Someone said, "Union soldiers were fighting for the noble cause abolition."
Where This Comes From
The Emancipation Proclamation was a central document to the War. The War resulted in the end of legal slavery. Abolitionists sided with the Union and some even fought for it directly. Formerly enslaved people fought for the Union when given the opportunity to.
When This Started
People alive during the War seem to agree that the reasons that men on both sides were more interested in enriching themselves, not any grand cause. Over the decades, the narrative was simplified to make it easier to teach school children: The Union was anti-slavery, the Confederacy was pro-slavery. Those facts are fundamentally true, but that doesn't mean individual soldiers felt that way.
People like their history and their ancestors to be neat, tidy, and good. "Our Northern ancestors fought for abolition" is an easier story to tell your children than "Our Northern ancestors were lukewarm about slavery as an institution but really hated the Southern aristocracy." The truth is seldom as memorable or heroic as we want it to be.
What Part is True
The abolition movement sided with the Union. There were always abolitionists fighting for the Union. The anti-slavery sentiment grew as the War progressed, especially after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Why It's Complicated
- At the start of the war, it was widely believed that the War would last about 3 months. The idea of the "Three Month War" meant you had a lot of recruits without any ideological leanings. In fact, some people anticipated the War to be little more than a diversion from day-to-day life.
- There are accounts told by people from the North and South, Black or white, free or enslaved, of soldiers from the Union being more interested in looting than freeing anybody.
- Plenty of people in the Union were not Unionists. There were riots against the draft in New York that resulted in the murder of several Black men and the arson of a Black orphanage. California was ostensibly a free state but there were pockets of Confederate support all over the state.
- Some people just wanted to keep the country together. For many in the North in the beginning, it was the war to save the Union.
- Some people felt that white society had no place for Black people, not even as slaves. Some thought the answer was sending formerly enslaved people to Liberia as part of the "Back to Africa" Movement.
- The Union was not morally above slavery as evidenced by the four states that still practiced it: Kentucky, Delaware, Missouri, and Maryland (and, eventually, West Virginia).
Who Talked About It
"...all dat money, silver, gold, jewelry, watches, rings, brooches, knives and forks, butter-dishes, water goblets, and cups was took and carried 'way by a army dat seemed more concerned 'bout stealin', than they was 'bout de Holy War for de liberation of de poor African slave people."
Henry Jenkins, formerly enslaved, quoted ca. 1937
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