On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation: “All persons held as slaves in any State … in rebellion against the United States,” it declared, “shall then be , now and forever free. (The more than one million slaves in the Loyal Border States and in the Union-occupied parts of Louisiana and Virginia were unaffected by this proclamation.) He also said that “those people [African American] of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States. For the first time, black soldiers could fight for the American army.
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A “white man’s war”?
Black soldiers had fought in the Revolutionary War and, unofficially, in the War of 1812, but state militias had excluded African Americans since 1792. The United States Army had never accepted black soldiers. The US Navy, on the other hand, was more progressive: there, African Americans had served as shipboard firefighters, stewards, coal pickers and even ship pilots since 1861.
After the outbreak of the Civil War, abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass argued that enlisting black soldiers would help the North win the war and be a big step in the fight for equal rights: Brass Letters, US ; that he has an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket,” said Douglass, “and there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to the citizenship. However, that is exactly what President Lincoln was afraid of: he feared that arming African Americans, especially ex-slaves or escaped slaves, would cause loyal border states to secede. This, in turn, would make it nearly impossible for the Union to win the war.
READ MORE: 6 Black Civil War Heroes
The Second Confiscation and Militia Act (1862)
However, after two grueling years of war, President Lincoln began to reconsider his stance on black soldiers. The war does not seem to be over and the Union army badly needs soldiers. White volunteers were dwindling in number, and African Americans were more eager to fight than ever.
The Second Forfeiture and Militia Act of July 17, 1862 was the first step toward enlisting African Americans in the Union Army. He did not explicitly invite black people to join the fight, but he authorized the president “to employ as many people of African descent as he deems necessary and appropriate for the suppression of this rebellion… of the way he thinks best for the public good.
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Some blacks took this as a cue to start forming their own infantry units. African Americans in New Orleans formed three National Guard units: the First, Second, and Third Louisiana Native Guards. (These became the 73rd, 74th, and 75th United States Colored Infantry.) The First Kansas Colored Infantry (later the 79th United States Colored Infantry) fought in the October 1862 skirmish at Island Mound, Missouri. And the First South Carolina Infantry, African Descent (later the 33rd United States Colored Infantry) set out on its first expedition in November 1862. These unofficial regiments were officially commissioned in January 1863.
The 54th Massachusetts
In early February 1863, abolitionist Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts issued the Civil War’s first official appeal to black soldiers. Over 1,000 men responded. They formed the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, the first black regiment to be raised in the North. Many of the 54th’s soldiers were not even from Massachusetts: a quarter came from slave states and some came from as far away as Canada and the Caribbean. To lead the 54th Massachusetts, Governor Andrew chose a young white officer named Robert Gould Shaw.
On July 18, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts stormed Fort Wagner, guarding the port of Charleston, South Carolina. It was the first time in the Civil War that black troops led an infantry attack. Unfortunately, the 600 men of the 54th were less armed and outnumbered: 1,700 Confederate soldiers were waiting inside the fort, ready for battle. Nearly half of the charging Union soldiers, including Colonel Shaw, were killed.
READ MORE: The 54th Massachusetts Infantry
Confederate threats
In general, the Union Army was hesitant to use African American troops in combat. This was partly due to racism: many Union officers believed that black soldiers were not as skilled or as brave as white soldiers. By this logic, they believed that African Americans were better suited to jobs as carpenters, cooks, guards, scouts, and teamwork.
Black soldiers and their officers were also in grave danger if captured in battle. Confederate President Jefferson Davis called the Emancipation Proclamation “the most execrable measure in the history of guilty man” and promised that black prisoners of war would be enslaved or executed on the spot. (Their white commanders would also be punished, even executed, for what the Confederates called “inciting servile insurrection.” Black soldiers who were once enslaved, but in neither case was the treatment particularly Union officials tried to keep their troops out of harm’s way as much as possible by keeping most black soldiers away from the front lines.
The fight for equal pay
Even as they fought to end slavery in the Confederacy, African American Union soldiers also fought against another injustice. The U.S. Army paid black soldiers $10 a month (minus a clothing allowance, in some cases), while white soldiers received an additional $3 (plus a clothing allowance, in some cases). Congress passed a bill authorizing equal pay for black and white soldiers in 1864.
By the end of the war in 1865, approximately 180,000 black men had served as soldiers in the United States Army. This was about 10% of the Union’s total fighting strength. Most – about 90,000 – were former (or “smugglers”) slaves from the Confederate States. About half of the rest were from loyal border states, and the rest were free blacks from the North. Forty thousand black soldiers died during the war: 10,000 in combat and 30,000 from disease or infection.
