From Slavery to Freedom
th
9 ed.
Chapter 10
Civil War
Inconsistent Federal Policies
 Opposition to Lincoln’s Policies
 Most people in North supported a war to restore
Union but not a crusade to end slavery
 Fear of slave exodus to northern cities and
growing competition for jobs heightened
hostilities between white and black workers
 Military draft in 1863 started a four-day riot in
New York City; sight of blacks in army uniforms
inflamed rioters
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Inconsistent Federal Policies
 Militant abolitionists critical of Lincoln and
Republican Party for failing to take an
uncompromising stand on slavery
 Upset by inconsistent policy towards slaves who
escaped to Union lines in the war’s first year
 The Confiscation Acts
 Sanctioned Union army’s seizure of rebel
property, including slaves
 Lincoln concerned; discouraged declarations of
freedom for fear of losing loyalty of slave-owning
border states
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Group of contrabands at Foller’s
house, Cumberland, Virginia, 1862
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Inconsistent Federal Policies
 Lincoln’s Plan
 In 1862, Lincoln recommended that U.S.
government cooperate with any state plan that
gradually freed slaves and compensated slave
owners
 Recommendation failed; denounced by both sides
 Lincoln believed colonization was almost as
important as emancipation
 Until end of the war Lincoln hoped at least a portion of
the freed population would be colonized
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Inconsistent Federal Policies
 Preliminary Proclamation
 Summer of 1862 Lincoln began to consider an
executive order of emancipation of all slaves
 Preliminary proclamation issued five days after
the Union victory at Antietam
 Revived possibility of compensated emancipation;
continued encouragement of voluntary colonization
 Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation
ordering all those held in slavery in rebel states
to be freed from bondage on January 1, 1863
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Inconsistent Federal Policies
 General reaction in the North was unfavorable
 The Emancipation Proclamation
 Freedom did not come swiftly or fully
 Only slaves in rebel, not loyal, states freed
 Rebel slave owners did not feel duty-bound to
Lincoln’s decree
 Many slaves did not know about it for months; some
weren’t freed until war’s end
 Proclamation produced confusion in the South
and deprived Confederacy of its labor force
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Emancipation
Proclamation
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Inconsistent Federal Policies
 The Thirteenth Amendment
 The “Great Emancipator”
 Lincoln actively worked with Congress to establish
legislation that abolished slavery
 On February 1, 1865, Lincoln signed a Joint
Resolution submitting the proposed Thirteenth
Amendment to the states for ratification
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Aiding the Contrabands
 Aiding the Contrabands
 Transition from slavery to freedom presented
challenges to both the Union army and the free
but destitute blacks coming over federal lines
 General Saxton’s Plan
 Abandoned lands to be used for benefit of former
slaves
 Led slaves to believe that land would be
available to them as homesteaders
 Federal government eventually reclaimed land
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Aiding the Contrabands
 Challenges to Effective Relief
 Relief difficult because only a small amount of
land that was available for redistribution
 Dispute between Treasury and War departments
over who had primary authority to administer
affairs of black people; no coordinated
supervision
 Private Relief
 Federal relief was so slow that private citizens
sought to provide relief for newly freed blacks
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Aiding the Contrabands
 Education
 Private ventures to provide black education
began in 1861
 Employed many African American teachers
 Education for blacks extended to most areas
occupied by Union troops
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Black Troops
 Challenges to Black Recruitment
 Northern blacks initially rebuffed when trying
to enlist
 Fear blacks would claim citizenship; fear of arming
blacks
 Abolitionists criticized government’s early
opposition to black soldiers
 Lincoln did not seriously consider issue until
the unfavorable course of the war forced him
to revisit it
 Did not want to anger border states or alienate North
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Company E, Fourth United States
Colored Infantry
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Black Troops
 A Change in Policy
 In October 1861, the secretary of war ordered
army to employ fugitive slaves; used for service
roles because leaders refused to arm them
 Lincoln forced General David Hunter to disband
First South Carolina Volunteer Regiment that
was made up of former slaves
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Black Troops
 The First Black Soldiers
 Union’s difficulties and Confederacy’s use of
black labor changed Lincoln’s views on black
enlistment
 In August 1862, Lincoln authorized War
Department to reorganize Hunter’s South
Carolina regiment
 Black enlistment began to swell
 Northern black community leaders and
newspapers championed importance of black
soldiers
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Black Troops
 The Success of Black Enlistment
 Enlistment of blacks a success; helped to fill
northern states’ draft quotas
 Black Officers
 Some blacks held Union army commissions
 Two regiments of the Corps d’Afrique entirely staffed
by black officers
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Black Troops
 Blacks as Spies and Scouts
 Blacks helped Union cause with knowledge of
southern terrain; Union relied on information
blacks could get as spies and scouts
 Women’s Services
 Many women worked in contraband camps,
hospitals, and on naval vessels
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Black Soldiers’ Service
 Treatment of Black Prisoners
 In 1862, President Davis ordered all slaves
captured in arms to be delivered to home state
and dealt with according to its laws
 Lincoln declared that for every Union soldier
killed in violation of law of war a rebel soldier
would be executed, and for every Union soldier
enslaved, a rebel prisoner would be put to hard
labor
 Union officials insisted that captured blacks be treated
as prisoners of war
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Black Soldiers’ Service
 Captured blacks risked enslavement, more often
killed
 Blacks saw action in every theater of the war
 More than 38,000 black soldiers lost lives;
mortality 40 percent greater than white troops
 Mortality rate explained by excessive fatigue, poor
equipment, bad medical care
 Unequal Treatment
 Disparity in pay between black and white soldiers
 Equal pay given in 1864 after much protest
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Fort Pillow Massacre
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Slave Disruption
 Stronger Patrol Laws
 Southerners called for closer control of slaves
and strengthening of patrol laws
 Many slaves slowly began to understand the
implication of the war on their freedom
 “Running the Negroes”
 Plantation owners allowed to remove slaves to
safety when an area was threatened with invasion
by federal troops
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Slave Disruption
 Insubordination
 Slaves became increasingly insolent toward
masters
 Slave men gained new roles because of dearth of
white men; gained greater freedom of movement,
allowing them to learn about war’s progress
 Fear of Uprisings
 White southerners lived in fear of slave uprisings
 Slaves both indispensable and subversive to
Confederate war effort
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The Confederate Dilemma
 Impressment
 In 1863, Confederacy passed a general
impressment law under which slaves could be
seized at a price set by the government
 Owners didn’t like policy and neither did slaves
because working for military more arduous work
 Enlisting and Arming Blacks
 Southern public generally opposed arming blacks
 Conscription Act of 1862
 Required military service of all Southern white men
except those who could send twenty slaves
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The Confederate Dilemma
 Debate over using slaves as soldiers continued in
Confederacy in 1863-64
 In 1865, President Davis signed bill authorizing
him to call on each state for a quota of additional
troops, irrespective of color
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Victory
 Victory
 The Confederate army’s surrender in 1865
brought to an end three centuries of black
enslavement in North America
 Forever Free, Edmonia Lewis
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