The Civil War and emancipation

[Booth Chronicles]

On 28 Dec 2023, Lou Bricano <l...@cap.con> posted some
news:9GijN.107372$Wp_8....@fx17.iad:

> By Meryl Kornfield, one of the dumbest left-wing cunts ever.

Sic semper tyrannis!

On November 6, 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United
States -- an event that outraged southern states. The Republican party had
run on an anti-slavery platform, and many southerners felt that there was
no longer a place for them in the Union. On December 20, 1860, South
Carolina seceded. By Febrary 1, 1861, six more states -- Mississippi,
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas -- had split from the
Union. The seceded states created the Confederate States of America and
elected Jefferson Davis, a Mississippi Senator, as their provisional
president.

In his inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1861, Lincoln proclaimed
that it was his duty to maintain the Union. He also declared that he had
no intention of ending slavery where it existed, or of repealing the
Fugitive Slave Law -- a position that horrified African Americans and
their white allies. Lincoln's statement, however, did not satisfy the
Confederacy, and on April 12 they attacked Fort Sumter, a federal
stronghold in Charleston, South Carolina. Federal troops returned the
fire. The Civil War had begun.

Immediately following the attack, four more states -- Virginia, Arkansas,
North Carolina, and Tennessee -- severed their ties with the Union. To
retain the loyalty of the remaining border states -- Delaware, Maryland,
Kentucky, and Missouri -- President Lincoln insisted that the war was not
about slavery or black rights; it was a war to preserve the Union. His
words were not simply aimed at the loyal southern states, however -- most
white northerners were not interested in fighting to free slaves or in
giving rights to black people. For this reason, the government turned away
African American voluteers who rushed to enlist. Lincoln upheld the laws
barring blacks from the army, proving to northern whites that their race
privilege would not be threatened.

There was an exception, however. African Americans had been working aboard
naval vessels for years, and there was no reason that they should
continue. Black sailors were therefore accepted into the U.S. Navy from
the beginning of the war. Still, many African Americans wanted to join the
fighting and continued to put pressure on federal authorities. Even if
Lincoln was not ready to admit it, blacks knew that this was a war against
slavery. Some, however, rejected the idea of fighting to preserve a Union
that had rejected them and which did not give them the rights of citizens.

The federal government had a harder time deciding what to do about
escaping slaves. Because there was no consistent federal policy regarding
fugitives, individual commanders made their own decisions. Some put them
to work for the Union forces; others wanted to return them to their
owners. Finally, on August 6, 1861, fugitive slaves were declared to be
"contraband of war" if their labor had been used to aid the Confederacy in
any way. And if found to be contraband, they were declared free.

As the northern army pushed southward, thousands of fugitives fled across
Union lines. Neither the federal authorities nor the army were prepared
for the flood of people, and many of the refugees suffered as a result.
Though the government attempted to provide them with confiscated land,
there was not enough to go around. Many fugitives were put into crowded
camps, where starvation and disease led to a high death rate. Northern
citizens, black and white alike, stepped in to fill the gap. They
organized relief societies and provided aid. They also organized schools
to teach the freedmen, women, and children to read and write, thus giving
an education to thousands of African Americans throughout the war.

Though "contraband" slaves had been declared free, Lincoln continued to
insist that this was a war to save the Union, not to free slaves. But by
1862, Lincoln was considering emancipation as a necessary step toward
winning the war. The South was using enslaved people to aid the war
effort. Black men and women were forced to build fortifications, work as
blacksmiths, nurses, boatmen, and laundresses, and to work in factories,
hospitals, and armories. In the meantime, the North was refusing to accept
the services of black volunteers and freed slaves, the very people who
most wanted to defeat the slaveholders. In addition, several governments
in Europe were considering recognizing the Confederacy and intervening
against the Union. If Lincoln declared this a war to free the slaves,
European public opinion would overwhelmingly back the North.

On July 22, 1862, Lincoln showed a draft of the preliminary Emancipation
Proclamation to his cabinet. It proposed to emancipate the slaves in all
rebel areas on January 1, 1863. Secretary of State William H. Seward
agreed with the proposal, but cautioned Lincoln to wait until the Union
had a major victory before formally issuing the proclamation. Lincoln's
chance came after the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in September
of 1862. He issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September
22. The proclamation warned the Confederate states to surrender by January
1, 1863, or their slaves would be freed.

Some people were critical of the proclamation for only freeing some of the
slaves. Others, including Frederick Douglass, were jubilant. Douglass felt
that it was the beginning of the end of slavery, and that it would act as
a "moral bombshell" to the Confederacy. Yet he and others feared that
Lincoln would give in to pressure from northern conservatives, and would
fail to keep his promise. Despite the opposition, however, the president
remained firm. On January 1, 1863, he issued the final Emancipation
Proclamation. With it he officially freed all slaves within the states or
parts of states that were in rebellion and not in Union hands. This left
one million slaves in Union territory still in bondage.

Throughout the North, African Americans and their white allies were
exhuberant. They packed churches and meeting halls and celebrated the
news. In the South, most slaves did not hear of the proclamation for
months. But the purpose of the Civil War had now changed. The North was
not only fighting to preserve the Union, it was fighting to end slavery.

Throughout this time, northern black men had continued to pressure the
army to enlist them. A few individual commanders in the field had taken
steps to recruit southern African Americans into their forces. But it was
only after Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation that the
federal army would officially accept black soldiers into its ranks.

African American men rushed to enlist. This time they were accepted into
all-black units. The first of these was the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts
Colored Regiment, led by white officer Robert Gould Shaw. Their heroism in
combat put to rest worries over the willingness of black soldiers to
fight. Soon other regiments were being formed, and in May 1863 the War
Department established the Bureau of Colored Troops.

Black recruiters, many of them abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass,
Henry Highland Garnet, and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, brought in troops from
throughout the North. Douglass proclaimed, "I urge you to fly to arms and
smite with death the power that would bury the government and your liberty
in the same hopeless grave." Others, such as Harriet Tubman, recruited in
the South. On March 6, 1863, the Secretary of War was informed that "seven
hundred and fifty blacks who were waiting for an opportunity to join the
Union Army had been rescued from slavery under the leadership of Harriet
Ross Tubman...." By the end of the war more than 186,000 black soldiers
had joined the Union army; 93,000 from the Confederate states, 40,000 from
the border slave states, and 53,000 from the free states.

Black soldiers faced discrimination as well as segregation. The army was
extremely reluctant to commission black officers -- only one hundred
gained commissions during the war. African American soldiers were also
given substandard supplies and rations. Probably the worst form of
discrimination was the pay differential. At the beginning of black
enlistment, it was assumed that blacks would be kept out of direct combat,
and the men were paid as laborers rather than as soldiers. Black soldiers
therefore received $7 per month, plus a $3 clothing allowance, while white
soldiers received $13 per month, plus $3.50 for clothes.

Black troops strongly resisted this treatment. The Fifty-Fourth
Massachusetts Regiment served a year without pay rather than accept the
unfair wages. Many blacks refused to enlist because of the discriminatory
pay. Finally, in 1864, the War Department sanctioned equal wages for black
soldiers.

In the South, most slaveholders were convinced that their slaves would
remain loyal to them. Some did, but the vast majority crossed Union lines
as soon as Northern troops entered their vicinity. A Confederate general
stated in 1862 that North Carolina was losing approximately a million
dollars every week because of the fleeing slaves.

Numbers of white southerners also refused to support the Confederacy. From
the beginning, there were factions who vehemently disagreed with secession
and remained loyal to the Union. Many poor southern whites became
disillusioned during the course of the war. Wealthy planters had been
granted exemptions from military service early on. This became especially
inflammatory when the South instituted the draft in 1862 and the
exemptions remained in place. It became clear to many poor southern whites
that the war was being waged by the rich planters and the poor were
fighting it. In addition, the common people were hit hard by wartime
scarcity. By 1863, there was a food shortage. Riots and strikes occurred
as inflation soared and people became desperate.

There were also northerners who resisted the war effort. Some were
pacifists. Others were white men who resented the fact that the army was
drafting them at the same time it excluded blacks. And there were whites
who refused to fight once black soldiers were admitted. The North was also
hit by economic depression, and enraged white people rioted against
African Americans, who they accused of stealing their jobs.

Finally, on April 18, 1865, the Civil War ended with the surrender of the
Confederate army. 617,000 Americans had died in the war, approximately the
same number as in all of America's other wars combined. Thousands had been
injured. The southern landscape was devastated.

A new chapter in American history opened as the Thirteenth Amendment,
passed in January of 1865, was implemented. It abolished slavery in the
United States, and now, with the end of the war, four million African
Americans were free. Thousands of former slaves travelled throughout the
south, visiting or searching for loved ones from whom they had become
separated. Harriet Jacobs was one who returned to her old home. Former
slaveholders faced the bewildering fact of emancipation with everything
from concern to rage to despair.

Men and women -- black and white and in the North and South -- now began
the work of rebuilding the shattered union and of creating a new social
order. This period would be called Reconstruction. It would hold many
promises and many tragic disappointments. It was the beginning of a long,
painful struggle, far longer and more difficult than anyone could realize.
It was the beginning of a struggle that is not yet finished.

As part of Reconstruction, two new amendments were added to the
Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment, passed in June 1865, granted
citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States. The
Fifteenth Amendment, passed in February of 1869, guaranteed that no
American would be denied the right to vote on the basis of race. For many
African Americans, however, this right would be short-lived. Following
Reconstruction, they would be denied their legal right to vote in many
states until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But all of this was yet to come. The Americans of 1865 were standing at
the point between one era and another. What they knew was that slavery was
dead. With that 250 year legacy behind them, they faced the future.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2967.html