Colored Men In The Civil War Essay

The Civil War was not the first war where blacks would participate, nor would it be the last. Butler’s policy to allow blacks into Union forces, opened the opportunity for not only Virginian slaves, but other slaves throughout the South, to escape their masters. The Union army allowed a form of social elevation for the black race, influencing military duties and a form of schooling, but most importantly, offering certain legal rights that no slave could possess. The use of colored men, began with Butler’s began to use these me as a labor source for his camp. Secretary of War’s approved a contraband policy. Simon Cameron, who was Secretary of War at that time, approved Butler’s request of in taking blacks, informing him that “You will employ such persons in the service to which they may be best adapted, keeping an account of the labor by them performed, of the value of it and of the expense of their maintenance.” They were to be used as help for Union laborers and not as soldiers.
“…these men were about to be taken to Carolina for the purpose of aiding the secession forces there…the negroes in this neighborhood are now being employed in the erection of batteries and other works by the rebels which it would be nearly or quite impossible to construct without their labor.” For the Confederates, they had no plans of involving colored troops in their units; only used as laborers in military camps. When Congressed passed the use of blacks for any military or naval use, Confederates denounced the idea because of fears or wild threats or retaliation. When Confederate leaders encountered color troops, it infuriated them, “…I most earnestly request that these negroes be made an example of. They are slaves taken with arms in hand against their masters and wearing the abolition