The effects of the Emancipation Proclamation are rippling throughout the South and the North. In the Confederacy, slaves are escaping from their masters in ever greater numbers and many are now in Union Army uniforms, stationed in Union-controlled areas of the Southern Atlantic seaboard. For their part, slave masters and overseers are forced to keep…
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…
In the days and weeks following the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, enslaved Africans of the Confederacy experience new hope for freedom. For some, the legal freedom granted them by the United States leads to renewed efforts to escape from their masters or stretch the boundaries of their autonomy while yet enslaved. In Fredericksburg, both…