By May 1863, the Bureau of Colored Troops was established to manage Black enlistees.
President Abraham Lincoln also feared that accepting Black men into the military would cause border states like Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri to secede.įree Black men were finally permitted to enlist late in 1862, following the passage of the Second Confiscation and Militia Act, which freed slaves who had masters in the Confederate Army, and Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Although African Americans had served in the army and navy during the American Revolution and in the War of 1812 (few, if any served in the Mexican War), they were not permitted to enlist because of a 1792 law that barred them from bearing arms in the U.S. African-Americans In the Union ArmyĪt the onset of the Civil War, free Black men rushed to volunteer for service with the Union forces. By 1865, the South allowed slaves to enlist but very few actually did. In the Confederacy, African-Americans were still slaves and they served mostly in labor positions. This number comprised of both northern free African Americans and runaway slaves from the South who enlisted to fight.
In the Union army, over 179,000 African American men served in over 160 units, as well as more serving in the Navy and in support positions. Black Americans in the Civil War: Enslaved in the South, Unequal in the North Closeįacts, information and articles about African Americans In The Civil War, from Black HistoryĪfrican Americans In The Civil War summary: African-Americans served in the in the Civil War on both the Union and Confederate side.
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