1. African Americans in the Civil
War
Kenneth Harris

2. Quote
• "Once let the black man get upon his person the brass
letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a
musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is
no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the
right to citizenship.“ - Frederick Douglass

3. A White Man's War
• Black soldiers had fought in the Revolutionary War and
unofficially served in the War of 1812,
• State militias had excluded African Americans since
1792.
• The U.S. Army had never accepted black soldiers, but
The U.S. Navy let African-Americans serve as shipboard
firemen, stewards, coal heavers and even boat pilots
since 1861

4. The Second Confiscation and
Militia Act of 1862
• After two grueling years of war, President
Lincoln began to reconsider his position on black
soldiers.
• The Union Army badly needed soldiers. White
volunteers were dwindling in number, and
African-Americans were more eager to fight than
ever.
• The Second Confiscation and Militia Act of July
17, 1862, was the first step toward the
enlistment of African Americans in the Union
Army.

5. The 54th Massachusetts
• February 1863, the abolitionist Governor
John A. Andrew of Massachusetts issued
the Civil War’s first official call for black
soldiers. More than 1,000 men responded.
• They formed the 54th Massachusetts
Infantry Regiment, the first black regiment
to be raised in the North
• Many of the 54th soldiers did not even
come from Massachusetts
• One-quarter came from slave states, and

6. Confederate Threats
• The Union army was reluctant to use African-American troops in
combat. This was partly due to racism.
• There were many Union officers who believed that black soldiers
were not as skilled or as brave as white soldiers were.
• With this logic, they thought that African Americans were better
suited for jobs as carpenters, cooks, guards, scouts and teamsters.
• Black soldiers and their officers were also in grave danger if they
were captured in battle.
• Confederate President Jefferson Davis called the Emancipation
Proclamation “the most execrable measure in the history of guilty
man” and promised that black prisoners of war would be enslaved
or executed on the spot.

7. The Fight for Equal Pay
• The U.S. Army paid black soldiers $10 a week (minus a clothing
allowance, in some cases), while white soldiers got $3 more (plus a
clothing allowance, in some cases). Congress passed a bill
authorizing equal pay for black and white soldiers in 1864.
• By the time the war ended in 1865, about 180,000 black men had
served as soldiers in the U.S. Army. This was about 10 percent of
the total Union fighting force.
• Most—about 90,000—were former (or “contraband”) slaves from the
Confederate states.
• half of the rest were from the loyal border states, and the rest were
free blacks from the North. Forty thousand black soldiers died in the
war: 10,000 in battle and 30,000 from illness or infection.
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