Military History of African Americans in The American Civil War - Union Army

Union Army

Our Presidents, Governors, Generals and Secretaries are calling, with almost frantic vehemence, for men.-"Men! men! send us men!" they scream, or the cause of the Union is gone...and yet these very officers, representing the people and the Government, steadily, and persistently refuse to receive the very class of men which have a deeper interest in the defeat and humiliation of the rebels than all others.

-Frederick Douglass

The issue of raising black regiments in the Union's war efforts was at first met with trepidation by officials within the Union command structure, Abraham Lincoln included. Concerns over the response of the border states (of which one, Maryland, surrounded Washington D.C.), the response of white soldiers and officers, as well as the effectiveness of a colored fighting force were raised. Despite official reluctance from above, a number of officers in the field experimented, with varying degrees of success, in raising black regiments, including David Hunter, James H. Lane, and Benjamin F. Butler.

On July 17, 1862, Congress passed two acts allowing the enlistment of African Americans, but official enrollment occurred only after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863. However, state and local militia units had already begun enlisting blacks, including the Black Brigade of Cincinnati, raised in September to help provide manpower to thwart a feared Confederate raid on Cincinnati.

In actual numbers, African American soldiers comprised 10% of the entire Union Army. Losses among African Americans were high, and from all reported casualties, approximately 20% of all African Americans enrolled in the military lost their lives during the Civil War. Notably, their mortality rate was significantly higher than white soldiers;

find, according to the revised official data, that of the slightly over two millions troops in the United States Volunteers, over 316,000 died (from all causes), or 15.2%. Of the 67,000 Regular Army (white) troops, 8.6%, or not quite 6,000, died. Of the approximately 180,000 United States Colored Troops, however, over 36,000 died, or 20.5%. In other words, the mortality rate amongst the United States Colored Troops in the Civil War was thirty-five percent greater than that among other troops, notwithstanding the fact that the former were not enrolled until some eighteen months after the fighting began.

Herbert Aptheker

Read more about this topic:  Military History Of African Americans In The American Civil War

Famous quotes containing the words union and/or army:

    The admission of the States of Wyoming and Idaho to the Union are events full of interest and congratulation, not only to the people of those States now happily endowed with a full participation in our privileges and responsibilities, but to all our people. Another belt of States stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
    Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)

    It is necessary to turn political crisis into armed crisis by performing violent actions that will force those in power to transform the military situation into a political situation. That will alienate the masses, who, from then on, will revolt against the army and the police and blame them for this state of things.
    Carlos Marighella (d. 1969)