“ Were it not for the aid of black soldiers, the


Union forces might have been defeated, admitted President Abraham Lincoln.”


Lincoln, who had originally opposed the enlistment of African-Americans. He feared their inclusion in the Union Army would discourage whites from enlisting. But he changed his mind when it seemed the South was winning the war. “My para- mount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to de- stroy slavery,” Lincoln, the so-called “Great Emancipator”, admitted in his letter. “If I


could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.” African-Americans made up 10%, or


around 200,000, of the Union Army’s two million soldiers. Tey fought in more than 500 battles. Tey paid a high price. Of the 360,000 Union soldiers killed in the


war, 40,000 were black. In recognition of their bravery, a dozen black Union soldiers were awarded America’s highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor. But the role African-Americans played in the Union Army is only part of the story of the Civil War. Some claim African-Americans also fought for the pro-slavery Confederate states, too. Tese claims seem far-fetched. But in 1861, the respected abolitionist and former slave, Frederick Douglass, wrote an article men- tioning so-called “Black Confederates”: “Tere are at the present moment, many colored men in the Confederate Army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers but as real soldiers, having


New African April 2011 | 75


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