FREE ESSAY ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The foundation for black participation in the Civil War began more than a hundred years
before the outbreak of the war. Blacks in America had been in bondage since early
colonial times. In 1776, when Jefferson proclaimed mankind's inalienable right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the institution of slavery had become firmly
established in America. Blacks worked in the tobacco fields of Virginia, in the rice
fields of South Carolina, and toiled in small farms and shops in the North. Foner and
Mahoney report in A House Divided, America in the Age of Lincoln that, "In 1776, slaves
composed forty percent of the population of the colonies from Maryland south to Georgia,
but well below ten percent in the colonies to the North." The invention of the cotton gin
by Eli Whitney in 1793 provided a demand for cotton thus increasing the demand for
slaves. By the 1800's slavery was an institution throughout the South, an institution in
which slaves had few rights, and could be sold or leased by their owners. They lacked any
voice in the government and lived a life of hardship. Considering these circumstances,
the slave population never abandoned the desire for freedom or the determination to
resist control by the slave owners. The slave's reaction to this desire and determination
resulted in outright rebellion and individual acts of defiance. However, historians place
the strongest reaction in the enlisting of blacks in the war itself.
Batty and Parish in The Divided Union: The Story of the Great American War, 1861-65,
concur with Foner and Mahoney about the importance of outright rebellion in their
analysis of the Nat Turner Rebellion, which took place in 1831. This revolt demonstrated
that not all slaves were willing to accept this "institution of slavery" passively. Foner
and Mahoney note that the significance of this uprising is found in its aftermath because
of the numerous reports of "insubordinate" behavior by slaves .
Individual acts of defiance ranged from the use of the Underground Railroad - a secret,
organized network of people who helped fugitive slaves reach the Northern states and
Canada - to the daily resistance or silent sabotage found on the plantations. Stokesbury
acknowledges the existence of the Underground Railroad but disagrees with other
historians as to its importance. He notes that it never became as well organized or as
successful as the South believed. 
Even with the groundwork having been laid for resistance, the prevalent racial climate in
America in 1860 found it unthinkable that blacks would bear arms against white Americans.
However, by 1865 these black soldiers had proven their value. Wilson writes in great
detail describing the struggles and achievements of the black soldiers in his book The
Black Phalanx. McPherson discusses that widespread opposition to the use of blacks as
soldiers prevailed among northern whites. Whereas McPherson relates the events cumulating
in the passage of two laws that aided black enlistment, Wilson focuses on the actual
enlistment. He notes that the first regiment of free blacks came into service at New
Orleans in September 1862 through the efforts of Butler. Wilson credits Butler's three
regiments of blacks as the first officially mustered into Union ranks. North Carolina and
Kansas also organized additional black units where minor skirmishes proved to be
successful. Wilson also notes that "Kansas has ... the honor of being the first State in
the Union to begin the organization of Negroes as soldiers for the Federal army." Sewell
and McPherson agree that up to this point President Lincoln had opposed the idea of
blacks fighting for the Union but after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation,
which declared that slaves in states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, "shall be
then, thence forward, and forever free," he reversed his thinking. At the end of the
Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln announced that the freed blacks "would be received into
the armed service of the United States...." Lincoln planned to tap into a new source of
fighting individuals, "...the great available and as yet unavailed of, force for the
restoration of the Union.". Lincoln thought this would both weaken the enemy and
strengthen the Union. The recruitment of the blacks took laborers from the South and
placed these men in the Union army in places which otherwise must be filled with so many
white men." Lincoln also felt that seeing the blacks fighting against the Confederacy
would have a psychological effect upon the South. Hattaway and Jones concur with
McPherson in describing the Emancipation Proclamation and the importance it had for both
the Union and the Confederacy.
With the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, freeing the slaves, the North
began recruiting black soldiers but, as reported by Batty and Parish, this was a slow
recruitment at first. Sewall supports this fact by revealing a letter Lincoln wrote to
Vice-President Hamlin just six days after the issuing of the proclamation in which he
states that ..."troops come forward more slowly than ever..." In the Spring of 1863 only
two black regiments existed, however, this had grown to sixty by the end of 1863. By 1864
this had expanded to 80 more regiments. Jordan provides a comprehensive account of one of
the first black regiments to fight for the Union Army, the 54th Massachusetts Colored
Regiment that numbered at least 1,000 soldiers. This all-volunteer regiment, lead by a
white colonel, Robert Gould Shaw, helped open the 22- month land and sea assault on
Charleston, South Carolina. Leading an unsuccessful hand-to-hand attack on Fort Wagner in
Charleston, this regiment engaged in one of the most famous black actions of the Civil
War and suffered approximately 44 percent casualties, including Colonel Shaw. Their
performance in this battle helped to make the blacks more acceptable in the Union army.
One of its soldiers won the Congressional Medal of Honor. Eventually twenty-three other
black soldiers earned this honor. Sewell, in A House Divided, concurs on the gallantry of
the black soldiers, but he reports that 17 black soldiers and 4 black sailors received
the nations highest honor. The reports of the tenacity of the blacks at Fort Wagner plus
engagements at Port Hudson, Louisiana, Fort Pillow and Milliken's Bend helped to fuel the
fire of black enlistment.
Historians differ in the actual number of blacks in the Union Army. Foner and Mahoney
reported that by the end of the war approximately 190,000 blacks had served in the Union
Army and Navy, while Stokesbury notes that there were 300,000 black soldiers and 166
regiments. Sewell, in contrast, places this number at 500,00. Wilson explains the
discrepancy in the numbers of black soldiers as he describes a practice of "putting a
live Negro in a dead one's place." If a black solder died in the war the commanding
officers would simply put another man in his place and have him answer to the dead man's
name. Sewell notes the causalities among black troops amounted to 68,178. Batty and
Parish call the raising of the black regiments one of the "most remarkable, even
revolutionary, developments of the whole war." 
Sewell agrees with Batty and Parish, McPherson and Wilson that even though these soldiers
were fighting for the North and trying to escape the bonds of slavery and gain freedom,
discrimination still existed in the Army. The soldiers fought in segregated companies
with white commanders. The Blacks were not equal to the whites as they received lower
pay, performed fatigue duty and menial labor, such as cleaning quarters, laundering
clothing, cleaning boots and cooking. Black soldiers, regardless of their rank, earned
$10 a month minus $3 for clothing, while white privates earned $13 a month plus clothing.
Ex-slaves could not advance into the ranks of commissioned officers until the end of the
war. Batty and Parish note that less than 100 ever became officers and none ranked higher
than captain. Sewell states that "with rare exception, the only blacks to obtain
commissions were Chaplains and surgeons." McPherson, who agrees with other historians
that the blacks were considered second class soldiers, cites statistics to support this
theory He shows the contrast in the number of white and black soldiers killed in action
and in the rate of death from disease among the white and black soldiers. The black
soldiers faced the prospect of execution or sale into slavery if captured. Wilson reports
that one of the worst atrocities allegedly committed against the black soldiers occurred
at Fort Pillow, Tennessee on April 12, 1864, when the Confederate Army indiscriminately
killed some three hundred black soldiers. The fort, stormed by General Nathan Bedford
Forrest's troops, had surrendered. Union officials claimed that the killing of the black
soldiers was a massacre, however, the Confederate denied this claim, maintaining that the
soldiers died in the fighting before the surrender. Wilson gives a detailed account of
the battle to support the massacre theory and Harper's Weekly called the battle,
"Inhuman, fiendish butchery." Stokesbury, in concurring with Wilson, notes "the weight of
evidence ... suggests a massacre." This massacre failed to weaken the courage of the
black soldiers, but rather fueled them with a desire of determination.
Just as the Union Army realized the importance of black soldiers, so did the South. The
readiness to which these slaves responded to the call of fighting for the confederacy is
explained by the fact that the failure of Nat Turner, among others, was held up to them
as their fate, should they attempt to free themselves from their masters. In the early
years of the war some Confederate states accepted blacks into their units, much to
Jefferson Davis's opposition. Black workers found their way into armament factories and
into the Confederate Army doing anything short of handling a gun. Throughout the war
effort in the South, blacks willingly dug field fortifications, mounted cannons and built
entrenchments to fortify cities and towns. Wilson cites an article in the Charleston
Mercury on January 3, 1861, which reported, "One hundred and fifty able-bodied free
colored men yesterday offered their services gratuitously.... to hasten forward the
important work of throwing up redoubts...along our coast." Likewise, the states of
Tennessee and Virginia enlisted the aid of the blacks. Often after completing the needed
fortifications the slaves returned to the fields to help supply the needs of the
confederate soldiers who were fighting to keep the blacks as slaves. As the Confederacy
faced a mounting shortage of white soldiers, General Pat Cleburne developed a plan to use
the blacks in the fight for the Confederacy. This plan promised freedom for the slaves
but Jefferson Davis rejected the idea. In the dying days of the war in early 1865 the
Confederacy faced an army that was daily thinned more to desertion than bullets.
General-in chief of the Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee persuaded the Confederate
Congress to arm slaves to fight for the South. These slaves trained, drilled and paraded
in some cities. However, the war ended before this program could begin.
Their importance in the fighting is found in the claim they staked to equal rights
following the war. Former slave Frederick Douglas wrote, "Once let the black man get upon
his person the brass U. S. ... and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has
earned the right to citizenship." . The role of the black soldiers also influenced
moderate Republicans to believe that the federal government should guarantee the equality
before the law of all citizens. Small, but significant, steps developed following the war
towards easing the color line. For example, street cars became desegregated in several
major cities. Illinois, which in 1862 had banned blacks from coming into the state, now
lifted the ban, and allowed blacks to serve on juries and to testify in courts.
Whereas other historians confine their accounts of black involvement in the Civil War,
Catton notes that as a result of their fighting along side white soldiers a new attitude
developed towards the blacks. Many northern soldiers had grown up knowing only the black
as portrayed on the stage - grinning, big-mouthed, carefree loving possum and watermelons
and eating fried chicken. What they found was a real human - struggling to be in control
of his destiny. He describes a Wisconsin soldier's feelings by saying, "The black folks
are awful good, poor miserable things that they are. The boys talk to them fearful and
treat them most any way and yet they can't talk two minutes but tears come to their eyes
and they throw their arms up and praise de Lord for de coming of de Lincoln soldiers." 
Deeply entrenched in the institution of slavery, the black population responded by
playing an important role in the Civil War. This role began years before the actual
fighting, with the foundation being laid by outright rebellion and individual resistance
as the slaves dreamed of freedom. Building on this foundation historians agree that the
role of the blacks in the fighting of the Civil War was important to both the North and
South efforts. Consequently, the historians agree agreement that one important result of
their fighting was the advancement of the idea of their freedom and steps toward
equality. This idea of freedom and equality gave great confidence and pride to these long
oppressed people.