We have done a Soldier’s duty. Why can’t we have a Soldier’s pay?
Corporal James Henry Gooding, 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment
Slaves and free African-Americans did not sit idly by while the North and the South tore at one another in a struggle to determine whether or not slavery should continue to exist in the United States. Even though the struggle was more about the rights of slaveholders to keep their slaves than about the slaves themselves, African-Americans realized that the outcome of the war could mean freedom.
Black and white soldiers
In the North, former slaves and other free African-Americans would have joined the fight if they could have. Simon Cameron, who had been secretary of war when hostilities erupted, had been dismissed by Lincoln for recommending that African-Americans be allowed to enlist in the military. Eventually, the North would see the value of including African-Americans in the fight for their own freedom and allowed enlistment (pictured above is a group of Union soldiers, black and white), but they met with discrimination from the very beginning. They were paid less, officers who were assigned to command African-American troops were looked down upon, and initially, the US army refused to issue weapons to them.
Robert Gould Shaw
The 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment was commanded by a young officer named Robert Gould Shaw (pictured above). Shaw had been reluctant to accept the assignment of commanding a coloured regiment, but after a time he grew to respect his men. When they were paid less than the white soldiers, it was Shaw who encouraged them to boycott the lack of equality. The men of the 54th refused to accept their wages until they were given equal pay. Their story was told in the 1989 movie Glory, which included a portrayal of Shaw and showed how his men proved themselves at the fight for Fort Wagner where nearly half their number, including Shaw, was lost.
In spite of being denied the right to fight for their freedom, African-Americans were already proving their worth to warfare. Escaped slaves provided the military with all kinds of information regarding troops, movements, and fortifications. They knew the lay of the land and were scouts as well as spies.
In the South, the role of slaves went from tending the fields to building the infrastructure of war. Slaves were put to work in building roads, railroads and forts. They drove supply wagons and worked in sawmills and shipping. Near the end of the war, General Robert E. Lee recommended that the Confederate government permit the enlistment of slaves into the army in return for emancipation. The Confederacy agreed, but it was too late to be of much help. Only a few African-American units were raised. Out of those few, the only African-Americans to have been officially documented as serving in the Confederate army were orderlies at the hospital in Richmond, Virginia.
Free African-Americans in the South was a different story. A group of 1,400 volunteer Confederate African-American soldiers are reported to have marched in review in New Orleans in November 1861. Earlier in the year, Tennessee had passed the first law permitting the enlistment of ‘all male free persons of color between the ages of fifteen and fifty years.’ Quite possibly the law was intended to acquire more labour for menial tasks while white soldiers fought on the battlefields.