BRIAN: If you’re just joining us, this is “BackStory,” and we’re talking about the reasons soldiers on both sides of the Civil War were motivated to fight. We’ve already heard that most white Northerners did not go to war in order to end slavery, even if they ended up supporting that as an eventual outcome. But Peter, Ed—what about black Northerners? I mean, a lot of our listeners have probably seen Glory, the movie about the African Americans who fought on behalf of Massachusetts and on behalf of the Union. I want to know more about those guys.
ED: Well, you know, the first thing to understand is they were not permitted to fight until 1863.
PETER: Right.
ED: So, the war ultimately is half over before African American men are allowed to fight and there’s widespread skepticism in the white North that many of them will, but what happens is as soon as they open the doors to black recruitment, African American men of all kinds of backgrounds surge into service. Black men who could’ve sat out the war put themselves in harm’s way to help make sure that this war is a war that does fight against slavery and this strikes me as one of the great miracles of American history, frankly, that these thousands of African American men whether previously held in slavery or born free or having made themselves free, go fight for a nation that has held them in slavery, you know, and why? Because they have the idea—
PETER: Yeah, yeah.
ED: That fully extended to its logical conclusion, to its consistent meaning, the federal nation of the United States would guarantee even their freedom.
PETER: Well, I think that’s a great point, Ed. There are values that Northerners are invoking about freedom and liberty and about the reason that we need to fight for the survival of the Union and African Americans, free and enslaved, take those ideas seriously in a way that most white Northerners don’t take them seriously, that is, they make a local application. Northern whites are saying our freedom is what’s crucial. Well, those ideas once they’re in the air, even Jefferson the slaveholder said “all men are created equal,” that idea is hard to put down and all of a sudden in the midst of war, it seems to have this power. It’s really the story of imagining an America that could be but that wasn’t.
ED: You know, in this moment, there’s an incredible quote from Frederick Douglass who goes into the Civil War deeply suspicious of Abraham Lincoln, of the Republican Party, even of the Union cause. Why are we fighting to maintain a Union with slaveholders?
PETER: Right.
ED: He does say now that black men, black families, can fight for not just their freedom, but for the very survival of the United States, this changes everything. He says, “once put an Eagle put on their buttons and a rifle on their shoulders and things can never go back to the way they were.”
BRIAN: And what difference did this make in the actual prosecution of the war.
ED: Well, you have 200,000 African American men fighting on land and sea that you would not have had otherwise and they come into the United States purpose just when the North really really needs men. As a matter of fact, let’s not fool ourselves. That’s why they are enlisted in the first place.
BRIAN: Right.
ED: Is that despite all this language of Union and self-sacrifice, not enough Northern men stepped up to sustain the purpose.
MALE VOICE: Dear Wife i have enlisted in the army i am now in the state of Massachusetts but before this letter reaches you i will be in North Carlinia and though great is the present national dificulties yet i look forward to a brighter day When i shall have the opertunity of seeing you in the full enjoyment of fredom i would like to if you are still in slavery if you are it will not be long before we shall have crushed the system that now oppresses you great is the outpouring of the colered peopl that is now rallying with the hearts of lions against that very curse that has seperated you an me yet we shall meet again and oh what a happy time that will be when this ungodly rebellion shall be put down and the curses of our land is trampled under our feet i am a soldier now and endeavoring to strike at the rebellion that so long has kept us in chains tell Eliza I send her my best respects and love Ike and Sully likewise your afectionate husband until death-SAMUEL CABBLE, Private 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863
PETER: It’s time for another short break. When we get back, we’ll shift our focus to the South, and ask why so many white men who did not own slaves were willing to lay down their lives in defense of a nation that was based on slavery. You’re listening to “BackStory,” and we’ll be back in a minute. [music]