The Shadow Soldiers: The Story of Black Civil War Soldiers
In the Great American Civil War 1861–1865, there were soldiers on both sides of the lines who were of diverse creeds. Among the Germans, French, Italians, Scottish, and other Europeans, there were another group of soldiers who fought, some would even consider them to be the very first Americans, the Shadow Soldiers of the New America: The Slaves. The topic of Black Civil War Soldiers has proven to be a very controversial topic in history, for many historians discredit the existence of black soldiers. Though they acknowledge their presence on the field, they refuse to acknowledge their participation. For the lack of evidence of Black Soldiers in the Confederacy, historians view such accusations to be invalid and nonexistent. However, other historians have legitimate proof of black Soldiers fighting alongside their white counterparts in the Union Army as infantry men. It is an imperative to understand that the Civil War was not directly associated with slavery, but more so indirectly influenced the connotation to the emancipation of slavery. Albeit, it is equally as important to acknowledge that African American soldiers did fight for emancipation, state’s rights, and contributed to both sides of the war by labor.
The Shadow Soldiers fought for emancipation, which granted Union citizenship. During the war, not all African Americans were slaves, for some were free and educated, generating wealth on their own terms, but a vast majority were continually owned and repressed upon by their masters. Slavery, the mistreatment, discrimination, and segregation of humanity. The discrimination not of race but of ethnicity, heritage, and culture. This is what many African Americans fought to end, for they believed in the enlightened ideas of freedom and equality. “At the beginning of the war black men were not allowed to join the army. This was due to a law passed in 1792, (Black Civil War Soldier Facts). In the inception of the war, when the Confederacy was a strong army of white men, slaves were prohibited from fighting because they believed their participation would degrade their regiment. In the Union, however, blacks were paid to fight but were not given equal pay. Black Union soldiers did not receive equal pay or equal treatment. “They were paid $10 a month, with $3 deducted from that pay for clothing — white soldiers received $13 a month with no clothing deduction.”, (African Americans In the Civil War). Congress granted retroactive equal pay in June of 1864, which then largely reduced salary inequality. Two years into the war, former President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which did not enable freedom and citizenship for all blacks, but rather, only applied to slaves who escaped the Confederate territory into the Union states, howbeit, allowed blacks to participate in the war efforts as fighters and or laborers. In the dawn of the war, African Americans in the South were granted an opportunity to freedom: The Confiscation Act of 1861, which enabled the Union Army to seize slaves contributing to the Confederate war effort. Though this did not mention freedom, it liberated many slaves from the South which eventually motivated the pursuance of complete freedom in America.
The Civil War was fought for sates rights, the ability to abolish laws and mandates passed by the federal government. The Confederates did not partake in the war to keep their slaves. They fought for their rights as citizens to keep them and to prevent their own freedoms from being overpowered by the government. The Confederates incentives are reflected here, “A common explanation is that the Civil War was fought over the moral issue of slavery. In fact, it was the economics of slavery and political control of that system that was central to the conflict. A key issue was states’ rights.”, (Black Civil War Soldier Facts). President Abraham Lincoln, not necessarily pro-slavery, claims, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”, (Russell, 10 Surprising Facts About the American Civil War 2016), reflects that he was not fighting to abolish or preserve slavery, but use slavery to preserve the Union. Additionally, another incentive for fighting in the Civil War was territorial expansion. The South initially planned to bring slavery into the western territories, while the North was dedicated to make them open to white labor, not to abolish slavery but to expand labor opportunities for white Union citizens. The Republican Party was spreading across the country and opposed slavery in the west. The opposition to slavery in the western territory became strengthened when Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. Without a single Southern vote, it became evident that the South’s influence disappeared. “Feeling excluded from the political system, they turned to the only alternative they believed was left to them: secession, a political decision that led directly to war.”, (Black Civil War Soldier Facts).
African Americans were not always on the frontlines of war, many were assigned labor positions in which pertained to war nurses, cooks, and camp builders. African American Confederates were forced to participate in the war efforts by their masters. “Blacks on both sides of the war served in relief roles, for example, working as nurses, cooks, and blacksmiths. The South refused to arm blacks but used them to build fortifications and perform camp duties;”, (African Americans In the Civil War). Most notably, Hariett Tubman led a raid outside Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1863. Similarly, abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass aspired to prove that slavery was wrong. Statistics show that 100,000 blacks or more supported the Confederacy. “Four million slaves inhabited 15 states and territories. Generally, it has not been recognized that in Southern states, along with the 4 million slaves, there were about 400,000 free African Americans. While they did not have equal rights, many were successful businesspeople and some were extensive slaveholders themselves.”, (The President’s Order №252). Appalling, for this contradicts much of what is conceived about colonial America and slavery. Furthermore, African Americans were prominent figures in shaping the structure of the battlefield.
The hidden figures of the Civil War, the Shadow Soldiers, were part of a diverse group who fought for their own justifications regarding freedom. Some fought for emancipation, others contributed to states’ rights, and others were laborers. American “nationalism fused with antislavery conviction to produce an ideological mix of Liberty and Union, one and inseparable.”, (McPherson, 2011), which mislead many to believe that the Civil War was fought for slavery outrightly by white soldiers. But upon realization, the Civil War was indeed fought for emancipation by a majority of the Shadow Soldiers and hence, to say the civil war was or was not fought for slavery would be incorrect, for it must be considered that there were participants of different creeds, different hopes, different dreams, and different retrospective realities in which they wanted to achieve.
Cited Sources:
African Americans In The Civil War. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2020, from https://www.historynet.com/african-americans-in-the-civil-war
Black Civil War Soldier Facts. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2020, from http://www.civil-war-facts.com/Black-Civil-War-Soldiers-Facts/Black-Civil-War-Soldiers-Facts.html
Causes Of The Civil War | History Detectives. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2020, from http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/causes-of-the-civil-war/
McPherson, J. (2011, September 22). The Civil War: Why They Fought. Retrieved October 13, 2020, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Civil-War-Why-They-Fought-The-1793303
Russell, S. (2016, April 13). 10 Surprising Facts About the American Civil War. Retrieved October 13, 2020, from https://www.warhistoryonline.com/american-civil-war/10-things-american-civil-war.html
Stauffer, J. (2015, January 20). Yes, There Were Black Confederates. Here’s Why. Retrieved October 13, 2020, from https://www.theroot.com/yes-there-were-black-confederates-here-s-why-1790858546
The President’s Order №252. (n.d.). Retrieved October 13, 2020, from http://ernest.roberts.net/earBLACK_POW1863.html
