Now Is Your Time! by Walter Dean Myers

Author:Walter Dean Myers
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061985614
Publisher: HarperCollins

15

We Look Like Men of War

By mid-1862 it was obvious that the war would not be a quick victory for either side. Men were dying by the tens of thousands, and the only clear method of waging the war from the viewpoint of the Union was through the loss of tens of thousands more. Some Northerners were already calling for an end to the war.

In the South morale was still incredibly high. Southerners, in defense of their homes and families, were fighting with ferocity and daring, often carrying the fight to cautious Union generals.

On the other hand, Union soldiers, hardened by months of warfare, were catching up with their Confederate foes in horse-manship and learning more about supplying their troops in the field.

A decision was made to attack Southern morale. Generals like William Tecumseh Sherman and David Hunter began practicing what they called “total war”—attacking civilian as well as military targets, trying to make life in the South so difficult that the Confederacy would lose the support of its people. Union soldiers in the deep South set fire to crops, looted and burned homes, and destroyed livestock. In the Shenandoah Valley General David Hunter burned down the house of his cousin Andrew Hunter, who had been the prosecutor at the John Brown trial.

By the end of 1862 President Lincoln knew he needed more manpower to bring the war to a close. He called for more soldiers and authorized the use of Africans in the Union Army. It was decided to refer to the Africans as “colored,” and the regiments in which they served were called United States Colored Troops.

Besides increasing the size of the Union forces, the use of African troops also served to further disrupt Southern life. Every African in the fields was now a potential soldier. Men who carried hoes from sunup to sundown might soon be carrying rifles. What’s more, Southerners sensed that fighting for freedom was an idea that, once planted in the mind of an unfree man, would never die. The idea of slavery was forever dead when the first guns were placed in the hands of men determined to be free.

Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, objected strongly to the Union’s use of Africans as soldiers and declared that African soldiers captured by the Confederacy would not be treated as prisoners of war. White Union soldiers captured would be humanely treated and either exchanged or put into camps until the war ended, but Africans would be treated as slaves and either returned to their masters or sold. The Richmond newspapers suggested an even stronger course of action: No soldiers of African descent should be taken prisoner; they should be killed.

Further, the Confederate congress passed an act against white officers who led African troops into battle:

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