US History

U.S. History Study Guide

the North, in desperate fear, put together the Monitor. For a brief period the Confederacy had command of the sea until the Monitor met her and a long battle ensued. Eventually, the Union Monitor won and it would be the last significant use of the ironclads, with the Confederacy eventually destroying the Merrimac before the North captured it. 13.15 The Emancipation Proclamation Early in the war, Union officials were uncertain how to treat Southern slaves who fled to the North or were captured by the army. Lincoln was careful in his approach to this matter, since the Union contained four border slave states. He vaguely supported the policy of confiscation, in which slaves who had worked for the Confederate military were considered captives of war and put to work for the Union army. Each Union loss made emancipation a more attractive action, since slave labor drove the Southern economy and allowed the Confederacy to devote more white men to war. Outside intervention from England and France could be avoided as well if the North could turn the cause of the war from bringing the South back to the Union to making it about slavery. Most European countries at this point had already abolished slavery so backing the South now would not be politically wise in their own country and around the world. Lincoln eventually came to favor emancipation and only waited for the right moment to announce his decision. After the Union victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves under rebel control free as of January 1, 1863. In practice, the Proclamation freed very few slaves because it did not affect the slave states within the Union or the parts of the Confederacy under Union control. But as a political move, it proved genius. The proclamation gained the support of European liberals (Great Britain and France had outlawed slavery earlier in the century), and it appeased the Radical Republicans in Congress. Abolishing slavery became one of the Union’s primary objectives for war, along with preserving the Union. Significance • The Emancipation did not free a single slave, but turned the course of the war from a war against slavery taking away Southern man power and ensuring no European support for the South Black Soldiers The Emancipation Proclamation did significantly affect the war by bolstering the Union’s forces. After the Proclamation, the Union began to enlist black soldiers in conquered areas of the South. Almost 200,000 blacks enlisted. By the end of the war, black soldiers made up almost one-tenth of the Union Army. Although blacks were paid less than whites and assigned to less desirable posts, their military service was an important symbol of black citizenship.

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