Page 378 - American Stories, A History of the United States

Those freed during the war who did not serve in the military were often conscripted
as contract wage laborers on cotton plantations that “loyal” white planters owned or leased 15.1
within occupied areas of the Deep South. Abolitionists protested that the coercion military
authorities used to get blacks back into the cotton fields amounted to slavery in a new form,
but those in power argued that the necessities of war and the northern economy required 15.2
such “temporary” arrangements. Regimentation of the freedmen within the South also
assured racist northerners, especially in the Midwest, that emancipation would not result
in a massive migration of black refugees to their region of the country. 15.3
The heroic performance of African American troops and the easing of northern
fears of being swamped by black migrants deepened the commitment to permanent
and comprehensive emancipation. Realizing that his proclamation had a shaky con- 15.4
stitutional foundation and might apply only to slaves actually freed while the war was
going on, Lincoln sought to organize and recognize loyal state governments in south-
ern areas under Union control on condition that their constitutions abolished slavery.
Finally, Lincoln pressed for an amendment to the Constitution outlawing involuntary
servitude. After supporting its inclusion as a central plank in the Republican platform of
1864, Lincoln won congressional approval for the Thirteenth Amendment, which was Quick Check
passed by Congress in January 1865 and ratified in December. The cause of freedom for What effect did African American
blacks and the cause of the Union had at last become one and the same. Lincoln, despite his troops have on the war in battle
earlier hesitations and misgivings, had earned the right to be called the Great Emancipator. and on the homefront?

the tide turns

By 1863, the Confederate economy was in shambles. The social order of the South was
also buckling. Masters were losing control of their slaves, and non-slaveholding whites
were becoming disillusioned with the hardships of what some described as “a rich
man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” Yet the North had its own morale problems. The
long series of eastern defeats had engendered war weariness, and the new policies that
“military necessity” forced the government to adopt encountered fierce opposition.
The Enrollment Act of March 1863, which provided for outright conscription of
white males but permitted men to hire substitutes or pay a fee to avoid military ser-
vice, provoked a violent response from those unable to buy their way out of service
and unwilling to fight for blacks. Antidraft riots broke out, culminating in one of the
bloodiest domestic disorders in American history—the New York Riot of July 1863.
The New York mob, composed mainly of Irish-American laborers, burned the draft
offices, the homes of Republicans, and a black orphanage. They also lynched more
than a dozen defenseless blacks. At least 120 people died before federal troops restored
order. Besides racial prejudice, the draft riots also reflected working-class anger at the
wartime privileges and prosperity of the middle and upper classes; they exposed deep
divisions on the administration’s conduct of the war.
To fight dissension and “disloyalty,” the government used martial law to arrest a
few alleged ringleaders, including Democratic Congressman Clement Vallandigham
of Ohio. Private organizations also issued propaganda attacking what they believed
was a vast secret conspiracy to undermine the northern war effort. Historians disagree
about the extent of covert and illegal antiwar activity. No vast conspiracy existed, but
militant advocates of “peace at any price”—popularly known as Copperheads—were copperheads Northern
active in some areas, especially among the immigrant working classes of large cities and Democrats suspected of being
in southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. indifferent or hostile to the Union
The only effective way to overcome the disillusionment that fed the peace move- cause in the Civil War.
ment was to win battles and convince the northern public that victory was assured.
Before this could happen, the North suffered another humiliating defeat in the East.
In May 1863, a Confederate army less than half their size routed Union forces under
General Joseph Hooker at Chancellorsville, Virginia. Again, Lee demonstrated his
superior generalship, this time by dividing his forces and sending Stonewall Jackson
to make a surprise attack on the Union right. The Confederacy prevailed, but Jackson
himself died from wounds received in the battle.
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