This week the 118th United States Colored Troops regiment is forming in Kentucky. Many former slaves enroll today in Owensboro, eager to take up arms to help put down the Rebellion and free the remaining slaves in the Confederacy. Former slaves are now daily enrolling in the Union Army, and in so doing are ensuring…
Against the backdrop of the Union’s inability, to this point, to capture either Richmond or Atlanta, and the attendant restlessness among many Northerners, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln recognizes the growing possibility of defeat in the upcoming November elections. The Democratic platform is one of immediate peace and the end of emancipation, and many Northerners seem…
St. Augustine, Florida has been under Union control since March 1862. Along with Beaufort, South Carolina and environs, St. Augustine serves as a Northern-controlled freemen’s colony, providing opportunities for former slaves — or contrabands (the wartime term for slaves freed by the Union Army) — to receive basic education, learn trades and acquire farming skills. Leading…