Emancipation Proclamation and Black Union Soldiers

The Emancipation Proclamation

  • it was drafted privately in the early summer of 1862
  • announced September 22, 1862
    • the “preliminary emancipation proclamation”
    • after battle of Antietam (ab P.R choice)
    • an ultimatum/threat to rebels
  • unless the rebellion ended, it was effective January 1, 1863
    • enslaved people in rebel states were declared permanently free
    • the Union military service opened to African American men
  • still a war measure:
    • denying resources to the enemy
    • boosting the Union war effort
  • IT DIDN’T END SLAVERY NATIONALLY
    • numerous exceptions, even within parts of the Confederate States of America
    • no effects in the North or the Border South

African American Union Soldiers

  • African Americans asked to fight for the Union from the start
    • lobbied Lincoln administration
    • independently organized and drilled
  • Black enlistment opened 1862-63
    • Militia Act (1862)
    • made it legal for African American men to enlist in the United States army
    • authorized the President to organize, arm, and equip, according to law, a militia to have ready to march at a moment’s notice, to suppress insurrection and turn away invasions
    • Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
    • first combat in the fall 1862
  • 186,000+ African American men served in the Union military
  • unequal conditions:
    • segregated units led by white officers
    • just over 100 black officers
    • 7000 non-commissioned officers
    • lower pay until June 1864
    • higher than average casualties and morality, especially from illness
  • rebels re-enslaved and sometimes killed/captures Black soldiers
  • mixed reception by White Union troops, but many changed their minds
  • 24 african americans received congressional Medal of Honor for extraordinary bravery in battle
  • nearly 40,000 soldiers died over the course of the war
    • 30,000 of infection and diseases