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Introduction

African Americans And The Civil War When the Civil War began in April 1861, President Abraham Lincoln’s paramount goal was the preservation of

the union not the abolition of slavery. Though Lincoln detested slavery, viewed it as a moral sin, and believed it

should not expand into new territories in the West, he, like many of his predecessors, hoped slavery would die a

slow, natural death in the future. He regarded immediate abolition as too radical and unconstitutional. During

the early years of the war, Lincoln also believed that any slaves freed as a consequence of the war, or by the

volition of their masters, should be resettled outside of the United States. Not only did Lincoln not endorse

abolition during the first year of the war, he did not believe freed black people could or should become citizens

of the United States.

During the war, African-Americans—slave and free, in the North and South—forced President Lincoln to

reconsider the meaning of the war. Black abolitionists like Frederick Douglass challenged Lincoln to fight not

just the Confederate Army but the lifeblood of the Confederate states – their slave system. At the same time,

slaves ran away from their masters into Union Army camps forcing the United States to develop policies that

led to their emancipation during the war. Close to 200,000 black men, both former slaves and people born free,

fought in all-black Union Army regiments during the war and distinguished themselves on and off the

battlefield. Their bravery and commitment also eventually forced Lincoln to recognize the necessity of ensuring

their freedom when the war ended as well as the freedom of all slaves.

Before his assassination in April 1865, Lincoln had dispensed with his proposal to colonize black people abroad

and began to make provisional plans for Reconstruction that included extending voting rights to some black

men, including Union Army veterans. African-Americans played a crucial role in shifting the meaning of the

Civil War. Rather than a war simply about union, their actions made it into a war about emancipation, freedom,

and citizenship. (1)

Learning Outcomes

This module addresses the following Course Learning Outcomes listed in the Syllabus for this course:

• To provide students with a general understanding of the history of African Americans within the context

of American History.

• To motivate students to become interested and active in African American history by comparing current

events with historical information.(1)

Additional learning outcomes associated with this module are:

• The student will be able to discuss the origins, evolution, and spread of racial slavery.

• The student will be able to describe the creation of a distinct African-American culture and how that

culture became part of the broader American culture.

• The student will be able to describe how African-American, during times of war, have forced America to

live up to its promise of freedom and equality (1)

Module Objectives

Upon completion of this module, the student will be able to:

Use primary historical documents to explain why and how African Americans fought to make the Civil War

about freedom and emancipation. (1)

Readings and Resources

Learning Unit: African Americans and the Civil War (see below) (1)

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The Election of 1860 and Secession

African Americans And The Civil War

The 1860 presidential election was chaotic. In April, the Democratic Party convened in Charleston, South

Carolina, the bastion of secessionist thought in the South. The goal was to nominate a candidate for the party

ticket, but the party was deeply divided. Northern Democrats pulled for Senator Stephen Douglas, a pro–slavery

moderate championing popular sovereignty, while Southern Democrats were intent on endorsing someone other

than Douglas. The parties leaders’ refusal to include a pro–slavery platform resulted in Southern delegates

walking out of the convention, preventing Douglas from gaining the two-thirds majority required for a

nomination. The Democrats ended up with two presidential candidates. A subsequent convention in Baltimore

nominated Douglas, while southerners nominated the current Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky

as their presidential candidate. The nation’s oldest party had split over differences in policy toward slavery.

Initially, the Republicans were hardly unified around a single candidate themselves. Several leading Republican

men vied for their party’s nomination. A consensus emerged at the May 1860 convention that the party’s

nominee would need to carry all the free states—for only in that situation could a Republican nominee

potentially win. New York Senator William Seward, a leading contender, was passed over. Seward’s pro–

immigrant position posed a potential obstacle, particularly in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Abraham Lincoln

of Illinois, as a relatively unknown but likable politician, rose from a pool of potential candidates and was

selected by the delegates on the third ballot. The electoral landscape was further complicated through the

emergence of a fourth candidate, Tennessee’s John Bell, heading the Constitutional Union Party. The

Constitutional Unionists, comprised of former Whigs who teamed up with some southern Democrats, made it

their mission to avoid the specter of secession while doing little else to address the issues tearing the country

apart.

A photograph taken

in May/June

1864Figure 9-

1: African

Americans

collecting bones by

John Reekie is in

the Public Domain .

Abraham Lincoln’s

nomination proved a

great windfall for the

Republican Party.

Lincoln carried all

free states with the

exception of New

Jersey (which he split

with Douglas). 81.2%

of the voting

electorate came out to vote—at that point the highest ever for a presidential election. Lincoln received fewer

than 40% of the popular vote, but with the field so split, that percentage yielded 180 electoral votes. Lincoln

was trailed by Breckinridge with his 72 electoral votes, carrying 11 of the 15 slave states, Bell came in third

with 39 electoral votes, and Douglas came in last, only able to garner twelve electoral votes despite carrying

almost 30% of the popular vote. Since the Republican platform prohibited the expansion of slavery in future

western states, all future Confederate states, with the exception of Virginia, excluded Lincoln’s name from their

ballots.

The election of Lincoln and the perceived threat to the institution of slavery proved too much for the deep

Southern states. South Carolina acted almost immediately, calling a convention to declare secession. On

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December 20, 1860, the South Carolina convention voted unanimously 169–0 to dissolve their Union with the

United States. The other states across the Deep South quickly followed suit. Mississippi adopted their own

resolution on January 9, 1861, Florida followed on January 10, Alabama January 11, Georgia on January 19,

Louisiana on January 26, and Texas on February 1. Texas was the only state to put the issue up for a popular

vote, but secession was widely popular throughout the South.

Confederates quickly shed their American identity and adopted a new Confederate nationalism. Confederate

nationalism was based on several ideals, foremost among these being slavery. As Confederate Vice President

Alexander Stephens stated, the Confederacy’s “foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth

that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery… is his natural and normal condition.”

The election of Lincoln in 1860 demonstrated that the South was politically overwhelmed. Slavery was

omnipresent in the pre-war South, and it served as the most common frame of reference for unequal power. To

a Southern man, there was no fate more terrifying than the thought of being reduced to the level of a slave.

Religion likewise shaped Confederate nationalism, as southerners believed that the Confederacy was fulfilling

God’s will. The Confederacy even veered from the American constitution by explicitly invoking Christianity in

their founding document. Yet in every case, all rationale for secession could be thoroughly tied to slavery. “Our

position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world”,

proclaimed the Mississippi statement of secession. Thus for the original seven Confederate states (and those

who would subsequently join), slavery’s existence was the essential core of the fledging Confederacy.

A five dollar and a one-hundred-

dollar Confederate States of

America interest bearing banknote,

c. 1861 and 1862. The emblems of

nationalism on this currency reveal

much about the ideology

underpinning the Confederacy:

George Washington standing stately

in a Roman toga indicates the belief

in the South’s honorable and

aristocratic past; John C. Calhoun’s

portrait emphasizes the Confederate

argument of the importance of

states’ rights; and, most importantly,

the image of African Americans

working in fields demonstrates

slavery’s position as foundational to

the Confederacy. (2)Figure 9–

2: Confederate 5 and 100

Dollar by Confederate States of

America is in the Public Domain .

Not all southerners participated in

Confederate nationalism. Unionist

southerners, most common in the

upcountry where slavery was weakest, retained their loyalty to the Union. These southerners joined the Union

army and worked to defeat the Confederacy. Black southerners, most of whom were slaves, overwhelmingly

supported the Union, often running away from plantations and forcing the Union army to reckon with slavery.

The seven seceding states met in Montgomery, Alabama on February 4th to organize a new nation. The

delegates selected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president and established a capital in Montgomery,

Alabama (it would move to Richmond in May). Whether other states of the Upper South would join the

Confederacy remained uncertain. By the early spring of 1861, North Carolina and Tennessee had not held

secession conventions, while voters in Virginia, Missouri, and Arkansas initially voted down secession. Despite

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this temporary boost to the Union, it became abundantly clear that these acts of loyalty in the Upper South were

highly conditional and relied on a clear lack of intervention on the part of the Federal government. This was the

precarious political situation facing Abraham Lincoln following his inauguration on March 4, 1861. (2)

A War for Union? (1861—1862)

In his inaugural address, Lincoln declared secession “legally void.” While he did not intend to invade Southern

states, he would use force to maintain possession of federal property within seceded states. Attention quickly

shifted to the federal installation of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. The fort was in need of supplies,

and Lincoln intended to resupply it. South Carolina called for U.S. soldiers to evacuate the fort. Commanding

officer Major Robert Anderson refused. On April 12, 1861, Confederate Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard

fired on the fort. Anderson surrendered on April 13th and the Union troops evacuated. In response to the attack,

President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to serve three months to suppress the rebellion. The

American Civil War had begun.

The assault on Fort Sumter and subsequent call for troops provoked several Upper South states to join the

Confederacy. In total, eleven states renounced their allegiance to the United States. The new Confederate nation

was predicated on the institution of slavery and the promotion of any and all interests that reinforced that

objective. Some southerners couched their defense of slavery as a preservation of states’ rights. But in order to

protect slavery, the Confederate constitution left even less power to the states than the United States

constitution, an irony not lost on many.

While Lincoln, his cabinet, and the War Department devised strategies to defeat the rebel insurrection, black

Americans quickly forced the issue of slavery as a primary issue in the debate. As early as 1861, black

Americans implored the Lincoln administration to serve in the army and navy. Lincoln initially waged a

conservative, limited war. He believed that the presence of African American troops would threaten the loyalty

of slaveholding border states, and white volunteers might refuse to serve alongside black men. However, army

commanders could not ignore the growing populations of formerly enslaved people who escaped to freedom

behind Union army lines. These former enslaved people took a proactive stance early in the war and forced the

federal government to act. As the number of refugees ballooned, Lincoln and Congress found it harder to avoid

the issue.

In May 1861, General Benjamin F. Butler went over his superiors’ heads and began accepting fugitive slaves

who came to Fortress Monroe in Virginia. In order to avoid the issue of the slaves’ freedom, Butler reasoned

that runaway slaves were “contraband of war,” and he had as much a right to seize them as he did to seize

enemy horses or cannons. Later that summer Congress affirmed Butler’s policy in the First Confiscation Act.

The act left “contrabands,” as these runaways were called, in a state of limbo. Once a slave escaped to Union

lines, her master’s claim was nullified. She was not, however, a free citizen of the United States. Runaways

lived in “contraband camps,” where disease and malnutrition were rampant. Women and men were required to

perform the drudgework of war: raising fortifications, cooking meals, and laying railroad tracks. Still, life as a

contraband offered a potential path to freedom, and thousands of slaves seized the opportunity.

Fugitive slaves posed a dilemma for the Union military. Soldiers were forbidden to interfere with slavery or

assist runaways, but many soldiers found such a policy unchristian. Even those indifferent to slavery were

reluctant to turn away potential laborers or help the enemy by returning his property. Also, fugitive slaves could

provide useful information on the local terrain and the movements of Confederate troops. Union officers

became particularly reluctant to turn away fugitive slaves when Confederate commanders began forcing slaves

to work on fortifications. Every slave who escaped to Union lines was a loss to the Confederate war effort. (2)

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Runaway slaves fording the Rappahannock

River in Virginia and into Union Army lines.

Taken in August 1862.Figure 9–3: Fugitive

African Americans fording the

Rappahannock by Timothy O’Sullivan is in

the Public Domain .

Despite the growing number of runaway

slaves in Union Army camps, the

Confederate Army won decisive battles

against the Union during the summer of

1861, most notably at the Battle of Bull Run

in July. The loss at Bull Run ruined

Northern morale and destroyed any lingering

hope that the war would be brief, relatively

bloodless, and an inevitable Union victory.

In response, Northern abolitionists, black

and white, demanded that Republican

congressmen, and the Lincoln

The title of this political

cartoon is “The (Fort)

Monroe Doctrine. “Fort” is

placed in parentheses, an

allusion to President James

Monroe’s famous Monroe

Doctrine, which prohibited

European interference and

colonialism in the Americas

starting in 1823. (1)Figure 9–

4: Fort Monroe doctrine

cartoon by Unknown is in

the Public Domain .

Administration, make

emancipation a primary war

aim. “The result of [Bull

Run] was a fearful blow,”

wrote one abolitionist, but “I

think it may prove the means of rousing this stupid country to the extent & difficulty of the work it has to do.”

Frederick Douglass argued that a Confederate war for the defense of slavery must be met with a Union war for

its destruction. (1)

To fight against slaveholders, without fighting against slavery, is but a half-hearted business, and paralyzes

the hands engaged in it … Fire must be met with water…. War for the destruction of liberty must be met

with the war for the destruction of slavery. (McPherson, “Battle Cry” 354) (1)

This decisive moment that prompted the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation would occur in the fall of

1862 along Antietam creek in Maryland. Emboldened by their success in the previous spring and summer, Lee

and Confederate President Jefferson Davis planned to win a decisive victory in Union territory and end the war.

On September 17, 1862, McClellan and Lee’s forces collided at the Battle of Antietam near the town of

Sharpsburg. This battle was the first major battle of the Civil War to occur on Union soil. It remains the

bloodiest single day in American history with over 20,000 soldiers killed, wounded, or missing in just twelve

hours.

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Soldiers killed on the battlefield at Antietam on

September 17, 1862.Figure 9–5: Confederate

dead by a fence on Hagerstown Road by

Alexander Gardner is in the Public Domain .

Despite the Confederate withdrawal and the high

death toll, the Battle of Antietam was not a

decisive Union victory. It did, however, result in

enough of a victory for Lincoln to issue the

Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves

in areas under Confederate control. There were

significant exemptions to the Emancipation

Proclamation including the border states, and

parts of other states in the Confederacy. A far cry

from a universal end to slavery, the Emancipation

Proclamation nevertheless proved vital shifting

the war aims from simple union to Emancipation.

Framing it as a war measure, Lincoln and his

Cabinet hoped that stripping the Confederacy of their labor force would not only debilitate the Southern

economy, but also weaken Confederate morale. Furthermore, the Battle of Antietam and the issuance of the

Emancipation Proclamation all but ensured that the Confederacy would not be recognized by European powers.

Nevertheless, Confederates continued fighting. Union and Confederate forces clashed again at Fredericksburg,

Virginia in December 1862. This Confederate victory resulted in staggering Union casualties.(2)

A steel engraving from 1864.Figure 9–

6: Reading the Emancipation Proclamation by

H.W. Herrick & J.W. Watts is in the Public

Domain .

War for Freedom (1863—1865) As United States armies penetrated deeper into

the Confederacy, politicians and the Union high

command came to understand the necessity, and

benefit, of enlisting black men in the army and

navy. Although a few commanders began

forming black units in 1862, such as

Massachusetts abolitionist Thomas Wentworth

Higginson’s First South Carolina Volunteers (the

Civil War’s first black regiment), widespread

enlistment did not occur until the Emancipation

Proclamation went into effect on January 1,

1863. “And I further declare and make known,”

Lincoln’s Proclamation read, “that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of

the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said

service.”

The language describing black enlistment indicated Lincoln’s implicit desire to segregate African American

troops from the main campaigning armies of white soldiers. “I believe it is a resource which, if vigorously

applied now, will soon close the contest. It works doubly, weakening the enemy and strengthening us,” Lincoln

remarked in August 1863 about black soldiering. Although more than 180,000 black men (ten percent of the

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Union army) served during the war, the majority of United States Colored Troops (USCT) remained stationed

behind the lines as garrison forces, often laboring and performing non–combat roles. (2)

When black soldiers did fight on the battlefield they distinguished themselves. Colonel Higginson, the white

commander of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, wrote a report about their valor and bravery following a

skirmish along the South Carolina coast in January 1863 that was eventually published in Northern newspapers.

“Nobody knows anything about these men who has not seen them in battle,” Higginson wrote. “No officer in

this regiment now doubts that the key to the successful prosecution of the war lies in the unlimited employment

of black troops”

Soon thereafter, Governor John Andrew of Massachusetts received permission from the War Department to

create an all-black regiment. Men enlisted in droves, which required creating two regiments, the 54th and 55th

Massachusetts. (McPherson, “Battle Cry” 564–65) The 54th became one of the most recognized regiment’s in

the entire war. A 1989 film, Glory, starring Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman, told a fictionalized

version of the 54th’s history and helped renew the regiment’s renown in the twentieth century.

Figure 9–7: Company E, 4th U.S. Colored

Infantry, at Fort Lincoln by William Morris

Smith has no known copyright restrictions.

The courage and commitment of black soldiers did

not, however, generate immediate enthusiasm or

acceptance from white Northerners, including

civilians and enlisted men. (McPherson, “Battle

Cry” 565)

Black soldiers in the Union army endured rampant

discrimination and earned less pay than white

soldiers, while also facing the possibility of being

murdered or sold into slavery if captured. James

Henry Gooding, a black corporal in the famed

54th Massachusetts Volunteers, wrote to Abraham

Lincoln in September 1863, questioning why he

and his fellow volunteers were paid less than

white men. Gooding argued that, because he and his brethren were born in the United States and selflessly left

their private lives and to enter the army, they should be treated “as American SOLDIERS, not as menial

hirelings.” (2) In addition to protesting in letters to Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, and black run

newspapers in the North such as Philadelphia’s Christian Recorder, the soldiers of the 54th highlighted the

injustice of unequal pay by refusing their paychecks while still fighting for their freedom and citizenship on the

battlefield. (1)

African American soldiers defied the inequality of military service and used their positions in the army to

reshape society, North and South. The majority of USCT (United States Colored Troops) had once been

enslaved, and their presence as armed, blue-clad soldiers sent shockwaves throughout the Confederacy. To their

friends and families, African American soldiers symbolized the embodiment of liberation and the destruction of

slavery. To white southerners, they represented the utter disruption of the Old South’s racial and social

hierarchy. As members of armies of occupation, black soldiers wielded martial authority in towns and

plantations. At the end of the war, as a black soldier marched by a cluster of Confederate prisoners, he noticed

his former master among the group. “Hello, massa,” the soldier exclaimed, “bottom rail on top dis time!”

The majority of USCT occupied the South by performing garrison duty, other black soldiers performed

admirably on the battlefield, shattering white myths that docile, cowardly black men would fold in the

maelstrom of war. Black troops fought in more than 400 battles and skirmishes, including Milliken’s Bend and

Port Hudson, Louisiana; Fort Wagner, South Carolina; Nashville; and the final campaigns to capture Richmond,

Virginia. Fifteen black soldiers received the Medal of Honor, the highest honor bestowed for military heroism.

Through their voluntarism, service, battlefield contributions, and even death, black soldiers laid their claims for

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citizenship. “Once let a black man get upon his person the brass letters U.S.” Frederick Douglass, the great

black abolitionist, proclaimed, “and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to

citizenship.”

Many slaves accompanied their masters in the Confederate army. They served their masters as “camp servants,”

cooking their meals, raising their tents, and carrying their supplies. The Confederacy also impressed slaves to

perform manual labor. There are three important points to make about these “Confederate” slaves. First, their

labor was almost always coerced. Second, people are complicated and have varying, often contradictory

loyalties. A slave could hope in general that the Confederacy would lose but at the same time be concerned for

the safety of his master and the Confederate soldiers he saw on a daily basis.

Finally, white Confederates did not see African Americans as their equals, much less as soldiers. There was

never any doubt that black laborers and camp servants were property. Though historians disagree on the matter,

it is a stretch to claim that not a single African American ever fired a gun for the Confederacy; a camp servant

whose master died in battle might well pick up his dead master’s gun and continue firing, if for no other reason

than to protect himself. But this was always on an informal basis. The Confederate government did, in an act of

desperation, pass a law in March 1865 allowing for the enlistment of black soldiers, but only a few dozen

African Americans (mostly Richmond hospital workers) had enlisted by the war’s end. (2)

In 1861, A.M. Chandler

enlisted in the “Palo

Alto Confederates,”

which became part of the

44th Mississippi Infantry

Regiment. His mother,

Louisa Gardner

Chandler, sent Silas, one

of her 36 slaves, with

him. On September 20,

1863, the 44th

Mississippi Infantry

Regiment was engaged

in the Battle of

Chickamauga, where

A.M. Chandler was

wounded in his leg. A

battlefield surgeon

decided to amputate the

leg but, according to the

Chandler family, Silas

accompanied him home

to Mississippi where his

leg was saved. His

combat service ended as

a result of the wound, but Silas returned to the war in January 1864 when A.M.’s younger brother, Benjamin,

enlisted in the 9th Mississippi Cavalry Regiment (19)Figure 9–8: Sergeant A.M. Chandler and Silas Chandler

(family slave) by Library of Congress is in the Public Domain .

The Draft Riots

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An 1863 drawing that appeared in

Harper’s Weekly magazine titled,

“Hanging a Negro, Clarkson

Street.”Figure 9–9: New York

Draft Riots by Harper’s Weekly is

in the Public Domain .

By the end of the first week of July

1863, the North won significant,

decisive battles against the South

that seemed to turn the tide of the

war. On July 3, after three days of

brutal fighting, the Union Army

finally defeated the Confederates led

by General Robert E. Lee. The

Union victory thwarted the

Confederate invasion into the North

and forced Lee and his troops to

retreat back to Virginia. At the same

time Union General Ulysses S. Grant

finally wrested Vicksburg,

Mississippi from Confederate forces

and took control of the Mississippi

River, effectively cutting the

Confederacy in two.

Despite these advantages, Northern

discontent over the war continued to grow, especially among portions of the white populace who did not favor

fighting a bloody war for emancipation. This was particularly true in the wake of the Enrollment Act—the first

effort at a draft among the northern populace during the Civil War. The working class citizens of New York felt

especially angered as wealthy New Yorkers paid $300 for substitutes, sparing themselves from the hardships of

war. “A rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight,” became a popular refrain. The Emancipation Proclamation

convinced many immigrants in northern cities that freed people would soon take their jobs. This frustration

culminated in the New York City Draft Riots in July 1863. Over the span of four days, the white populace killed

some 120 citizens including the lynching of at least eleven black New Yorkers. Property damage was in the

millions, including the complete destruction of more than fifty properties—most notably that of the Colored

Orphan Asylum. In an ultimate irony, the largest civil disturbance to date in the United States (aside from the

war itself) was only stopped by the deployment of Union soldiers, some of whom came directly from

Gettysburg. (2)

Black Soldiers and Union War Victories (1864—1865) Following the victory at Vicksburg, President Abraham Lincoln wrote to General Ulysses S. Grant, encouraging

him to expand recruit of freed slaves into the Union Army. Lincoln now recognized that black soldiers were

critical to eventual Union victory. He told Grant that they were “a resource which, if vigorously applied now,

will soon close the contest. It works doubly, weakening the enemy and strengthening us.” Grant agreed. He

conveyed his “hearty support” for “arming the negro” to Lincoln.

This, with emancipation of the negro, is the heavyest [sic] blow yet given the Confederacy…. By arming the

negro we have added a powerful ally.(McPherson, “Tried by War” 202)

In May of 1864 African American soldiers accompanied Union General William Tecumseh Sherman as he

fought to take Atlanta, Georgia from Confederate forces and then began his march through the heart of Georgia

and to the Atlantic coast where he captured Savannah and eventually Charleston, South Carolina in the winter

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of 1864 and 1865. Sherman and his troops burned and destroyed nearly everything in their path and freed

thousands of slaves in the process. Further to the west, a black soldier from a Rhode Island regiment wrote

about the fury he saw in the eyes of the white population of another occupied Southern city, New Orleans,

Louisiana, when they saw black troops. At the same time, he expressed the pride he felt as he walked the streets

of the occupied city:

In the city of New Orleans, we could see signs of smothered hate and prejudice to both our color and present

character as Union soldiers. But, for once in his life, your humble correspondent walked fearlessly and boldly

through the streets of a southern city! And he did this without being required to take off his cap at every step,

or to give all the side–walks to those lordly princes of the sunny south, the planters’ sons! (McPherson,

“Negro’s Civil War”: 213–14; Carson et al. 226)

Lincoln arriving in the

abandoned Confederate capital

of Richmond, Virginia.Figure 9–

10: President Lincoln Riding

through Richmond, April 4,

Amid the Enthusiastic Cheers

of the Inhabitants by Library of

Congress is in the Public

Domain .

In early April 1865, the

Confederacy was in its death

throes. The President of the

Confederate States of America,

Jefferson Davis, evacuated

Richmond, Virginia, the

Confederate capital on Sunday,

April 2 as Union forces

approached. Two days later,

President Abraham Lincoln

walked through the streets of the

vanquished city. Black slaves

celebrated the arrival of the

President and the Union army.

Black Union soldiers, many of

them former slaves, joined the slaves near a former slave auction site and jail. While the crowd listened to a

black army chaplain preach a message of universal freedom, they suddenly heard the shouts of imprisoned

slaves who were left behind when the Confederates evacuated. The black soldiers released the men and women

who praised God or “master Abe” as they walked the streets of Richmond as free people.(Davis, 298)(1)

Soon after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox

Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865, black soldiers returned home in jubilation. In West Chester,

Pennsylvania black soldiers rang the courthouse bell. In the New York, they led a parade. A black journalist

from Philadelphia reported that, “The colored population was wild with enthusiasm. Old men thanked God in a

very boisterous manner, and old women shouted upon the pavement as high as they ever had done at a religious

revival.” (Carson et al. 227–28)

Even before the war came to an official end African Americans envisioned a world without slavery, one in

which they owned their own labor and land and determined their future. In January 1865, soon after the capture

of Savannah, Georgia, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton traveled to the city to talk with General Sherman and

local black leaders about how the Union Army could best support newly freed black families. “The way we can

best take care of ourselves,” they responded to Stanton, “is to have land, and turn in and till it by our labor….

We want to be placed on land until we are able to buy it, and make it our own.” Sherman and Stanton agreed.

Sherman responded by issuing his now infamous “Special Field Orders, No. 15,” which set aside the Sea

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Islands along the Atlantic coast from Charleston south to Jacksonville, once the heart of the South’s rice cotton

growing region, for settlement by newly freed slaves. (1)

Under the order, each family could be given title to forty acres of land. Eventually, the Union Army settled

some 40,000 free black people on lands once owned by white planters and slaveholders. The hope and promise

offered by Sherman’s order was short lived, however. Following Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865, less

than a week after the war’s conclusion, his Vice President Andrew Johnson, a conservative Democrat from

Tennessee, became president. Johnson eventually revoked Sherman’s order and restored the land rights of

former Confederates by arguing that the lands had never been truly abandoned and legally seized. Therefore,

Sherman’s order, which was merely a war measure, could be overturned during peacetime. The dream of an

independent black yeomanry living on lands where they once worked as slaves quickly faded. (McPherson,

“Battle Cry” 841–42; Freehling 166; Weigley, 410; Carson et al, 227)

Freedom continued to bring African-Americans mixtures of joy and sorrow as they struggled to survive in a

region devastated and impoverished in the aftermath of the war. They also faced hostility and resistance from

whites who could not imagine or tolerate black freedom or even the suggestion of equality. “Nobody had his

bearings,” according to one former slave from Florida. Frank Bell, a black man from New Orleans, recalled

how whites tried to reinstitute control and even ignore the legal abolition of slavery. His former master would

not free him and told him, “Nigger, you’s supposed to be free but I’ll pay you a dollar a week and iffen you runs

off I’ll kill you.” (Carson et al. 228)

To ensure the permanent legal end of slavery, Republicans drafted the Thirteenth Amendment during the war at

President Lincoln’s behest. (2)Lincoln’s fervent desire to amend the Constitution in order to forever end slavery

in the United States, something the Emancipation Proclamation could not do since it was only a war measure,

was in many ways a result of the dedication and courage black soldiers displayed on the battlefield in 1863 and

1864. Lincoln received frequent pressure from conservative Northern Democrats to negotiate a peace to end the

brutal war without guaranteeing the abolition of slavery. The president refused by pointing out the sacrifices

made by black Union troops. “If they stake their lives for us they must be prompted by the strongest motive—

even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept.” If he turned his back on these “black

warriors,” he said, he “should be damned in time & in eternity for so doing. The world shall know that I will

keep my faith to friends & enemies, come what will.” (Lincoln quoted in McPherson, “Battle Cry” 769) (1)

Yet the end of legal slavery did not mean the end of racial injustice. After the war, the Republican

Reconstruction program of guaranteeing black rights succumbed to persistent racism and southern white

violence. Long after 1865, most black southerners continued to labor on plantations, albeit as nominally free

tenants or sharecroppers, while facing public segregation and voting discrimination. The effects of slavery

endured long after emancipation. (2)

12

This 1865 colored illustration

celebrates the emancipation of

slaves with the end of the Civil

War. “Nast envisions a

somewhat optimistic picture of

the future of free blacks in the

United States.”Figure 9–

11: Emancipation by Th. Nast,

King & Baird is in the Public

Domain .

Conclusion As battlefields fell silent in 1865,

the question of secession had

been answered, slavery had been

eradicated, and America was

once again territorially

united. (2) African-Americans,

North and Slave, slave and free,

soldiers and civilians, had

effectively forced President

Abraham Lincoln, and the

United States, to recognize emancipation and freedom as central to the military effort and meaning of the Civil

War. As Lincoln said in his immortal Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863 at the dedication of a Union

cemetery there, “We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under

God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall

not perish from the earth.” (Lincoln, 1863) But the war’s end brought questions about how to secure that

freedom and construct a new bi–racial democracy. (1) Northern and southern soldiers returned home with broken

bodies, broken spirits, and broken minds. Plantation owners had land but not labor. Recently freed African

Americans had their labor but no land. Former slaves faced a world of possibilities–legal marriage, family

reunions, employment, and fresh starts—but also a racist world of bitterness, violence, and limited opportunity.

The war may have been over, but the battles for the peace were just beginning. (2)