Contrabands Join The Union Cause
Many contraband slaves and free blacks voluntarily served in the Union Army, forming the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT). Some also became scouts, guides, spies, cooks, hospital workers, blacksmiths, and mule-drivers, contributing immensely to the Union war effort for the balance of the Civil War. Numerous Union officers became more aware of both the potential and plight of the contrabands, and worked for and made contributions to educational efforts for them, even after the War.
See also: Samuel Chapman Armstrong and William Jackson PalmerRead more about this topic: Grand Contraband Camp
Famous quotes containing the words join and/or union:
““To dine!” she shrieked in dragon-wrath.
“To swallow wines all foam and froth!
To simper at a table-cloth!”
Say, can thy noble spirit stoop
To join the gormandising troop
Who find solace in the soup?”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“These semi-traitors [Union generals who were not hostile to slavery] must be watched.—Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of this Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery—in fact, its only enemy.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)