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11 “A disagreeable dilemma” Black Captives in Blue in July 1862 the U.s. Congress approved the enlistment of black soldiers into the American armed forces.Two months later President lincoln announced his intention to enforce his emancipation Proclamation beginning January 1, 1863. Both changed the nature of the war. Both also had a drastic effect on Union and Confederate prison policies—as well as the captives affected by those policies. At first, however, lincoln treaded carefully. Congress had given him the authority “to employ as many persons of African descent as he may deem necessary.” The president could “organize and use them in such manner as he may judge best for the public welfare.” This left the details clearly in the hands of the executive branch, where many factors had to be considered. high among them were the feelings of the loyal border states, where slavery was still legal. Privately lincoln also expressed doubts about the capabilities of black soldiers. As a result, blacks entering the Union army were at first limited to garrison duties well behind the lines. his views gradually moderated, however, and by early 1863 the president was ready to allow blacks to help secure the freedom that he had formally proclaimed.1 The Confederate response was predictably vociferous. on December 23, 1863, President Davis issued a proclamation declaring that “all negro slaves captured in arms” be delivered to the governors of the states “to which they belong.” Their commissioned officers were to meet the same fate. he reiterated those points three weeks later in his annual message to the Confederate Congress. on may 1 the Congress approved a resolution not only sustaining Davis’s position but taking Confederate policy even further. The legislators asserted that the Union policies of emancipation and enlisting black soldiers would “bring on a servile war [and] would if successful produce atrocious consequences.”Their resolution echoed the 186 • Chapter 11 Davis position of returning captured slaves to the states. As for their officers, they would be “deemed as inciting servile insurrection, and shall if captured be put to death or otherwise punished at the discretion of the court.” significantly, the policy applied not only to officers leading ex-slaves but to anyone “employ[ing] negroes in war against the Confederate states.”2 The Union and Confederate positions in this regard could not be reconciled. if they could have been, there may not have been a war to begin with. later in the conflict Robert e. lee and Ulysses s. Grant summed up these positions succinctly in an exchange of messages. Writing on october 19, 1864, lee stated, “The right to the service or labor of negro slaves in the Confederate states is the same now as when those states were members of the federal Union. The constitutional relations and obligations of the Confederate Government to the owners of this species of property are the same as those so frequently and so long recognized as appertaining to the Government of the United states with reference to the same class of persons by virtue of its organic law.” To this Grant replied, “[i] regard it my duty to protect all persons received into the Army of the United states, regardless of color or nationality. When acknowledged soldiers of the Government are captured they must be treated as prisoners of war.” in a strictly legal sense, putting all moral considerations aside, each general presented a strong case. it was simply an issue to which there could be no compromise.That meant the fate of black Union captives would have to depend on the outcome of the war.3 Until the war ended the fate of individual black prisoners depended much more upon the attitudes of Confederate officers and men on particular battlefields.This did not bode well for the soldiers of the United states Colored Troops (UsCT). in a letter home, famously quoted by historian Bell i. Wiley, one Confederate soldier summed up the feelings of many of his comrades. The soldier wrote, “i hope i may never see a negro soldier or i cannot be . . . a Christian soldier.”4 Among the first places such feelings were demonstrated was milliken’s Bend, a federal supply base along the mississippi in louisiana. Confederates attacked it on June 7, 1863, hoping to disrupt Grant’s siege of vicksburg. The attack failed, but in the aftermath, Adm. David D. Porter found evidence that the Confederates had exacted a measure of vengeance against Union black troops. “The dead...

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