Title: How Emancipation Changed the War – Civil War Connections
Headings: How Emancipation Changed the War
How Emancipation Changed the War
Content: Nevertheless, by emancipating the Confederate slaves, President Lincoln fundamentally changed how each side interpreted the war. Although the proclamation wouldn’t go into effect until January 1st 1863, the announcement in September 1862 is widely seen as the start of it’s legacy. By changing their war-goals from “quelling the rebellion” to “quelling the rebellion and also ending slavery,” the Emancipation Proclamation gave the Union the moral high ground, an increase in relations with European powers, and a potentially large new segment of manpower ripe for recruitment. Abolitionist elements in the Union north were very vocal about the need to vanquish slavery, but the everyday people of the northern side initially didn’t have very strong feelings of support. Instead, they – like many of their brethren in the Confederate south – didn’t much care for blacks or their plight. Binding slavery to the war goals of the Union proved wildly unpopular for some, but for most northerners it underscored the need to defeat the Confederates once and for all. In addition, some of the hard feelings against blacks were mitigated by their large-scale recruitment to the Union army. The 54th Massachusetts, a famous Union unit immortalized in the movie Glory, was comprised almost entirely of black soldiers. For the south, binding the issue of slavery to the Civil War was more of a formality than anything else. After all, the powerful southern slaveholding population was the one that pushed for and narrowly managed secession in the first place.