1. Who Freed the Slaves? The Civil War and Reconstruction Patrick Rael Associate Professor Bowdoin College

2. Introduction  From a war for union  To a war to end slavery  The key: the agency of African Americans themselves

3. Emancipation from the bottom up  day-to-day resistance during the war  the significance of flight  proximity of Union lines

4. Eastman Johnson, “Ride for Liberty: The Fugitive Slaves” (1862-63)

5. Emancipation from the bottom up  General Benjamin F. Butler, Fortress Monroe, Va., 1861  Slaves are “contraband of war”  Every slave removed from the Confederacy = one Union worker

6. Slaves behind Union lines lived in “contraband” camps. Life was difficult, but many former slaves received their first formal schooling in such camps.

7. Slave contrabands often worked the most odious details

8. Emancipation from the top down: in the field  What to do with enslaved African Americans behind Union lines?  General John C. Frémont, Missouri, 1861  General David Hunter, South Carolina and Georgia, 1862

9. General John C. Fremont General David Hunter

10. Emancipation from the top down: in Congress  The war stalemates  First Confiscation Act (1861): masters cannot reclaim slaves  Second Confiscation Act (1862): slaves of disloyal citizens “forever free”  Abolition of slavery in District of Columbia and U.S. territories

11. Rejoicing over abolition of slavery in District of Columbia, 1862

12. Emancipation from the top down: Lincoln  Transformation of war aims Risks losing border states Military necessity of emancipation  Emancipation Proclamation Preliminary draft, September 1862

13. “President Lincoln, writing the Proclamation of Freedom,” Currier and Ives

14. Emancipation from the top down: Lincoln  Transformation of war aims Risks losing border states Military necessity of emancipation  Emancipation Proclamation Preliminary draft, September 1862 Goes into effect January 1, 1863 Declares slaves in Confederate lands free

15. Lincoln, presenting the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet

16. “Emancipation,” idealized vision of life before and after

17. Emancipation Proclamation: effects  Transforms war from war for union to war against slavery Keeps Great Britain from allying with Confederacy Sets precedent for freedom Enlists the enslaved in the Union war effort

18. Recruitment of black soldiers  54 th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (the “Glory” regiment)  1 st South Carolina Volunteers  189,000 African Americans serve in Union army and navy

19. Recruiting posters for African- American troops

20. Many former slaves served as Union soldiers

34. Black service  Port Hudson, LA  Milliken’s Bend, MI  Ft. Wagner, SC

35. The Battle of Milliken's Bend, fought June 7, 1863, was part of the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. Confederate Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton and his army were besieged in Vicksburg, Mississippi, by Union commander Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Tennessee. Grant observed that despite their inexperience, the black troops had "behaved well." Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana wrote, "The bravery of the blacks completely revolutionized the sentiment of the army with regard to the employment of negro troops." Having seen how they could fight, many were won over to arming them for the Union.

37. Port Hudson  Siege of Port Hudson: May 21 to July 9, 1863, when Union Army troops assaulted and then surrounded the Mississippi River town of Port Hudson, Louisiana, during the American Civil War  first major use of black troops as combatants in the Civil War

38. 54 th Massachusetts, assaulting Fort Wagner, South Carolina

42. The reconstruction of black labor  War aims transformed by necessity, not a change in attitudes  First priority after the war: sectional reconciliation

43. Lincoln’s plan for reconstruction  Under what conditions can former Confederate states re-enter the Union?  “10% plan” (December 1863) “Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction” 10% of population must swear oath of loyalty to Union Must ratify 13 th Amendment abolishing slavery Freedpeople: ??

44. The “Port Royal Experiment”  South Carolina Sea Islands, 1861  Experiment in “free labor”  Abolitionists, missionaries and philanthropists  “Gideon’s Band”: James Miller McKim, Edward S. Phillsbrick

45. What they wanted  The freedpeople:  Subsistence crops  Production for local exchange networks  Work in families on own land  The planters:  Cotton  Production for international capitalist economy  Work in gangs for share of crop

46. The labor negotiation  Freedpeople vs. planters  Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees, and Abandoned Lands (“Freedmen’s Bureau”)

47. Idealized image of a Freedman’s Bureau officer at work

48. The labor negotiation  Freedpeople vs. planters  Bureau of Freedmen, Refugees, and Abandoned Lands (“Freedmen’s Bureau”)  The result = sharecropping local credit monopolies collusion with local white officials

49. Conclusion: Who freed the slaves?  What was the sine qua non of black freedom?  African Americans struggled to create their own lives in freedom  The letter of the law insufficient to guarantee black freedom  Emancipation and enfranchisement the products of expedience, not enlightenment  An important precedent for biracial democracy