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The African American involvement in the Civil War was considered null at the beginning
of the war but was soon changed to the enlistment of African Americans into the ranks of the
Union Army.
At the beginning of the war the Lincoln administration debated with the idea of allowing
African Americans to be recruited into the Union Army, but voted against such a radical move.
The administration believed that in doing so this would invoke the Border States to also succeed
from the Union.1 This policy changed rather quickly into the war due to primary one mans
actions. Benjamin Butler was the commanding General at Fortress Monroe in the beginning of
the Civil War. During the first few months of the war several slaves had escaped from the
Confederate camp nearby and had made it to Fortress Monroe behind Union lines and told of the
Confederate Soldiers making them build fortifications for cannons. Later that same day the
Fortress was approached by a Confederate soldier under a flag of truce. The officer asked
Benjamin Butler to honor the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and return the slaves that had escaped.
Benjamin Butler being a lawyer before the war, knew the law and denies the Confederate Officer
telling that he has confiscated these slaves as property being used to help my enemy therefore
they are contrabands of war.2 This mans actions were not the policy of the Federal Government
1 Freeman, Elsie, Wynell Burroughs Schamel, and Jean West. "The Fight for Equal Rights: A Recruiting Poster for
Black Soldiers in the Civil War." Social Education 56, 2 (February 1992): 118-120. [Revised and updated in 1999 by
Budge Weidman.]

2 Clayborne Carson, Emma J. Lapsansky-Werner, Gary B. Nash, The Struggle for Freedom: A
History of African Americans. Volume 1 to 1877 ( Upper Saddle River, NJ. Pearson Education
Inc. 2011) page 239

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but rather it was the first major step into contrabands becoming the official policy of the Union
Federal Government. When news of what had happened at Fortress Monroe slaves started to
escape and cross into the Union lines by the thousands. Having so many African Americans
escaping from slavery into the hands of the Union Army camps, forced the hand, so to speak, of
congress to pass the First Confiscation Act in August of 1861. This act made the contrabanding
of African American slaves the official policy of the Federal Government, thus making the
Unions goal for the war a step away from just preserving the Union and a step closer to
abolishing slavery. Since the contraband policy was not federal not all Union officials went by
this. On several occasions slaves that escaped to Union camps where racist officers were, they
would give them back to the Confederate Army. Those that were allowed to stay was promised
payment for their work as contrabands. However, some received pay other didnt and others got
cheated out big time. Two years later at Fortress Monroe, a Civil War Relief Worker by the
name of Captain C. B. Wilder was interviewed about the contrabands there. He stated that there
were at least 10,000 African Americans there from which some have traveled 200 miles just to
get here.3
Union forces used contraband as military labor building entrenchments, barricades, and
fortifying positions. The escaped slaves that were unable to work for the Union force were
3 Testimony by the Superintendent of Contrabands at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, Before the
Americans Freedmens Inquiry Commission, in Freedom: A Documentary History of
Emancipation, 1861-1867, series 1, Vol 1: The Destruction of Slavery, eds. Ira Berlin et al.
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1985),88-90

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herded together in contraband camps on the outskirts of cities and towns inside Union controlled
territory. The only bad thing about the contraband camps was almost everything. The shelters
they were provided were known as cast off tents. They were old worn out shelters that did not
always to a good job keeping the weather at bay. Also the medical staff that was provided was
far from being nurses and surgeons and physicians. They were usually people with the upmost
basic of knowledge. They could wrap a bandage and that was as far as their medical knowledge
went. And finally their diet was horrid. The food they got was about as low on the totem pole
when it comes to nutrition as rocks just to give you an idea. These camps housed the old, feeble,
youth and women that could not work and they were at a stagnate camp. Sanitization and how
germs spread was unknown to them. Their feces would build up and get into the water supply
and disease would spread. Only those young and strong enough survived. Thousands died in
the camps due to disease, malnourishment and being at the weathers mercy.4
On January of 1863, the Lincoln Administration issued the Emancipation Proclamation
that freed all slaves in states that was still in rebellion. This was the start of allowing African
Americans to enlist into the Union Army. Due to the lack of white volunteers and the abundance
of blacks, the enlistment of colored men into the Union Army began. The recruitment of African
Americans into the Union Army was slow at first and by the spring of 1863, only two African

4 Clayborne, Carson, Emma J. Lapsansky-Werner, Gary B.Nash, The Struggle for Freedom: A
History of African Americans. Volume 1 to 1877 Upper Saddle River, NJ. Pearson Education
Inc. 2011. Pages 239

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American regiments existed. But by the end of 1863, this number had escalated to sixty
regiments and then to eighty or more by 1864.5 Throughout the war there were roughly 186,000
African Americans to serve in the Union Army. This accounts for about ten percent of the
militarys fighting force. The African American units experienced around 449 total battles thirty
to thirty-nine of them being major battles.
But at the beginning of the enlistment of the African Americans, they doubted their capability as
being soldiers so the black regimens were garrison troops. In other words they were not it battle.
They just guarded supply lines and such things and didnt really see much combat. One
regiment though changed the minds of those who doubted the African Americans ability as
soldiers, the 54th Massachusetts. This was one of the first black regiments to fight for the Union
Army. They were a colored volunteer regiment that numbered almost 1,000 soldiers. They were
led by a white colonel named Robert Gould Shaw. This regiment refused to accept payment
seven different times to protest the unequal pay of African American soldiers because they were
promised equal pay on enlistment. At one point the Massachusetts Government offered to pay
the difference so they would get their equal pay but they still refused. They said that they still
would be viewed as unequal to whites by the Federal Government. This regiment also helped
open the twenty-two month land and sea assault on Charleston, South Carolina. The Fort that
they assisted in assaulting was heavily barricaded and the only way to approach it was by a
narrow strip of beach with the ocean on one side and thick impassable swamp on the other.
5 Batty, Peter,The Divided Union, Tempus Publishing Limited, September 1999

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Knowing it was going to be deadly they volunteered to make the first strike. They broke through
the fortifications and fought gruesome hand to hand combat before they were forced to retreat.
They received forty-four percent casualties of either dead captured or wounded including their
commander colonel Shaw who was killed. Their actions in this battle helped to make blacks
more welcome into the Union Army. One of the soldiers from the 54th received the
Congressional Medal of Honor and eventually twenty-three other African American soldiers
would earn this honor as well.6
Even though these African American soldiers were fighting for the North and trying to escape the
bonds of slavery and gain freedom, discrimination still existed in the Army. The African
American soldiers fought in segregated companies with white commanders. This fact is rather
ironic because the black regiments would receive experienced good officers as commanders
instead of some newbie white officer, and so therefore had better leadership than other white
regiments. The African Americans were not equal to the whites and received lower pay,
performed fatigue duty and menial labor, such as cleaning quarters, laundering clothing, and
cleaning boots and cooking. African American soldiers regardless of their ranks earned ten
dollars a month minus three dollars for repairing of clothing, while white privates earned thirteen
dollars a month plus three dollars for repairing clothing. Ex-slaves could not be promoted up the

6 Wilson, Joseph T. The Black Phalanx: African-American Soldiers in the War of Independence
and the Civil War, Plenum Publishing Corp.,April 1994

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7
ranks of commissioned officers until the end of the war. Also less than one hundred African
Americans ever became officers and when they did none of them ever ranked higher than a
captain.8 African American soldiers were considered second class soldiers and cities statistics
support this. In McPhersons book he shows the contrast between the numbers of white and
black soldiers who were killed in action and the death rate from disease.
African American soldiers faced the consequences of being executed or sold into slavery if they
were captured by the Confederate forces. One of the worst atrocities that were committed
against the African American soldiers happened at Fort Pillow in Tennessee on April 12, 1864.
The Confederate Army indiscriminately killed around three hundred African American soldiers.
The Fort was surrounded and seized by General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his troops. The
Union men inside were both white and black and had surrendered. Union officials claim that the
Confederates would not take African Americans as prisoners and massacred them all as they
were in a state of surrender. Of course, the Confederates say that all the African American
soldiers died fighting before surrender. The famous magazine Harpers Weekly, called this battle
Inhumane and fiendish butchery.9 This massacre by the Confederates failed to weaken the

7 McPherson, James M. The Negros Civil War: How Americans Felt and Acted During the War
for the Union, Ballantine Books, Inc., February 1989, Stokesbury
8 Batty, Peter, The Divided Union, Tempus Publishing Limited, September 1999
9 Wilson, Joseph T., The Black Phalanx: African-American Soldiers in the War of
Independence and the Civil War, Plenum Publishing Corp., April 1994

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courage of the African American soldiers. It, in fact, did quite the opposite by fueling them with
a stronger desire and determination.
Their importance in the fighting can be found in the claim they staked to equal rights following
the war by former slave Frederick Douglas. He wrote, let the black man get on his body the
brass letter U.S. and eagles on his buttons and a gun on his shoulder and ammunition in his
pockets and then there will be no power on earth that will be able to deny him the right to
citizenship.10
During this time the Confederate Army would give threats trying to discourage the
enlistment of African American men into the army and the Union Federal Government from
creating more all African American regiments. The President of the Confederacy, Jefferson
Davis, called the Emancipation Proclamation the most execrable measure in the history of
guilty men. He promised that all African American prisoners of war would be enslaved or
executed on the spot without question. Also their white commanding officers would also be
punished or executed for being guilty of inciting a slave insurrection. The Union also made
threats against Confederate prisoners saying if you do that we will do the same. It helped a little.
It forced the Southern officials to treat black soldiers who had been free before the war
somewhat better than they treated black soldiers who were formally slaves. But neither case was

10 Freeman, Elsie, Wynell Burroughs Schamel, and Jean West. "The Fight for Equal Rights: A
Recruiting Poster for Black Soldiers in the Civil War." Social Education 56, 2 (February 1992):
118-120. [Revised and updated in 1999 by Budge Weidman.]

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much better nor the problem was the Southern officials really could not tell which African
American soldier was formally free or a slave unless he was recognized by a former master.
The role of the African American soldiers also influenced the moderate Republicans to believe
that the Federal Government should guarantee the equality before the law of all citizens. After
the war, small but significant steps developed towards easing the colored line. Buses became
desegregated in several major cities. Illinois, in 1862 had banned African Americans from
entering into the state, lifted that ban and allowed African Americans to come in and also serve
on juries and the ability to testify in the courts. All of this was helped put in motion by the result
of African Americans fighting alongside white men in battles. This caused a new attitude toward
African Americans to develop. Many northern soldiers had grown up only hearing things about
the African Americans that they were lazy, carefree, and loved to eat. What in fact they found
out was that African Americans were real people just like they were and struggling to be in
control of his destiny.11 One of the most important results of the African Americans fighting in
the Civil War was the advancement of the idea of their freedom and the steps toward equality
that were created. And that this idea of freedom and equality gave great confidence and pride to
these people who had been oppressed for so long.

11 Catton, Bruce, The Civil War Houghton Mifflin Company, April 1985