Title: Fighting for Freedom, Black Union Soldiers of the Civil War | City of Alexandria, VA
Headings: Fighting for Freedom, Black Union Soldiers of the Civil War
Fighting for Freedom, Black Union Soldiers of the Civil War
Fighting for Freedom
Gallant Service
Enlistments
Recruitment Efforts
Acts of Bravery
Inadequate facilities, mistreatment
1863 and 1864 campaigns
Petersburg
War draws to a conclusion

Content: The government's call for 75,000 volunteers in April 1861 compelled many Northern blacks to offer their services to a War Department opposed to arming blacks for fear it would induce the loyal slave-holding border states to join the Confederacy. However, by the fall of 1862, events had changed in favor of accepting black soldiers. Declining Union enlistments, heavy battle losses and the realization that the war would take more time and resources than expected, confronted President Abraham Lincoln and the Union Army. Continued pressure by abolitionists and awareness of the potential of black labor as the Confederacy had already discovered, also contributed to lifting the Army's prohibition of "Negroes or Mulattoes," in existence since 1820. The formal Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January, 1863, freed all slaves in rebellious states with the exception of those in areas already under Union control. The Proclamation also declared that freed slaves would be officially received into the armed forces. Lincoln's decision gave a higher meaning to a war initially focused on preservation of the Union - abolition. " A double purpose induced me and most others to enlist, to assist in abolishing slavery and to save the country from ruin, " wrote Medal of Honor winner Sgt. Major Christian Fleetwood of the 4th U.S.C.T. Frederick Douglass and other leaders saw black military service as an opportunity to win a Union victory and to gain equality and rights as citizens. As Douglass stated: "