A Practical Army of Liberation

After the final Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in January 1863, western armies generally liberated slaves quite vigorously. But always driving this emancipation policy first and foremost were practical military considerations. Many officers supported emancipation because it would help win the war, and this was exactly how they carried out the policy. As much as possible, officers focused on freeing slaves for the army’s benefit, often targeting able-bodied men who could be of most use as teamsters, pioneers, laborers, and soldiers. Given these military priorities, officers frequently saw the slave women and children flocking to their camps as a military burden and usually sent them to hellish contraband camps or to labor for wages on plantations. In the politically sensitive border states of Kentucky and Missouri, emancipation was especially slow and conflict ridden. Yet even there, military necessity forced commanders to eventually adopt increasingly emancipationist policies. A few officers did support emancipation for moral reasons, but moral imperatives had very little influence on emancipation policies in the field. Officers’ prevailing racial beliefs help explain why many of them were more concerned with former slaves’ ability to help the army than with their welfare.

Officers, Servants, and Race

While many western Union officers came to support emancipation and even the enlistment of black troops, their racial attitudes changed very little. On the whole, officers continued to view black people as inferior, exotic, incapable, and even subhuman. Interactions with former slaves reinforced racial stereotypes. This intense prejudice was especially prominent in the Midwest where there were many discriminatory laws. Freeing the slaves, which many officers only supported as a practical necessity to win the war, was very different from seeing black people as anything close to equal with white people. But experiences with black men and women, particularly servants with whom Federals formed long-lasting personal bonds, often tempered racial prejudices on an individual level. Black men and women who assisted the Union army by providing information, resources, and aid in dangerous circumstances also won positive comments from officers. This softening of racial attitudes, however, almost never extended to the black population as a whole, and even ardent supporters of emancipation showed little sympathy for expanding black rights. The Civil War had eliminated slavery but had hardly solved the problem of racial prejudice.

Union Officers and the Intense Debate over Emancipation and Black Troops

As Washington officials moved toward an emancipationist policy during the second half of 1862 and the beginning of 1863, Black soldiers and emancipation had both proved to be very divisive issues among western army officers. Most Union officers believed that the Union—not emancipation—was their cause. The Second Confiscation Act, along with the Preliminary and final Emancipation Proclamations, generated substantial discord in the army. Significant numbers of officers opposed these measures out of political, practical, and racial concerns. Other officers just as fervently approved these policies for their practical benefits, with some going much further and becoming downright abolitionists. But overall, pragmatism counted for far more than morality or idealism. In the political sphere, Peace Democrats, or “Copperheads”, of the Union adamantly opposed abolitionism and sought a negotiated peace. Opposition to emancipation declined strikingly after the first few months of 1863 because officers came to realize its practical benefits and, in some cases, came to understand the harsh reality of slavery. This pattern did not hold when it came to enrolling black troops. Many officers supported this policy out of practical considerations, but there was also considerable opposition that lasted through the end of the conflict.

The Union Army’s Struggle over the Limits of Confiscation in the West

From the beginning of the war to the summer of 1862, officers in the West adopted policies toward fugitive slaves that ranged from barring them altogether from their lines to aggressively liberating them. In August 1861, Congress offered some guidance on the issue with the First Confiscation Act, but the act’s limited scope led to minimal confiscation or none at all by top officers. Sensitive to the sentiments of border states like Missouri, who supported the Union but wanted slavery preserved, Lincoln was not yet ready to push for emancipation. At times, however, officers in the Border South still carried out the First Confiscation Act, but much depended on the dispositions and political views of the officers. Some Union officers, like William T. Sherman, Henry Halleck, and Ulysses S. Grant, held conservative views and pushed back against letting fugitive slaves enter Union lines and confiscating slaves belonging to Unionists. Officers, particularly in states like Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana, had very different ideas about how to handle fugitive slaves, and they were willing to pursue them even if it meant conflict with each other, their superiors or subordinates, or Washington.

Looking for Chamberlain

This study challenges much of the current historical literature about the American Civil War by arguing that western Union officers carried out a practical emancipation policy as part of a pragmatic military strategy, rather than an idealistic moral opposition to slavery. While officers came to accept emancipation as a useful instrument to win the war, their racial attitudes changed very little. In the early stages of the war, the army’s policies towards fugitive slaves were inconsistent and influenced by an officer’s individual attitudes toward slavery. The Second Confiscation Act of 1862 and the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 caused a shift in army policy to become more consistent and emancipationist. Officers, however, carried out emancipation primarily for the army’s benefit, as freed slaves could help the army as pioneers, laborers, servants, and soldiers. Union officers were committed to winning the war and saving the Union, and emancipation proved a practical policy to accomplish these goals.

An Emancipationist Turn of Policy

During the second half of 1862, most Union officers in the West adopted more emancipationist policies. They routinely confiscated the slaves of rebels and employed many of them as scouts, spies, laborers, cooks, etc. This became the predominant policy across the several armies operating in the West. Official policy not only authorized confiscation but also made the practice more uniform. In July of 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, which allowed for the seizure of any slaves belonging to rebels. At the same time, army commanders such as Samuel Curtis and Benjamin Butler began to realize how slaves could serve the Union army and the military necessity of taking them away from rebels, and developed pro-emancipationist policies and attitudes as a result. Though some radical officers, like John Phelps, were on a mission to eliminate slavery, Butler and many others were simply hard-nosed realists who shifted towards emancipationist policies out of military necessity. There remained conflict over the status of fugitive and confiscated states, mainly in border states like Kentucky and Missouri. Yet on the whole, by the end of 1862, Union armies were much more consistent and emancipationist in their policies.

How Transformative Was the Civil War?

The process of emancipation played out in a more comprehensive way in the western theater than in the eastern. Western officers were forced to deal with huge numbers of slaves across a vast region and implement appropriate policies and programs to carry out emancipation. In particular, the Border South proved especially difficult in managing the legal and political questions surrounding emancipation. At the war’s beginning, the government in Washington had clearly stated that its goal was to preserve the Union and not free the slaves, a view shared by many western officers. But as the war dragged on into its second year, the armies and the government became more emancipationist. Many officers also came to support emancipation and even the use of black troops. However, most officers only embraced emancipation out of pragmatism and military necessity, and their policies reflected their lack of moral idealism. Officers in the western armies liberated slaves for the army’s benefit. As Reconstruction began, many in the North were not very concerned about securing political equality for former slaves. While the war had pushed Northerners to emancipate the slaves, it did not transform them into racial egalitarians.

William T. Sherman and His Officers

From beginning to end, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman remained a reluctant liberator who never saw emancipation as a moral imperative. He had opposed the Emancipation Proclamation at the time it was issued, but by late 1863, Sherman had come to accept the end of slavery as a necessary and inevitable consequence of the war. But even if emancipation made some pragmatic sense, Sherman harbored deep racial prejudices, despised abolitionists, and worried that emancipation issues were looming too large in the Union war effort. During his famed marches in Georgia and the Carolinas, Sherman tried to carry out emancipation on a strictly military basis to benefit the army. He and his officers willingly took in slaves that they could use and discouraged all others. Yet thousands of black refugees had still joined Sherman’s columns. Regardless of what army officers thought, many slaves viewed them as liberators and would not pass up an opportunity to gain freedom. So ironically, the general who was probably least interested in assuming the mantle of a liberator led an army that freed thousands. For many, Sherman’s results mattered more than intentions.