ABSTRACT
The service of African Americans in the Union Army was one of the more dramatic stories to emerge from the Civil War. At the beginning, the near consensus outside the black community and a small coterie of radical abolitionists was the conflict was to be a white man’s war. While supporters of the Union and the Confederacy did not see eye to eye on much, both initially agreed the war had nothing to do with slavery, but with the South’s desire for independence and the North’s desire to preserve the Union. To the extent that African Americans would be involved, conventional wisdom held, it would be as manual laborers, personal servants, or in other support roles for the armies, certainly not as armed soldiers. But as the conflict developed, it became apparent to northern leaders that to save the Union, slavery must end, and with the unquenchable need for new troops, that African Americans must enlist as solders. In this capacity, black Union troops repeatedly proved themselves as good as their white counterparts, both in combat and otherwise, making supporters of many white Northerners who originally had been skeptical that they were suited for military service.
