Black Soldiers In The Civil War Essay

Black soldiers were very important in the Civil War (54th Massachusetts Regiment.)

According to the article “The Importance of African-American Soldiers in Civil War History,”” it states that Civil War history is often presented in terms of white Northern actors fighting against white Southerners, with African Americans waiting on the sides as their fate was decided. But this was far from the truth. The Union and the Confederates brought African American troops to the battlefield. Before the Civil War broke out in 1861, there were an estimated almost four million slaves in the United States, and just under 500,000 free African Americans. Combined they comprised about 14 percent of the country’s population. Of these 4.5 million, some 180,000 African Americans served in 163 units for the Union army as well as surely thousands more in the Navy. However, while only one percent of all African Americans in the United States resided in the North, slaves and freedmen only began serving the Confederate Army in 1865, and did so to a far lesser degree than in the North. It took a clear and direct urging from the beloved General Robert E. Lee to convince the Confederate Congress to begin enlisting black soldiers. The

Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war—30,000 of infection or disease. Black soldiers served in artillery and infantry and performed all noncombat support functions that sustain an army, as well. Black carpenters, chaplains, cooks, guards, laborers, nurses, scouts, spies, steamboat pilots, surgeons, and teamsters also contributed to the war cause. There were nearly 80 black commissioned officers. Black women, who could not formally join the Army, nonetheless served as nurses, spies, and scouts, the most famous being Harriet Tubman, who scouted for the South Carolina