ABSTRACT
The Civil War came on as the direct result of the irreconcilable sentiments of the North and the South on the question of slavery and the political conflicts already mentioned. During the first two years of the war, the Federal Government did and said everything possible to convince the people of the South that the new Republican Party had no intention, near or remote, of interfering with slavery. In spite of the seeming pro-slavery policy of the national administration, Frederick Douglass was earnestly consecrating every energy of his being to the president's support. He eagerly assisted in the formation of the first regularly organised regiments of United States coloured troops, the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Infantry Volunteers. The Negro was the "good Samaritan" in those terrible days, when white men were savagely bent upon destroying one another. The armies on both sides of the conflict were indebted to the black man as friend and as fighter.
