As soon as the first shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter, free Black men in the North rushed to enlist, but they were turned away, as President Lincoln worried that arming Black soldiers would lead to secession by the border states. With the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the dire need for more recruits to the Union Army, Black soldiers were formally welcomed into the armed forces, eventually comprising 10% of the Union Army. It wasn’t just the Black soldiers who fought and sacrificed for their country, though, it was also their families they left behind as they marched off to war. 
Joining me in this episode s Dr. Holly A. Pinheiro, Jr., Assistant Professor of African American History at Furman University and author of The Families’ Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice.
Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Battle Cry of Freedom,” written in 1862 by American composer George Frederick Root to support Lincoln’s 1862 call for 300,000 volunteers for the Union Army; this version was performed by Harlan and Stanley in 1907 and is in the public domain and available via the Internet Archive. The episode image is “Unidentified African American soldier in Union uniform with wife and two daughters,” photograph created between 1863 and 1865, available via the Library of Congress with no known restrictions on publication.

Additional sources:

“A Call to Remember the 200,000 Black Troops Who Helped Save the Union,” by Christine Hause, The New York Times, February 26, 2022.

“Remembering the Significant Role of the U.S. Colored Troops in America’s History,” Wounded Warrior Project.

“Black Americans in the U.S. Army,” U.S. Army.

“Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War,” National Archives.

“African-American Soldiers During the Civil War,” Library of Congress.

“Historical Context: Black Soldiers in the Civil War,” by Steven Mintz, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

“Black Civil War Soldiers,” History.com, Originally posted April 14, 2010; updated November 22, 2022.

“Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America,” by David Walker, Boston, Massachusetts, September 28, 1829.

“War Declared: States Secede from the Union!” National Park Service.

“Civil War Begins,” United States Senate.

“Black Women, the Civil War, and United States Colored Troops,” by Holly Pinheiro, Black Perspectives, July 20, 2021.


Related episodes:

Susie King Taylor (Episode 3)

Mary Ann Shadd Cary (Episode 33)

The Abolition Movement of the 1830s (Episode 45)


Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices