Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

[Hank Trent]

I know this is an old topic, but I believe this is a new spin on it, so bear with me. :)

I just read the Emancipation Proclamation, and here's what struck me. It was issued in two parts, the September announcement that slaves in disloyal areas would be declared free in January, and the statement in January announcing what those areas were.

So in September 1862, the areas where slaves would soon be declared free were subject to change. Any area that stopped rebelling in the next three months, could keep their slaves. The proclamation could actually be seen as a way of encouraging slavery within the Union, or at least offering it as a bribe for loyalty. In fact, that's how Secretary Seward spun it overseas in a September circular:

In the opinion of the President, the moment has come to... make [southerners] understand that if these States persist in imposing upon the country the choice between the dissolution of this Government... and the abolition of Slavery, it is the Union, and not Slavery, that must be maintained and saved. With this object, the President is about to publish a Proclamation... (Seward's Circular to American Representatives Abroad, published in the New York Times, Oct. 27, 1862)

If I were an abolitionist who'd signed up to fight against slavery in 1861, I'd be mad. Now, suddenly, between September and January, the more victories we had, the more areas might give up rebelling, and therefore the more slave territory there would be, come January. I'd literally be fighting for the expansion of slavery in the U.S. Ouch.

Historians typically say that the Emancipation Proclamation changed the war in the north from one about preserving the union, to one about ending slavery. For example, Bruce Catton:

Until that moment, the Federal Government was fighting solely to restore the Union; officially, slavery had nothing at all to do with the war. Once the proclamation was signed, the Government was also fighting for human freedom.

Typically, also, it's reported that there was discontent among some soldiers in the Union army after the Proclamation, since it changed the avowed purpose of the war to a war against slavery, and they said they hadn't joined to fight for negroes.

And yet, taken at face value, reading the text as I might in September 1862, I don't see it that way. In fact, just the opposite. So here, at long last, is my question.

Has anyone run across examples of abolitionist Union soldiers, reporting unhappiness with the Emancipation Proclamation in the fall of 1862, for the reasons above? Or was the negative reaction only among non-abolitionist ones, who didn't like the war becoming more about slavery?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Crockett]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

I don't recall reading about Union soldiers stating that they were fighting against slavery. I recall one in a Kentucky regiment, A Kentucky Boy in Blue, saying "I'm fighting for Uncle Sam, not Uncle Sambo."

I recall reading that there were many desertions due to the proclamation and a general distaste for the proclamation amongst the citizenry up north. After all, the proclamation was unconstitutional. If I recall there were areas where slavery would be allowed to remain, i.e. the border state areas and areas under Union control. Some slaver owners, especially in areas that changed hands often, were perplexed at what to do, not knowing if they were in Confederate or Union control. Many slaves in these areas, such as Mississippi and Louisiana, complained of being used as slave labor by the Union Army, and often returned to their masters.

From what I recall, the motive behind the proclamation was not necessarily done out of a concern for the well being of slaves, but was instituted as a cunning political move designed to draw Confederate soldiers back home to protect their families, to possibly incite rebellion amongst slaves against their owners, and to further influence England and France not to support the south. Both, especially France, opposed slavery, but England was more supportive of the southern cause. Originally I believe Lincoln offered and amendment early on which would have allowed southerners to keep their slaves if the rebelling states would come back into the union. The south said no thanks, we don't need your permission.

That is my opinion of the proclamation. It wasn't worth the paper it was written on, didn't really "free" anyone, and was unconstitutional.

Joe Mode

[bAcK88]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

I might sound like a broken record to some, but people need to read Chandra Manning's What this Cruel War was Over.

In it, she debunks the myth that there was a spike in desertions in Federal Armies after the Proclamation was issued. In fact, Manning argues that the first and most vocal supporters of Emancipation were Federal soldiers serving in the South in late 1861 thru 1862. But please don't confuse a desire to see emancipation with support for equal rights. That didn't come until the Summer of 1863.

BB

[10TnVI]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

In all the diaries and letter collections I've read I only recall one instance of a specific negitive reaction and that was from a LT. who was about to muster out and expressed his intent not to reenlist. The most eloquent soldier account I've seen is one from Pvt. Silas I. Shearer of the 23rd Iowa. He was writing on Sept 23, 1863 from Brasher City, La.

(punctuation/grammar/spelling is his ownor the transcriptionists)

"You to say about the negros as far as that is concerned I have nothing much to say for my eyes dont see as they did when I left home. Since i have got down here and seen what slavery was and where it had run to it changed me in a political since of view Slavery is what caused this war and the principle of it has changed me considerable. I have had prisioners to tell me that it made no difference how much a man was worth He was nothing thought of unless he owned a negro or two and a poor man was not as much thought of as a negro and I think the best thing we can do is to wipe Slavery out but do not think it will be done at present but I do not think we will have Slavery directly but indirectly. I think it will be a gradual emancipation and what will be fit for the Army will be put init. They are just as good as Soldiers as the Whites They look like men when uniformed I have seen Regt with commisioned officers of their own color and they look sniptious. Those men up North that is so bitterly opposed to the emancipation of Slavery had serve as long a time in the South as I have there ideas would change two you people North reading Knowes nothing about such things without experience. Experience teaches a dear School but fools will learn in no other and the South is beginning to find it out. Takeing the negros from the South and arming them is one of the greatest blows that was struck. To put this rebellion down you people North may not see it but I see ithere very plane. Now you may take me to be an abolisionist but that matters nothing. I am a War Democrat and you may call me them what you please"

[Hank Trent]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

I don't recall reading about Union soldiers stating that they were fighting against slavery.

Note that I'm not talking about all Union soldiers in general. I'm specifically curious about Union soldiers who were already abolitionists. I'd expect most of them to be from the upper northeast, Massachusetts and that general area, and from other pockets like the Oberlin College area.

From further reading, it seems that the usual spokesmen for the abolitionists, like Frederick Douglas, Beecher, Greeley, etc., almost unanimously hailed the proclamation as a good thing, as soon as it was announced in September. They saw it as a sign that the administration had finally publicly committed to abolitionism and a new era of freedom was beginning. Seward was criticized over the next few months for dragging his feet on abolitionism, so his spin on the proclamation may not have reflected how the administration actually wanted it seen.

So apparently the civilian abolitionists were reading between the lines and seeing something different than I noticed on a literal reading, and of course their predictions actually did come true in the long run. I'm guessing now that most abolitionist soldiers followed suit, and they surely did after January came and it was clear that victory in the war would mean freedom for the majority of slaves.

It just seems odd that for the September to January period, abolitionists could be so strongly for the proclamation, when a quick surrender during that time period could mean returning to a country that was half-slave again.

That is my opinion of the proclamation. It wasn't worth the paper it was written on, didn't really "free" anyone, and was unconstitutional.

Um, well, thanks, but I'm more interested in their opinions.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Michael Comer]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

sniptious

Now there's a word I haven't come across before. I'll have to work that one into my vocabulary.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

Here's another puzzle. This is from an article in the New York Times, Sept. 29, 1862. It's titled a "Letter from Baltimore" so I'm not sure where these soldiers would be from, whether originally from Baltimore (not exactly a hotbed of abolitionism) or just stationed there.

The Emancipation Proclamation is discussed pro and con in the army, opinion seeming to incline toward its indorsement. Some, however, are very bitter against it. I heard an officer of the regular army, holding a staff appointment, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, declaring his intention to resign in consequence. In this case, a feeling, apart form the question as to the expediency of the measure, seemed to predominate; and the officer referred to, whom I am bound to say is both a soldier and a gentleman, expressed his repugnance to engage in what he regarded as a political warfare. Most of our troops, however, seem to concern themselves only with the question: "Cui bono?" Harsh experience has destroyed in them all feeling of sentiment in regard to the negro, and they only wish to know how he can be put to service in the suppression of the rebellion, of whose pertinacious resistance they are heartily sick. Many of them are skeptical in regard to the practical value of the proclimation [sic], for they have heard somewhere of an old receipt for cooking a hare, which commences: "First catch your hare." They would like to see the negro caught first, if possible, and then they are not likely to be over nice as to rebellious feelings in regard to chattel property. Apart from those who oppose the proclamation in toto, and the larger class of doubters who don't know exactly what to think, there is a numerous class in the army, as in the community, who regard it with unqualified approbation. It is to stimulate recruiting, say they; it will lead to a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and to the suppression of the rebellion before the coming first of January, when the negro jubilee is to be proclaimed.

The part in bold is what has me puzzled. If the author is serious, why would it lead to those things?

Or is this some kind of sarcasm, implying that northern men will enlist and fight harder to prevent the feared "negro jubilee" from sending free blacks loose into the north? The latter was a legitimate concern of some. In January, Harper's Weekly said, "Two questions suggest themselves to every one's mind in connection with this Proclamation. First, will it induce the negroes to run away? and, secondly, what shall we do with them if they do?" But the bold sentences seem to be written seriously.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[csuniforms]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

If I remember, the Emancipation Proclamation was discussed at a recent Lincoln Seminar I attended, and the speaker said that those slaves in the border States of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland were still slaves as these States were not in rebellion. Lincoln did offer money to free the slaves in Kentucky, but Kentucky turned him down. The States that seceded--Lincoln declared the slaves in those States were free. Then at the end of the War all slaves were freed.
As far as desertion in the Union ranks no, you could get shot for that or sent to prison. There was a lot of mumbling within the ranks over the issue. During the Vicksburg campaign and Shermans March many slaves were told to go back home and not follow the Armies. The Generals did not want the responsibility of taking care of them. Many former slaves literally starved to death in their quest for freedom. I have the letters from a Chaplain who witnessed the whole thing-- said he was burying four or five a day for lack of food and medical care opposite Vicksburg after the surrender.

Tom Arliskas
CSuniforms

[Mgreer]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

I believe the Federal government was not out to free the slaves although there were some abolitionist that may have wanted to. The common Northern soldier had every reason to want to keep slavery for fear that freed slaves would move north and flood the job market and drive wages down.

On the other hand I belive the CS government was fighting to preserve slavery first and formost. If you compair it to today and ask yourself how many poor or middle class Senators, Gov, reps do you see few if any. It was the same back then. Most politicians were of the planter class and if they did not own slaves they had ties to slavery. And though the common southern soldier was not out to keep slavery they had an interest to want slavery to be inplace for the same reason poor and middle class northerners did.

[mudlark]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

Lots of personal views and opinions expressed here in response to Mr. Trent's post. Let's let the boys in blue speak for themselves.

Any other snippets, quotes, or otherwise from the soldiers themselves?

[Gallinipper]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

I may be getting old, but don't I recall Ken Burns citing a couple of examples of negative fallout within the Union ranks, in that particular episode of his documentary? May have to dig that up and watch it again. Perhaps I was just thinking about Jeff Davis' turning white as a ghost.....

Rich Croxton

[Hank Trent]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

I may be getting old, but don't I recall Ken Burns citing a couple of examples of negative fallout within the Union ranks, in that particular episode of his documentary?

Though at this point I'm more interested in abolitionists' reactions to the proclamation in the September-January time period, I actually have a couple things about Union desertions in the fall of 1862, left over from a previous event, so here they are. My research was focussed on Pennsylvania soldiers in northern Virginia, so it's very limited in scope.

I suspect the following was more wishful thinking than anything, but may have been based on a few real examples:

Writing in a diary from Belle Grove, her plantation south of Paris [Virginia], Amanda Virginia Edmunds penned this terse comment on Aug. 14, 1862, after she had evidently heard of Lincoln's proposed emancipation bill that July. "Numbers and numbers of [Union] deserters are passing all the time. Now they will not fight for the negroes." Source

This study of a Pennsylvania regiment, however, shows no spike in 1862/1863, and looks toward other motives:

If you graph them out, the Ninety-Seventh's 151 desertions cluster into three "spikes." The first is in September and October 1861, within a month or two of enlistment,...

The third spike came at the very end of the war. That is, in the case of the 97th, between Appomattox and the end of August 1865 when the regiment mustered out. ...

The middle spike is in the spring of 1864, when the "veteran furloughs" were granted to those who had re-enlisted for another year....

All of this seems to suggest, to me, a pattern of desertion based on personal and immediate reasons, rather than one principally motivated by a lack of commitment to the cause or by larger political considerations.

This Pennsylvania Engineer company, which had a high rate of desertions, showed a spike in desertions in the late summer and fall of 1862, but it occurred a few months after initial enlistment, since this company was first enlisted in midsummer of 1862. So it's doubtful if it was specifically connected to an announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, and was probably similar to the first spike of desertions in the 97th PA, noted above.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[styler]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

Hank,
while the EP left the door open for slavery to continue, I think that most Abolitionists recognized that the political reality was that none of the states involved in secession were going to suddenly change course and the practical result would be nothing less than emancipation in the deep south where slavery was most fully entrenched. That said, you make a good point about the differing attitudes and rollercoaster emotions people felt in those times.

In "All on Fire," Henry Meyer's bio of William Lloyd Garrison, Meyer notes that Garrison took on just the attitude you ponder when he learned of the President's actions - "subdued" and "tepid" while other Abolitionists were rejoicing. He also notes that prior to the EP there was concern in that party about whether Lincoln would ever do anything regarding abolition other than offer vague ideas especially with an off-year election coming up(see pp. 541-2). But Garrison was not much of a politician, and I think the more political of the Abolitionists (i.e., Douglass) understood to what ends the EP would lead. Meyer also notes that when Lincoln presented concrete proposals on compensated emancipation in December, 1862, it caused concern among Abolitionists who feared that the President would use the EP as a bargaining chip to get the Constitutional amendments passed, effectively putting off emancipation until the end of the century. As it was, Garrison waited until o-official word came from Washington on New Year's Eve that the EP had been signed by Lincoln before he would publish the edition of the Liberator for that week.

[Mgreer]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

There is no reason to get rude, since you do not agree with Hanks assertion i can see why you would get bent out of shape. If i was not clear before I do not believe the north was fighting to end slavery but I do believe the south’s primary aim was to keep it. If you what quotes how about the 2nd section of Mississippi's Declaration of Secession:
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin."
Georgia's Declaration of Secession last part:
"Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquility."
"$3,000,000,000 of our property" Now some of that property wouldn’t be slaves would it?
Texas Declaration of Secession:
"Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them? "
"That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states."
So when debating the cause of the war you must look at whom you are talking about northern farmer or southern farmer, southern aristocrat or northern aristocrat, ext. Here Hank is debating the northern governments War aims. I am simply agreeing with my good friend Hank and adding to the conversation. But since you bring it up Mr. White where are your quotes?

[Mgreer]

Re: Emancipation Proclamation: War no longer over slavery?

Hear is a letter for a Union officer home:

Head Quarters
Commissary Department

Camp Parapet,
Louisiana,

2 Aug 1862,
from LT Boyd, to his mother Mrs. J. R. Boyd, care of John Boyd, West Winsted, Connecticut,

I am seated in the office thinking of home and friends and wishing myself with them this evening, but that is impossible … I am now better contented than when I was with the Regiment, as I don’t have as many to tell me what, ‘I can do and what I cannot do.’ I am more my own master and live it better than the drilling in this hot sun … there is considerable hard feelings among our soldiers and officers in regard to GEN [John W.] Phelps … [recruiting] the Negroes. They are now encamped but just below us in better tents that our soldiers have and GEN Phelps is determined to arm them They are now drilling, learning the military movement and you cannot imagine the feelings that exists between our officers and soldiers. They say that if the North has come so long and think … that it is right to bring them down to the level with the Negroes, they will not fight and if possible return home. I must say that if they arm the Negroes, I cannot stay in the service that cannot furnish white soldiers enough to do their fighting, for I cannot, as yet, bring myself to think that is right and just … I could tell you many things that you would be surprised at the manner that things are conducted … do you think it is right to arm the Negroes, take them from their masters, many of them Union men … I cannot, as well as many others, think it is right. They live as well as the soldiers and better as they have women to cook for them … I do not know how it will come out and what the consequences will be. I sometimes feel discouraged and I don’t think the War is much near a close than it was when we left home … We have not had any mail of consequence …”

I am paying to have my picture taken and send to you all soon … I wish we could have a mail oftener. There must be some mismanagement somewhere, for there are steamers enough from the North … My brother Lieut. in this Department is a very fine fellow and we get along nicely together. His name is Wells. I think he has some connections in Litchfield Conn. I have considerable to do now, as the clerk of the Commissary Department is sick, but will be back soon and then it will be better. I look at it so much better than to have anything to do, but to the regular company business …”

Your own Son