How Lincoln Changed The Union's View Of The Civil War

From The Bottom to The Top
At the beginning of the Civil War, Abe Lincoln made it clear that the goal of the Union was not to end slavery, but rather to keep the country as a whole (The 54th Massachusetts Infantry, n.d.). However, over time it became evident that the Civil War was not a war to only keep the Union together, but also to end slavery. Groups such as, northerner abolitionists, helped argued and persuade that the Civil War was being fought to end slavery and that African Americans should have the right to be able to fight for their freedom in the war. It was not until almost two years into the war when Abe Lincoln delivered his Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, that changed the Union’s view of the Civil War. From this
The public believed that African Americans could not be in charge of their regiments, which is why officer Robert Shaw was asked to command the 54th regiment. African American soldiers also did not receive the same wage as a white soldier Although it was promoted as they would be paid $13 per month, in reality they only got paid $10 a month whereas white soldiers got paid $13 a month to fight in the war (Farewell & Co., 1863). African American soldiers also had to pay an extra $3 for their uniform. Because of this black soldier boycotted their pay until they received the same wage as a white soldier. In this letter Francis H. Fletcher, a black soldier wrote about how he and the other soldiers were boycotting their pay until they got the same wage as a white
Just one year ago [today] our regt was received in Boston with almost an ovation, and at 5 P. M. it will be one year since we were safely on board transport clear of Battery Wharf and bound to this Department: in that one year no man of our regiment has received a cent of monthly pay all through the glaring perfidy of the U.S. Gov’t. I cannot any more condemn nor recite our wrongs, but console myself that One who is able has said vengeance is mine and I will repay. All the misery and degradation suffered in our regiment by its members’ families is not atoned for by the passage of the bill for equal pay (Fletcher, 28 May.1864).
African American soldiers also didn’t receive the same amount of rations or even medical care. It not until almost a year later, June of 1864, when Congress granted black soldiers the same wage, the same rations, and the same medical care as white soldiers.
After weeks of preparing at Camp Meigs, a military camp, the 54th Regiment was ready for battle. However, before the battle, the Confederate Congress passed an act stating that any captured black soldier or white officer in command of a black regiment would be put to death (America’s Civil War: 54th Massachusetts Regiment, n.d.). Many southerners believed that giving black people weapons was a terrible idea. They believed that they would go back to their previous owner and hurt them because their owners hurt them (Civil War Blacks