Today near Chancellorsville, Virginia, Union Gen. Joseph Hooker and his Army of the Potomac, having crossed the the Rappahannock River four days earlier, begin a major offensive against Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee’s much smaller army attacks Hooker’s advance with enough ferocity that the cautious Hooker, overriding the wishes…
Today, Edwin Stanton, the U.S. Secretary of War, gives Massachusetts governor John A. Andrew permission to begin recruiting black troops for the first U.S. colored regiment. Andrew sets about assembling officers for the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, all of whom are to be white, as mandated by the government. Among the officers selected is Colonel Robert…
Anticipation grows ever greater among free blacks of the North and Union-controlled South, as well as among many enslaved blacks in the Confederacy. The Emancipation Proclamation is only two days away. Salvation from physical bondage is near, if only on paper for enslaved blacks within the Confederacy. Salvation of another kind is also on the…