Civil War Part Four:The US Colored Troops and the Emancipation Proclamation

The Civil War began in 1861. At that time there were approximately four million African Americans living in the US. While there were almost half a million free African Americans at that time, most were still enslaved. 

The Emancipation Proclamation, proposed by President Lincoln, promised freedom, but only after the war. 

Many Black and white abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, and New York Times Editor Horace Greeley, had long implored the President to free the enslaved. But, while Lincoln's personal view was that all people everywhere should be free, his main objective was the preservation of the Union.

In a letter to the President, Douglass famously proclaimed:

"Once let the Black  man get upon his person the brass letters ‘US’, let him get an eagle his button, a musket upon his shoulder, and bullets in his pockets and there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned his right to citizenship in the United States".

But Lincoln would not allow Blacks to fight until it became clear
that the Union might loose the war without the enlistment of the Black soldier.

On January 01,1862, President Lincoln, using his authority as Commander & Chief of the Army & Navy, signed an executive order freeing the enslaved in states that were still in rebellion against the Union. He called it a,"necessary war measure".

As a result, in 1863 the Bureau of US Colored Troops(USCT) was established by the President using his authority as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The bureau was charged with recruiting, training, outfitting and deploying a force that would eventually grow to over 200,000 African American, and 12,000 Latin American soldiers.

This year, 2013, is the 150th anniversary of  the enactment of The Emancipation Proclamation. 

For more go to: www.afroamcivilwar.org