Skip to Main Content

Freedom, Protection, Pay, and a Call to Military Duty: African American Soldiers in the Civil War

What do images of Black Americans who served during the Civil War tell us about the power of freedom and patriotism? In this episode of BRIdge From The Past, Mary explores various images depicting African Americans who served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Roughly 198,000 African American men served in the armed forces by the end of the war, and the identities of many depicted in these photographs are still unknown today. How did the Emancipation Proclamation shift the focus of the Civil War? How does this shift connect to these photographs, and why is their story essential to fully understand the war?

BRIdge from the Past African American Soldiers Handout: https://bri-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/BRIdge+Freedom%2C+Protection%2C+Pay%2C+and+a+Call+to+Military+Duty-African+American+Soldiers+in+the+Civil+War.pdf

Related Resources

Video

Escaping Slavery During the Civil War: A Monument to African-Americans Lost Pursuing Freedom

10 Min

How can we explore the story of Black men and women who escaped from slavery during the fighting of the Civil War? In this episode of BRIdge from the Past, Mary explores the Contrabands & Freedmen Cemetery Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia, to reveal stories of sacrifice and bravery. What imagery does the sculptor use to convey the hardships these men, women, and children faced? What is the significance of the statue's location right outside of Washington, DC?

Essay

Essay: Civil War and Reconstruction

2189 Words

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln struggled to preserve the American constitutional republic and Union that ensured liberty and equality for all Americans. To that end, Lincoln brought the country to fight fought to preserve the Union against the secession of the South at his election in 1860. Lincoln also fought to end the moral disgrace of slavery and issued the Emancipation Proclamation during the war in 1863 as a war measure based upon his presidential war powers to weaken the South. At the end of the war, several amendments to the Constitution were ratified to advance the natural and civil rights republic of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution for African-Americans.