established

Charged with furnishing aid to ex-slaves in the
form of food, clothing, medical services,
education, and the supervision of work contracts,
it lasted throughout most of the Reconstruction
era

It also assisted white refugees in their efforts to
recover from the war
Other Notable Programs

Among earlier wartime efforts to assist ex-slaves were those on
the Sea Islands (Gullah Islands) of South Carolina, which Union
forces captured in November 1861

One notable participant in these efforts was Charlotte Forten, a
black woman. A member of the famous Forten family of
Philadelphia, she had received her training as a teacher in
Massachusetts

Ms. Forten taught on Saint Helena Island between 1862 and 1864
as a part of the "social experiment" designed to prove that
freedmen were as capable of self-improvement as whites

Her diary covering these two years is an important source of
information about the life and culture of newly freed slaves
CIVIL WAR ENDS

On April 9, 1865 when General Robert E Lee
surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia
(Confederates) at the McLean House in the village
of Appomattox Court House the Civil War ended

With the surrender of General Lee the North won
the war

Most sources agree that the total number killed
was between 640,000 and 700,000, broken down
with over 360,000 Union soldiers and over
260,000 Confederate soldiers .
Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous
actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shot
President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford's
Theatre in Washington, D.C.

The attack came only five days after the Civil War
ended

With Lincoln’s death also was the hope of a
peaceful return of the Southern states to the
Union taken away
Reconstruction Era 1865-1877

The Radical Republicans would take control of
Reconstruction (period after the Civil War, the
nation rebuild) and punish the South for the Civil
War

The Radical Republicans would give blacks
citizenship (14th Amendment), voting rights (15th
Amendment), and pass laws to prevent their
discrimination

During Reconstruction, African-Americans fled
their plantations in search of family members,
better life, and also obtained education through
the many schools opened to them