The war did not appear to be anywhere near an end, and the Union Army badly needed soldiers. However, after two grueling years of war, President Lincoln began to reconsider his position on Black soldiers.
The Second Confiscation and Militia Act (1862) This, in turn, would make it almost impossible for the Union to win the war. let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket,” Douglass said, “and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.” However, this is just what President Lincoln was afraid of: He worried that arming African Americans, particularly former or escaped slaves, would push the loyal border states to secede. Navy, on the other hand, was more progressive: There, African Americans had been serving as shipboard firemen, stewards, coal heavers and even boat pilots since 1861.ĭid you know? Sixteen Black soldiers won the Congressional Medal of Honor for their brave service in the Civil War.Īfter the Civil War broke out, abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass argued that the enlistment of Black soldiers would help the North win the war and would be a huge step in the fight for equal rights: “Once let the Black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S.
Black soldiers had fought in the Revolutionary War and-unofficially-in the War of 1812, but state militias had excluded African Americans since 1792.
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