ABSTRACT

At the beginning of the war, President Lincoln instructed his generals to return the slaves to their masters, insisting the Civil War was about preserving the Union, not freeing the slaves. As the war intensified, Union commanders and leaders were faced with a different challenge: everywhere the Northern army advanced, runaway slaves streamed behind Union lines. An attack on slavery, some argued, would strike at the heart of the Confederacy's African American labor force and invest the war with a new moral cause: fighting for freedom. In 1862, Congress passed the Contraband Act, classifying runaway slaves as contraband of war. Northern religious and social groups led by free blacks were horrified when they visited the contraband camps, and lobbied strenuously for their dismantling. On July 13, 1862, Lincoln told his secretary of the Navy he intended to issue an emancipation proclamation.