African Americans and the Civil War

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African Americans and the Civil War
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Discussion

• Could slavery have been abolished without the
  civil war?
• What southern states seceded?
• What slave states remained in the Union?

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Black leaders response at civil war onset

• Wanted slavery to be the casus belli
• Wanted the President to proclaim slaves freedom
• Sought conscription in Union forces

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Slaves responses at civil war onset

• Desertion
• Seeking conscription in Union army
• Insolence or insubordination
• Loyal v. disloyal slaves

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Slaves that continued to serve their masters

• working and managing farms cultivating cotton
  corn, wheat, etc
• working in factories (e.g. iron works, coal
  mining and salt factories)
• serving in the military (usually as cooks and
  body servants later in 1865 the Confederate
  Senate approved their enlistment as combatants)

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Slaves that fled to Union side

• There was no coherent, uniform policy before 1863
  
• The War Department and Treasury Department
  conflicted over jurisdiction
• In general, Union commanders were left to use
  their discretion on the matter

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Problems such freedmen faced

• high mortality among them owing to lack of food,
  proper clothing and employment
• they were not allowed to do fight
• workers in the North did not welcome them because
  they feared that the freedmen would take their
  jobs
• up till 1862, Lincoln's had not come up with
  clear policy

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Abolitionists intervention

• Provision of food, clothing, shelter
• Education for the childrenby 1863 there were
  9,571 students in day schools, 2,000 in evening
  schools, taught by northern white and black
  teachers

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President Lincolns initial emancipation plan

• pay compensation to slave owners upon freedom of
  slaves (anywhere between 300 and 400 dollars per
  slave)
• colonize freedmen and women somewhere outside the
  US (such as Liberia, Haiti or some other part of
  the Caribbean or Latin America)

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The Emancipation Proclamation

• All persons held as slaves within any State,
  or designated part of the State, the people
  whereof shall be in rebellion against the United
  States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever
  free.
• Comments on the Proclamation

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Blacks fighting for the Union

• Douglass and others recruited black soldiers for
  the Union
• Over 186,000 enlisted, 93,000 from the
  secessionist states, 40,000 from border states,
  and 53,000 from the North
• Black troops were called "United States Colored
  Troops"
• They were officered by whites, and black NCO's
• There was discriminatory pay