7 War Between the States

Chapter 7 War Between the States Abraham Lincoln won the election. He took office on March 4, 1861. In the six months following the election, fearing Lincoln would end slavery, eleven states in the South seceded, or broke away from, the United States. Together, they formed the Confederate States of America and elected their own president. And on April 12, 1861, Confederate troops attacked a Union garrison at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. The Civil War had begun. To Lincoln, the purpose of the war was to defeat the Confederacy and bring the Southern states back into the Union. To Frederick, it was that and more: It was a battle over slavery. Frederick was determined to ensure that if the Union won, slavery would be abolished forever.

From the start, Frederick felt strongly that all slaves should be freed and allowed to serve in the Union army. This would show Americans that blacks were as brave and deserving of liberty as whites. And with slaves fighting for the Union, the South would be drained of its workforce. Lincoln, however, was slow to act. To achieve his goals, Frederick gave hundreds of speeches, wrote to the country's leaders, and spoke out in his newspaper, which he had renamed Douglass' Monthly.

By 1862, with the war still raging, the Union needed more troops. In September, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It freed all slaves in Confederate territory on January 1, 1863. The Proclamation also allowed blacks to enlist in the Union army. It was an amazing milestone. Frederick knew the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't perfect. For one thing, Lincoln didn't really have control over any of the slaves in Confederate territory. There were also a million slaves in the border states, slave states that had remained in the Union. The Proclamation didn't free them. But the Emancipation Proclamation was a turning point in the war and in the fight against slavery. On January 1, news that the Proclamation had officially been signed came into the Boston church where Frederick waited with three thousand others. The crowd erupted into "shouts of praise... sobs and tears" and celebrated long into the night.

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Now Frederick could work to recruit black soldiers. The governor of Massachusetts asked for his help filling the ranks of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, a regiment of all-black troops. Frederick wrote a powerful article titled "Men of Color, to Arms!" to rally blacks to fight for freedom. "This is your hour and mine," he wrote. "The iron gate of our prison stands half open." He traveled through the North signing up black troops. Frederick's sons, Lewis and Charles, were among the first to enlist. In all, nearly two hundred thousand blacks

would fight bravely for the Union and help win many battles. But Frederick was troubled when he found that black soldiers were not treated the same as whites. Black soldiers received about half the pay of white soldiers. They got little training, were not commissioned as officers, and were not rewarded for bravery. Frederick used his pen and his words, writing letters and speaking out for equal treatment. Then he went to Washington, DC, to request a meeting with President Lincoln. Here was a former slave, one who had openly disagreed with the president, hoping to meet with the most powerful man in the nation. How would he be received? Would he be received at all? At the White House, President Lincoln welcomed Frederick as an equal. He listened carefully to his concerns and agreed that black soldiers had proved themselves in battle. Frederick didn't get all the answers he hoped for that day. But he was encouraged by Lincoln's attention and felt the president was a good man. By the end of the war, black soldiers got equal