The African Americans and the Unions Army - Research Paper Example

THE INFLUENCE OF THE AFRICAN AMERICANS PARTICIPATION ON WAR IN 1861-1865 The purpose of this paper is to find out the extent to which the participation of African Americans was instrumental in the victory of the union over the confederacy from 1861 to 1865. The African Americans joined the Union’s army in order to stop slavery. This led to widening of the Union’s military size even though they were not as experienced as the white soldiers were. The civil war was mainly fought between the southern and the northern states. The war included almost 3.5 million soldiers. The war led to almost 600, 000 deaths thus affecting almost all families in the areas. During the war, both men and women participated in order to ensure success. In the struggle, Spies were used as the main source of information. The cooperation of soldiers, men, women and medical personnel led victory of the Union army. Introduction In 1861, African Americans joined the Union’s army because the South would not abolish slavery. African American men were frontline soldiers, while the women served as medical personnel and both men and women served as intelligence operatives for the Union. Collectively, African American represented the most creative and productive allies to the Union forces throughout the Civil War and for those reasons African American participation in the Civil War was instrumental in the Union’s victory over the Confederacy. African-American inclusion heavily increased Union’s military size The Union’s utilization of African-Americans gave them an overwhelming advantage over the Confederates, something they could not overcome. The service provide by the African American soldiers during the civil war represented one of the dramatic episodes history of black Americans in the US. Over a very short period, the black men changed their status from being powerless individuals to being part of the liberating army that helped to set free a population of approximately four million slaves from bondage. Since they were large in numbers, they were capable of making a difference in the state of war through their total commitment. However, these soldiers were not very experienced as compared to the white soldiers thus their services as soldiers were not permitted at the initial stages but they fought for the right to fight (Polednak 87). The white soldiers had no other choice rather than accepting them to fight since this would strengthen the army. After being accepted by the union army, the black men had to serve in separate units under the control of white officers. Even though their senior officers handled the soldiers differently with concern to the color difference, the army was still strong to concur their enemies. Considering the terms of payment, the federal government tried to pay the white soldiers more that the African Americans soldiers thus subjecting them to other forms of discrimination that were humiliating and ill treatment. However, the black soldiers served loyally without considering all the mistreatments from both the senior officers and the government and proved their worth in the field of battle thus winning the grudging admiration of their Confederate enemies as well as a permanent place in the U.S. Army. The service provided by the black soldiers seemed doubtful at the start of the Civil War. White Southerners and Northerners shared the same opinion that the conflict was to be would be a war for white men only but it never came true. In part, the opposition to black soldiers was as a result of the racist attitude that African Americans were temperamentally and mentally unsuited for all the military services. The White population acknowledged the myth in spite of the involvement of black men in both the Revolutionary War and in the War of 1812. However, the resistance to black military service is also believed to have stemmed from notion of citizenship in the early nineteenth-century. This is because the Americans had tended to see the act of citizenship as not only giving rights, but also bring about duties with the military service being the foremost. As a result the white men feared that if black men were permissible to serve the country, they would therefore have a very strong argument for alleging citizenship rights, having borne the most onerous obligation of citizenship. As it discussed above, it was not an easy thing for the black Americans to be involved in the army but after being allowed to carry out the army operations in the civil war, it boosted the US army that led to the defeat of their enemies (Crowe 261). The drive of African-Americans soldiers for victory was degradable by none One out of three African Americans sacrificed for the Union’s cause (freedom) which is a stat that others did not meet. Several prominent leaders including George T. Downing, Henry Highland Garnet, Martin R. Delany and William Wells Brown recruited literally thousands of young black Americans for the Union army. They were hoping that their service provision would help in the transformation of the struggle into one that would render the slaves free and bring the African Americans equal rights in a redeemed and transformed republic. Some of the white persons had the tendency of sharing the aspirations of black Americans. The politicians and army officers with abolitionist sentiments that dissented from racism and the lack of interest toward slavery in the North saw the black enlistment as a way to demoralize slavery and reinforce postwar claims of African Americans for citizenship. As a result, they decided to organize black military units on their own without the knowledge of the federal government in the US. James H. Lane who was a Kansas abolitionist turned U.S. senator made an effort to organize organized the foremost all-black unit in the Union army known as the Kansas Colored Regiment in the month of July 1862. Moreover, General John W. Phelps who was in the Department of the Gulf in Louisiana and his counterpart General David Hunter from the Sea Islands region of Georgia and South Carolina also made a recruitment of the African Americans for military service. However, none of these individuals had the power to recruit black soldiers since their aim was to force President Abraham Lincoln together with the War Department to acknowledge all the black soldiers by presenting their existence as a fait accompli (Polednak 67). However, the administration of Lincoln disavowed all the activities of Hunter, Lane and Phelps as premature and unauthorized. Up to 1862 in September, that Lincoln remained reluctant to take any action that could alienate slaveholders in the loyal Border States; this included the areas of Confederacy under the Union occupation. At the fall of 1862, Lincoln was arriving at a conclusion that all the black soldiers in the Union army were a regarded as a military necessity. The Congress pressured the President in this direction by enacting the Militia Act of July 1862. This Act gave an authority to recruit people with the African origin in to the army. With the legal impediment and executive opposition to black recruitment melting away, other leaders from the North began to organize the black regiments in the 1862 fall. Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts for a long time had favored the black enlistment in the Union army. He therefore recruited the African Americans not only in Massachusetts but also throughout the North. At the time that the Battle of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, began where the Confederate forces had critically called into question the Union control of the state, Benjamin F. Butler who was a general began recruit the African natives to boost his forces. Moreover, due to the fact that the black soldiers had a great success at the Fort Wager (Fuchs 25). The success of black soldiers at Fort Wagner, Milliken’s Bend and Port Hudson led to the ravenous need of the Union army for fresh soldiers that were mostly composed of the African Americans thus leading to the encouragement of the large-scale enlistment of African Americans (Bolden 154). At this time round, President Lincoln willingly gave his blessing to the effort in his last Emancipation Proclamation on 1st January 1863. The Union recruiters spread out across the North, the Union-occupied South and the Border States. Thousands of black men were willing to be recruited in to the army since they had the eager of liberating their race from bondage as soon as they join the army. However, some of the recruiters were not above using coercion or trickery when African-American recruits were not forthcoming immediately. Tens of thousands of black American men poured into the Union ranks thus making it necessary to regularize the aspect of administrative supervision among the black troops. In addition, the War department in the year1863 organized the bureau of colored troops; it reorganized the existence of black regiments as federalized units with an exception of the Massachusetts and the Connecticut black regiments. By the end of the war the colored troops of the US (USCT), composed of 163 regiments whereby most of them were mostly infantry; however, there were also artillery and cavalry unit. According to the statistics of the federal statistics, 178,975 of black men served in the Union army during the period of the Civil War. Moreover, approximately of 18,000 black men joined the U.S. Navy (Polednak 87). All the soldiers in USCT served under white officers since the War Department was very reluctant to commission the African Americans as officers. Only a few white soldiers were willing to be placed in positions where they would be taking orders from black American men. At the war period, the qualified African Americans at sometimes-received commissions as surgeons, chaplain, or surgeon that left them outside of the chain of command (Goff and Robert 45). The Louisiana Native Guards were very important at that time since they were recognized with African-American officers. A former Democratic congressional representative from the Massachusetts, General Butler, was the one in charge of Union-occupied New Orleans. The General got very impressed with the refinement and intelligence of the free colored elite of the City. He therefore shrewdly recognized the promise that the commissions would make thus leading men in that community to be energetic recruiters. As result, the regiments of Native Guards were filled faster and thereafter, Butler came through with promised commissions. The black officers led Native Guard regiments to their first battles of assaulting Port Hudson approximately thirty miles above Baton Rouge as well as blocking the Confederate movement from west at the Milliken’s Bend. The Black troops also made a heroic performance at each location. Nevertheless, despite their success as leaders who were said to be combat, the successor of Butler , Nathaniel Banks, went ahead to make an ultimately successful and determined effort to purge the African-American officers from Native Guards. Banks who was the successor also played a major role by encouraging the white soldiers to defy the African-American officers. Banks ordered black officers to appear before the qualifying boards so as to make a presentation of the requirements required for men who had already become leaders in the military. Surpassed the limitations of many other men to gain victory Executed essential guerilla warfare tactics in major states which others did not dare to do before them. During the American Civil War, a large number of the Southern sympathizers formed several irregular organizations for supporting the war effort against Union forces. They mainly operated throughout the border state areas and southern. Various forces that were irregular employed classic guerrilla techniques that included raids, hit and run attacks, disrupting Federal lines of communications and several ambushes to harass the Federal forces (Fowlern 62). They also made attacks on pro-Union sympathizers, destroying and seizing the private property for the purpose of exacting revenge or to congregating provisions for their forces. The Confederate authorities also sanctioned some irregular forces such as Partisan Rangers while other groups operated in a very loose association that supported the Southern cause. Moreover, the most important contribution that these guerrilla forces made towards the Confederate war effort was tying down as much as one-third of the Union Army to the occupation duties at very different stages of war. However, President Abraham Lincoln made recognition of the impact of guerrilla activities in one of his writings.  These guerrilla operations during the period of American Civil War required the Federal government to make an expansion on significant effort in the attempts to restrain their support for the Confederate war effort. Initially, the federal government attempted to ease the effects of guerrilla operations with modest policies to pacify the local populaces thus deteriorating their support to irregular forces. This was along with the use of the black man and white man military force to suppress guerrilla activities. Federal policies were more severe as the war continued thus making the Union forces to be frustrated in their efforts to overcome the guerrilla forces. Federal government then occupied portions of the Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri and Western Virginia to protect the pro-Union governments as well as the citizens in the volatile border area while agitation against Confederate regular forces continued. By late 1862, most common technique that was placed in place by the Union forces was the establishment of small posts in major towns throughout the region that was supported by reserve mobile forces located in the county seats distracting the troop strength away from the conventional battles. The forces that were committed to the counter-guerrilla effort controlled sweeps, patrols and raids throughout the already occupied areas to track as well as defeat the guerrilla forces. Moreover, the Union efforts also involved forces in defensive positions for securing bridges, railroads and other points of key facilities and terrain. In addition to the military efforts, the commanders also used policy measures to combat the guerrilla activities. The Major General Henry W. Halleck who was a commander of the Department of the Mississippi made a declaration in March 1862 that any personality caught conducting sabotage was to be guaranteed as an outlaw thus deserving a direct gunshot on the spot. Another policy that stemmed the guerrilla effectiveness was Order No. 11 that was issued in 1863 by General Thomas Ewing, a commander of the District of the Border between the Missouri and Kansas. The purpose of the order was to depopulate Jackson, Bates, Vernon and Cass counties along the Missouri border to disallow sanctuary for the guerrillas (Moore 165). Some Historians like James G. Randall believed African-American soldiers were insignificant in the Civil War Thought black soldiers were just dead weight in the war and were not skilled enough to be mandated as a major force to be reckoned with. During the war period, Blacks Americans were generally frustrated in their efforts to join the Union army. According to the Historian Michael Burlingame, Some of the blacks had begun serving aboard Union warships in the early 1861 fall. It was not very clear whether the slaves who were mostly the blacks could be set free at some point and grant power in the military. The blacks were at many times informed firmly that only the people with white skin had to join military since the people with African origin were rendered to have no skill in such crucial fights. When the black enlistments was prohibited, all the [people with African origin did not take it positively especially those from the North. However, I strongly disagree with the fact that not all the black Americans were suitable to participate in the military activities since they had the ability (Foner 85). They were muscular and therefore could apply the same in the field of battle. As the African-American men were fighting, the women were the strong backbone of support during the civil war between 1861 and1865 According to the nurse’s historians, approximately 3000 to 8000 women volunteered to act as nurses during the war. Moreover, a large number of the volunteering women originated from the Northern states. These nurses had various responsibilities to carry out as volunteers such as; making sure that all patients were well fed with a correct balance diet, Managing a the physical needs for all the patients under their care, distributing to them various commodities such as blankets and clothes given to them by the suppliers. Moreover, the nurses also had the responsibility of Caring for the spiritual and emotional needs of the patients (Gary 54). This also included the activities from daily conversation with patients, activities revolving around letter writing as well as reading for them. Others composed songs and sang for the patients while others brought them flowers. The female presence in the hospitals lightened the minds and hearts of the soldiers might not have seen a woman over a very long period. In their perspective, female nurses took on the roles of mothers, sisters or daughters, III. Medical Personnel (Nurses) The medical personnel attended to a large mass of injured soldiers The civil war was fought between the southern and northern states of the US. By the end of the war, approximately 600,000 people were left dead. Additionally, most people were injured and were left in critical conditions. Therefore, the medical personnel involved played a crucial role during the struggle. They attended to a large number of individuals or soldiers who had injuries. The African American nurses were quick to give or offer their services whenever they were required. This is the main part they played during the struggle The confederate medical personnel include the civilian employees, medical officers and soldiers on duty. Medical officers consisted of surgeons and their assistants in the military service. On the other hand, the civilian employees who were involved are the druggists, matrons, hospital attendants, nurses, stewards, laundresses, cooks, ward masters and manual laborers. The medical personnel scheduled their acts by specifying themselves and the type of service to offer thus giving quick services whenever is needed (Foner 67). This helped to save many lives and treat the wounded to quick recovery as the war continued. The delivery of medicine and clean supplies to soldiers Due to their categories and quick services, the medical personnel were able to provide medical attention to those who needed them. They offered medicine and delivered clean supplies. For instance, most black medical personnel from the United Aid for Ethiopia provided medical supplies and furthermore, raised money in the community in order to assist the wounded soldiers and the soldiers at war. Moreover, the black relief doctors and workers raised money in order to buy an equipped ambulance that would help to make work easier in Spain (James 95). The medical officers and civilians did quality work, which facilitated better recovery by soldiers Soldiers called the medical personnel the “battlefield angels.” This is because of the required effort they put in order to ensure quick recovery of the patients. For instance, they helped in feeding the sick, bathing the sick and the distressed soldiers as well as changing bandages. The medical personnel worked hard to ensure that they save wounded individuals in critical condition. They also treated those with mere wounds so that they could recover fast and continue with the battle. They were determined to offer quality work that would boost quick recovery (Glatthaar 83). They were very determined and strong willed Even though the medical practitioners faced many obstacles and feared to be killed like the soldiers, they were over determined to carry out their work. The practitioners faced many challenges in their work. For instance, there were difficulties in transport. They also faced the problem of being killed in the war. Moreover, most important instruments that would help in treatment were only available in hospitals and could not be carried along in the battlefield. Despite of all these problems, they were still determined to do their best in order to save more lives. They therefore, risked their lives as they move from place to place attending to the wounded soldiers and offering other services such as, supplying food, cleaning wounds and bandaging them. They also nursed those in critical conditions and fed those who could not feed by themselves. Additionally, they moved offering support and responded quickly whenever they were required (Greene 64). Their act aided in making the war successful since they gave the Union extra moral support they required. Men and women also played another important role that was essential for victory as the cycle of nurses and soldiers continued to run simultaneously During the war, most African American men and women came out in large numbers to offer their support to the soldiers participating in war. For examples, the volunteers walked from house to house, door-to-door collecting money that would help cover for other expenses such us buying food and medical facilities for the participants. In addition, they offered their support such as carrying the wounded to hospitals and offering food to them. Men volunteered to help the soldiers in the fight and by supplying them with more weapons when they were needed. Women on the other hand helped in cooking food for the soldiers. Moreover, they encouraged them and gave them more courage to fight for victory. Women also responded quickly whenever they were required and participated whole-heartedly. They offered cloths, food, raised money and took care of the infants as the men assisted soldiers. IV. Intelligence Operatives (Spies) The intelligence operatives gathered information about changing of war The main role of the spies was to gather information. They investigated about the Confederate soldier’s movements, their plans and directions and display to the Union. This assists the soldiers to know the steps and movements of their opponents thus making wise decisions that would lead to victory. The Intelligent Operatives used various tricks and tactics of gathering information from the confederates. The spies are wise or intelligent beings who can use their knowledge to get a lot of information about their enemies. This therefore, helped the Unionists to study their enemies and attack them in a style. Acted as source of information The intelligent operatives were considered the main source of information to the Union. For instance, Confederate General Robert E Lee recognized the IOs as the central means through which the Union gets information. Through the information gathered by the intelligence operatives, the Union made wise plans that led them to victory since they conquered their enemies. The Union was generally updated to the Confederate tricks and war-changes they made through the intelligence operatives. The Intelligence Operatives were totally loyal to the Union The IOs were very deceiving while they gathered information. They deceived the Confederates as they acted with intelligence and got the information they required. On the other hand, they were loyal to the Union and offered them with the information they needed. Destroyed documents after usage The spies were very wise since they destroyed every document they used after using them to avoid being traced. They did this in order to be safe from the Confederate Soldiers and sympathizers in the course of the war. In case they were traced, they could be killed for betraying and deceiving the Confederates. Therefore, they had to destroy the links they used. They were considered very innocent people The spies were seen as cool headed, vigilant detectives who wisely tricked the confederate around them. They reacted calm and innocent with a hidden motive of gathering information. One of the individuals who were considered as humble is John Scobell. Many recruits were scouted for the cause of the Union Most slaves were persuaded to leave their masters in order to join the regiment soldiers. Harriet Tubman, a famous African American led the missions that freed many slaves to join the regiment. Conclusion In conclusion, this paper demonstrates the extent to which the participation of African Americans instrumental in the victory of the union over the confederacy from 1861 to 1865. It has also been observed that the participation of the Black Americans in the civil war added strength to the US army thus enabling it to concur the enemy much easier. During the war, the army faced various challenges such as trying to fight with a group that used a guerrilla tricks. However, the inclusion o f the black Americans in to the army faced a strong opposition from the white men because they rendered them as people with no ability to fight in the army. The women played a very significant role of taking care for the injured soldiers during the war by providing the basic needs to them. Works cited Alan Farmer, The American Civil War, Hodder & Stoughton, 2002. Print. Bolden, Tonya. Tell All the Children Our Story, York: Henry A. Abrams, 2002. Print. Crowe, Chris. Mississippi Trial, 1955. New York: Phyllis Fogelman Books, 2002. Print. Crowe, Chris. The True Story of the Emmett Till Case, Phyllis Fogelman Books, Summer 2003. Print. Foner, Eric. 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