The American Civil War was fought between the years 1861 to 1865 in the United States of America. The Civil War is also known as the “War to preserve the Union” by the Northerners or the “War of the Southern Rebellion (Glatthaar, 2014).” The United States of America held presidential elections in November 1860 to elect a President. The Republican candidate was Abraham Lincoln, who advocated for the abolition of slavery. The Southern States were opposed to the abolition of slavery.
In the elections, Abraham Lincoln was constitutionally elected as President, and he became the first Republican candidate to clinch the presidency of the United States of America. However, before Abraham Lincoln could be inaugurated, seven States, namely South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas declared secession and formed the Confederacy. States which did not join the Confederacy remained in the Union.
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The Confederacy States had agriculture-based economies, especially cotton growing in plantations that heavily relied on labor provided by African-American slaves. Abolition of slavery would impact negatively on the economies of these States as it was free labor that incurred no wages. The government of the United States of America declared secession illegal and even the outgoing Democratic President, James Buchanan did not approve the secession. As a result, civil war broke out on April 12, 1861 (Glatthaar, 2014). President Abraham Lincoln signed an Executive Order on January 1, 1863, ordering the freedom of slaves. This order is known as the Emancipation Proclamation or Proclamation 95. It resulted in the freedom of more than three million slaves from the Confederate.
The Proclamation allowed suitable persons among the freed slaves to join the paid service of the United States military. Before the proclamation, slaves did not earn any wage and escaped slaves were swiftly returned to their masters. From a military perspective, the civil war could not have ended without the freeing of slaves. They freed slaves added significant numbers to the army of the Union that was fighting the Confederate army, and the freed slaves also provided vital tactical and strategic intelligence that helped in the defeat of the Confederates. (Ward, 2009). The term “Black Dispatches” arose among the Union military as a result of intelligence provided by African-American spies. If indeed the slaves had not been freed, the civil war would have taken another course.
References
Glatthaar, J. T. (2014). The American Civil War . Oxford: Osprey Publishing.
Ward, A. (2009). The Slaves war: The Civil War in the words of former slaves . Boston: Mariner Books.
