 Emancipation Proclamation  allow AA to enlist in Union military  Nearly 180k free black men & fugitives slaves served in the Union army  1 st all-black Regiment  54 th Massachusetts  Another 15k served in the Navy  Black Soldiers were   Commanded by white officers  Paid Less  Segregated from white troops  South refused to accept black soldiers until the end of the war  Used for digging, cooking, driving wagons, etc.

 Confederates  Slept without blankets  Scavenged for shoes  Food  cornmeal bread, potatoes, beans, fruits, & vegetables  Union  Many not used to life in battle  Living without luxuries  Food  hardtack, dried salt pork, potatoes, fruits, & vegetables  Hard biscuit made of wheat flour

 Soldiers were not prepared for horrors of battle  “Yankee” (Union soldier) stood a 1 in 8 chance of dying due to illness & a 1 in 18 chance of dying in battle  Rebel faced a 1 in 5 chance of succumbing to disease & a 1 in 8 chance of dying in combat.

 Mid-19 th century  Doctors had little knowledge of infection & germs  Used same unsterilized instruments on all patients  Infection spread rapidly in field hospitals  Disease killed thousands of men during the war  Crowded camps + unsanitary water = rampant illness  Small pox, dysentery, & pneumonia were common  Doctors constantly used amputation because:  Wounds so severe that limbs were useless  Prevent gangrene & other infections

 Place for captured enemy soldiers (POWs)  Poorly planned and managed  Horrendously overcrowded  Disease infested  lack of hygiene  1863  prisoner exchange breaks down  After EP  South would not exchange captured AA soldiers (treated black soldiers as “rebel slaves” and punished them by death; Lincoln says they are federal soldiers and will execute a confederate soldier for every federal soldier put to death.)  Re-enslave or execute them  Lincoln stops prisoner exchange: Causes MASSIVE overcrowding  South could barely feed Union POWs

 Confederate Prison Camp  Opened in February 1864 (14 months)  Purpose- move federal prisoners from Richmond area to place of greater security  45,000 POWs  13,000 deaths (100 per day)  Disease, Starvation, Exposure, Cruelty  Severe overcrowding: at one time, 33,000 men were imprisoned in a space meant for 10,000  Prison Commander  Captain Henry Wirz  only man executed for war crimes in the Civil War

 End of 1862  South’s economy began to suffer b/c of severe food shortages  Collapse of transportation system  Blockade of Southern ports  Union presence in major agricultural regions  Confederate soldiers began to desert to tend to families suffering from hardships of the war  Spring 1863  food shortages led to riots  Richmond, VA  several hundred women loot stores for food & clothing  Davis sends in troops to confront & disperse

 Union’s economy expanded during the war  Industries supported by the banks  Northern factories operated continuously to provide troops with uniforms & supplies  Need for workers created jobs & increased circulation of money

 Filled labor positions vacated by men  Farmers  Factory workers  Operated sewing machines  Government clerks  Accompanied men in the fields  Cooking, sewing, and washing  Some Confederate women acted as spies against the Union  Some women went into combat dressed as men: Love, Money, Boredom, Gender Identity

 Women gradually replace men at army nurses  Inspired by famous British nurse  Florence Nightingale  Elizabeth Blackwell  1 st female physician in US  Started 1 st training program for nurses  Created US Sanitary Commission  Provided medical assistance & supplies to army camps & hospitals  Raised money to send clean bandages, medicine, & food to soldiers  Southern women  used their houses to found small hospitals for Confederate soldiers

 Called the “Angel of the Battlefield”  Led search parties to look for wounded  Insisted on constantly using clean bandages to help protect wounds from infection  Used own knife to dig out bullets from soldiers  Established American Red Cross in 1881  Today  provides emergency assistance, disaster relief & medical education to US