With
enlistments dwindling and in dire need of recruits, Lincoln would play a
last card as did Lord Dunmore in 1775, and Vice-Admiral Alexander
Cochrane in 1814. All three intended to bring the Americans to their
knees in the face of slave revolt and race war with an emancipation
decree. Despite Lincoln’s proclamation, only 180,000 of a 3.5 million
African population served in the Northern army – perhaps half of them
conscripts. These slaves pressed into blue uniforms would be used to
build fortifications, cook food, and aid on picket, and in segregated
units with white officers.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Most Unparalleled Last Card Ever Issued By a Reckless Gambler:
“[On]
May 9 [1862], General David Hunter, by an order, proclaimed the slaves
free in his department of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. May 19,
the President [Lincoln] nullified this action….proclaiming that the
freeing of slaves would be his responsibility as Commander-in-Chief……
The
warm and impulsive [Massachusetts Governor John] Andrew answered a call
for troops, May 19, “I think they (our people) will feel the draft is
heavy on their patriotism. But if the President will sustain General
Hunter, recognize all men, even black men, as legally capable of that
loyalty the blacks are waiting to manifest, the roads will swarm, if
need be, with multitudes whom New England would pour out to obey your
call.”
In
July, Hill, the correspondent of the “Tribune,” notes a disheartening
conversation with General Wadsworth, who had been in close converse with
the President at the War Department many hours, every day, for several
months. He regarded Lincoln as wholly “without anti-slavery instincts,”
and talking frequently of the “nigger question,” on the wrong side.
September
23 the Proclamation of emancipation – an experiment in government by
decree, rare for us, but common in continental Europe – was issued, to
become the law of the land January 1, 1863. Ignored hitherto as a
political factor in this absorbing drama, whether at Montgomery or
Washington, the negro had become a military force of the first
importance.
Experts
agreed that these poor waifs, an errant factor in civilization, must be
taken now from the ciphers dormant before the decimal, and be put into
the working columns of figures which represented men. “The labor of the
colored man supports the rebel soldier, enables him to leave his
plantation to meet our armies, builds his fortifications, cooks his
food, and sometimes aids him on picket by rare skill with the rifle,”
said General [Montgomery] Meigs on November 18. “By striking down this
system of compulsory labor, which enables the leaders of the rebellion
to control the resources of the people, the rebellion would die of
itself.”
The
immediate results were very disheartening to the President. “The North
responds to the proclamation sufficiently in breath; but breath alone
kills no rebels.” The radical Republicans welcomed it, but their
constituents did not send out in recruits that strong adult element, the
lusty thews and sinews from which the working military strength of a
nation must be drawn. But in a military sense the radicals embodied the
nervous force of the North, rather than the brawny muscle which should
subdue the solid enforced strength of the Southern people.
The
overwhelming unfriendly majority [of the North] spoke through the
“Times.” “The death of slavery must follow upon the success of the
Confederates in this war.” But Mr. Lincoln’s emancipation “can only be
effected by massacre and utter destruction.” Another sapient critic call
the proclamation “the most unparalleled last card ever issued by a
reckless gambler.”
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