Abraham Lincoln Quotes

When the Confederate Government realized that the Union was planning to arm escaped slaves and induct them into the Union Army, they quickly passed a law that declared any escaped slave who joined the Union Army or wore its uniform was guilty of Treason and would be executed. Most Union Generals one way or another got word to the Confederate Officers that they had better treat all Negro Union Soldiers as prisoners of war. Even President Lincoln warned the South. Butler, however, had a large number of Negro troops in his area and had heard threats of some of the Southerners to execute Black prisoners of war. He had a way of making things very clear, and he was able to prevent murder of any of his Negro troops despite the Treason law.

Although escaped slaves could not fight for the North, they could be very useful on road building and other military engineering projects needing labor. Every time a slave escaped, it diminished the military engineering labor of the Confederates by one but added to that of the Union. Pinkerton and others however engaged many escaped slaves who volunteered for an incredibly dangerous mission. They returned back to the Southern lines into the slave work gangs, and organized slave escapes of groups of Blacks. In addition, many of them, by observing and overhearing the Confederate soldiers gained information regarding supply and troop levels and movements, and this they brought back to the Union officers. Those that were caught were executed as spies. Escaped slaves were espionage and covert operations agents before they were allowed to be soldiers.

The U. S. Navy had Black sailors even before the Civil War. Blacks had shipped out on Northern merchant vessels and whaling ships starting in colonial times. Many Blacks had nautical experience and were welcomed by the Northern Navy and treated very well. The Union Army in contrast was much more ambivalent about Blacks serving. Ironically the Navy was disbanded to save money and when it was reconstituted it was on a racially segregated basis completely foreign to American Naval history. It was the last of the American armed services to integrate and its officer corps has not desecrated as much as the other services.

Note that he referred to the “martyred President” as if Lincoln had recently been assassinated. It was actually 33 years after, and many of his audience had lived through what for most was their greatest national trauma. Springfield was the hometown of Lincoln and many in the audience had served under Lincoln in the Union Army. At that time, a statement like this praising Blacks was hated in the South, and unusual even in the North. However, politically the Solid South then always voted for the Democrats, so he and his party would never win any Southern States anyway, but the KKK was active in Illinois and many other Northern States. Adjacent Indiana was the headquarters of the KKK. There was much racism in the North so this speech was quite courageous. Republican Presidents Hayes, McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt made significant inroads in the racial problem and brought Blacks into Federal jobs. The progress, however, was totally undone by Woodrow Wilson who fired most Blacks who had gotten Federal jobs. Wilson needed the Southern legislators which was a major component of his party. He also came from New Jersey which had a strong KKK element who pressured him. Jim Crowe, the KKK and racism increased and the Republican Presidents thereafter did little for Civil rights. The great progress was made by Democratic Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Truman, and Lyndon Johnson and the Democratic Party replaced the Republicans as the Civil Rights party, and the Southern Democratic politicians switched to the Republican Party ending its traditional leadership in race relations

This Civil War recruiting poster was described by the Free Library of Philadelphia as “Civil War recruitment print targeting African Americans by evoking the freedoms granted by the Emancipation Proclamation. Depicts a montage of symbolic scenes centered around an African American Union soldier triumphantly holding up a sword and an American flag with the banner "Freedom to the Slave." He stands near broken shackles upon a tri-color flag adorned with a coiled snake. The flag is tugged upon by one of three joyous slaves freed by an African American soldier. Other scenes depict an African American man reading a newspaper on a rocking chair near a plow and child, African American children entering a "Public School" near a church, and a regiment of "U.S. Colored Troops" marching across a battlefield strewn with dead bodies.”

As just one example of Southern States' reasons, see {583044}. Many of the Northern States had passed laws declaring everyone in the state was free and making it illegal to return or assist in the returning of escaped slaves. The Southerners got the Federal Fugitive Slave Act passed which required all Americans to assist in recapturing escaped slaves. It was the Northern States who claimed states' rights were being trampled. The South was vehemently opposed to States' Rights when it came to allowing individual states to decide who was free and who was not. The Southerners had only one fundamental reason for secession—the maintenance of the Negro slavery system on which much of their economy depended as did their sociology, culture, and way of life.

Lincoln, just before the Civil War, quoted Jefferson that if slavery were not ended in America the results would be disastrous. But Lincoln at the time probably did not imagine how right Jefferson was, and Jefferson himself probably 1 how terrible the Civil War would be.

By 1863, Negro troops were being used to fill in gaps in the Union forces. Many union generals resisted having colored troops under their command. Thomas, however, welcomed them, and won several major battles where black soldiers were instrumental in victory.

Benjamin was the Confederacy’s strongest proponent for use of Negro troops in exchange for a promise of freedom. Ironically, the racial prejudice of the Southern soldier may well have doomed the South’s last chance for independence. Lee, although he personally favored such a course of action, could not get a general sentiment from the army as a whole.

At this point, Stearns had already organized and trained 3,000 Black Troops from the South. He was a strong advocate of recruiting and enlisting as many slaves as they could. Ironically, the desire to serve in the Army with a weapon, was symbolically a powerful symbol of equality and manliness that it was effective with Northern free Blacks and Southern escaped slaves. Another interesting thing was that Stearns insisted that the ex-slaves not only made better soldiers than the Confederates but that they were better than most Union White troops. That view was not promulgated very publically.

This letter was signed by a local white Priest and two other leading planters. This quotation gives us a marvelous feeling for what occurred when parts of the South was occupied by the Union Army shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Minor and his fellows just did not “get it.” The concept of freedom of the slaves was intellectually so foreign to them, that they wanted the Union Army to “compel” the freed slaves to work. They were horrified that slaves went wherever they wanted, and they were most outraged when former slaves who had enlisted in the Army, would “visit” their old plantation setting such a terrible example. The letter gives us a perspective on how difficult it was to change the mental set of Southern Whites and why Reconstruction was so difficult. The year of the letter is somewhat uncertain as the original letter appears to be dated 1862 but the writing is not clear and that date does not comport with the history of the era and we believe 1863 was the correct year. The photograph is of the first official colored troops mustered into the Union Army. They were called the Louisiana Native Guards and contained the ex slaves who went over to the Union side just before the time this slave owner complained. These ex slaves, in uniform, and with arms would sometimes visit the plantations where they and been enslaved, thrilling the remaining slaves and infuriating owners like Minor.

When the first Southern States seceded, each appointed a whose job it was to persuade the other Southern States to also secede. In this case Hale was marketing secession to Kentucky which with Maryland were the only two Southern States to reject what they regarded as treason and rebellion. The importance of the quotation however is in his argument which was all based on enmity to racial equality and abolition. Later Southern apologists would argue that the Civil War was fought, not about slavery and racism butt about different philosophies of government. See {623715} .

The officers were all white, and Higginson was the Commander. It was his first experience with Negro troops, and he had heard much extrapolation from racist attitudes about Blacks not being able to make good soldiers. Ironically, the same suspicions of Blacks as military men carried over into the Second World War when this canard was disproved so publicly that it finally was erased with the exception of the most inveterate racists for whom no evidence would matter.

There was little thought of emancipating slaves or their value to the South by the senior officers of the Union Army at the beginning of the war. The Secretary of War changed that. See {629183}for a typical Union General’s view at the beginning of the war.

Much of the South was so insular that people knew nothing about the notion of abolition and just assumed that no one would ever consider freeing the slaves. Many never knew that it was the South that first fired on the Union troops and flag. If the North won the war, the assumption was that Northerners would then own the plantations and the valuable slaves. In reality, while all slaves were emancipated in the South, very few plantations and farms were confiscated from their Southern owners by Northerners despite the fact that there was political pressure in the North to confiscate the land of all rebels who had committed treason and use the value to repay the Union bonds and care for the wounded Union veterans and the widows of dead Union Soldiers. Eggleston was an accomplished writer who had served in the Confederate army of the Civil War. 20 year after the war he wrote a series of articles for the prestigious Northern Atlantic Monthly trying to convey the war from the Southerner’s point of view.

The Southerners were terrified at the thought of runaway and freed slaves as soldiers for the Union Army—even moreso than the Union leadership assumed. The Southerners knew far better than the Northerners how badly the slaves had been brutalized and assumed that the Blacks would want the same kind of revenge that they would seek if the roles were reversed.

Butler was at the time the Union general in charge of Louisiana. He had on his hand a large group of slaves whose owners had abandoned the area. There was no emancipation yet. He wrote for instructions. The result was the first actual emancipation of slaves.

This was one of the several early unofficial Emancipations that was issued in the Civil War.