How Did the Union Make Sure the South Didnt Leave Again
In his inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1861, Lincoln proclaimed that it was his duty to maintain the Union. He besides declared that he had no intention of ending slavery where it existed, or of repealing the Avoiding 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, Southward Carolina. Federal troops returned the burn down. The Civil War had begun.
Immediately following the attack, four more than states -- Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee -- severed their ties with the Wedlock. To retain the loyalty of the remaining border states -- Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri -- President Lincoln insisted that the war was non virtually 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 ground forces, proving to northern whites that their race privilege would not be threatened.
In that location was an exception, even so. African Americans had been working aboard naval vessels for years, and there was no reason that they should continue. Black sailors were therefore accustomed into the U.Southward. Navy from the beginning of the state of war. Still, many African Americans wanted to join the fighting and connected to put pressure on federal authorities. Even if Lincoln was not prepare to admit it, blacks knew that this was a war confronting slavery. Some, yet, rejected the idea of fighting to preserve a Union that had rejected them and which did not requite them the rights of citizens.
The federal regime 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 piece of work for the Spousal relationship forces; others wanted to return them to their owners. Finally, on August half dozen, 1861, fugitive slaves were declared to be "contraband of state of war" if their labor had been used to aid the Confederacy in whatever fashion. And if found to be contraband, they were alleged free.
Every bit the northern army pushed south, thousands of fugitives fled beyond Wedlock 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 state, there was not enough to become around. Many fugitives were put into crowded camps, where starvation and disease led to a high death rate. Northern citizens, blackness and white alike, stepped in to fill the gap. They organized relief societies and provided aid. They likewise organized schools to teach the freedmen, women, and children to read and write, thus giving an teaching to thousands of African Americans throughout the war.
Though "contraband" slaves had been alleged gratuitous, Lincoln connected to insist that this was a state of war to relieve the Union, not to free slaves. But by 1862, Lincoln was because emancipation as a necessary step toward winning the state of war. The Due south was using enslaved people to assist 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 take the services of black volunteers and freed slaves, the very people who about wanted to defeat the slaveholders. In improver, several governments in Europe were because 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 chiffonier. It proposed to emancipate the slaves in all rebel areas on January ane, 1863. Secretary of State William H. Seward agreed with the proposal, only cautioned Lincoln to wait until the Union had a major victory before formally issuing the proclamation. Lincoln's adventure came afterwards the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in September of 1862. He issued the preliminary Emancipation Announcement on September 22. The declaration warned the Confederate states to surrender by January 1, 1863, or their slaves would be freed.
Some people were critical of the declaration for but freeing some of the slaves. Others, including Frederick Douglass, were jubilant. Douglass felt that information technology was the beginning of the end of slavery, and that it would deed as a "moral bombshell" to the Confederacy. Yet he and others feared that Lincoln would give in to pressure from northern conservatives, and would neglect 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 inside the states or parts of states that were in rebellion and not in Spousal relationship easily. This left 1 million slaves in Marriage territory still in chains.
Throughout the N, African Americans and their white allies were exhuberant. They packed churches and meeting halls and celebrated the news. In the Southward, 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 Spousal relationship, it was fighting to end slavery.
Throughout this time, northern black men had connected to pressure the ground forces to enlist them. A few private commanders in the field had taken steps to recruit southern African Americans into their forces. But it was but afterward Lincoln issued the terminal Emancipation Proclamation that the federal ground forces would officially accept blackness soldiers into its ranks.
African American men rushed to enlist. This time they were accepted into all-black units. The showtime 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. Presently other regiments were existence formed, and in May 1863 the State of war Section 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 Northward. Douglass proclaimed, "I urge you to fly to arms and smite with death the power that would coffin the government and your liberty in the same hopeless grave." Others, such as Harriet Tubman, recruited in the South. On March 6, 1863, the Secretarial assistant of War was informed that "seven hundred and 50 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 cease 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 gratuitous states.
Black soldiers faced discrimination as well every bit segregation. The army was extremely reluctant to commission black officers -- only i hundred gained commissions during the war. African American soldiers were likewise given substandard supplies and rations. Probably the worst grade of discrimination was the pay differential. At the beginning of blackness enlistment, information technology was assumed that blacks would exist kept out of direct combat, and the men were paid as laborers rather than equally soldiers. Black soldiers therefore received $7 per calendar month, plus a $3 wearable allowance, while white soldiers received $thirteen per month, plus $3.50 for clothes.
Black troops strongly resisted this treatment. The Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Regiment served a yr without pay rather than take 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 Wedlock 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 back up the Confederacy. From the beginning, there were factions who vehemently disagreed with secession and remained loyal to the Marriage. 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 typhoon in 1862 and the exemptions remained in place. It became clear to many poor southern whites that the state of war was being waged by the rich planters and the poor were fighting it. In addition, the common people were hit difficult by wartime scarcity. By 1863, there was a food shortage. Riots and strikes occurred as inflation soared and people became desperate.
In that location 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 Due north was likewise hit by economic depression, and enraged white people rioted against African Americans, who they accused of stealing their jobs.
Finally, on April xviii, 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 at present, with the end of the war, four million African Americans were costless. Thousands of erstwhile 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 Northward and South -- now began the work of rebuilding the shattered union and of creating a new social lodge. This period would be chosen Reconstruction. Information technology would hold many promises and many tragic disappointments. Information technology 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 still finished.
Every bit part of Reconstruction, ii new amendments were added to the Constitution. The Fourteenth Subpoena, 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 ground of race. For many African Americans, yet, this right would be short-lived. Following Reconstruction, they would exist denied their legal right to vote in many states until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
But all of this was nonetheless to come. The Americans of 1865 were standing at the point betwixt one era and another. What they knew was that slavery was dead. With that 250 yr legacy behind them, they faced the future.
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Source: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2967.html
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