Chapter 17 Section 3 “A promise of Freedom

 At first, the Civil War was not a war to end slavery. But, once soldiers got down to the south and saw slavery, people started to rethink the aims of the war.

 Lincoln was against slavery, but he did not set out to free the slaves. He wanted one thing, to save the union. When the opportunity came for him to free the slaves without risking the union, he did so. Lincoln had to be careful, though, because four of the slave states were fighting with the union.  Lincoln decided that he would free all slaves in the confederacy. Those four states fighting with the union got to keep their slaves.

 Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation on January 1, This freed all slaves in the south. This doesn’t mean that 3 million slaves just walked out of the south, but the emancipation proclamation was important. It changed the goal of the war. Now northern soldiers were fighting to save the union and to end slavery. Also, now that the war was about slavery, Europe refused to buy southern cotton or to send the south anymore supplies. This crippled the southern economy.

 Northern Abolitionists loved the emancipation proclamation and southerners hated it.

 African Americans were eventually allowed to fight for the union army. In the beginning, black soldiers were discriminated against. They were given manual labor jobs and were paid half that of white soldiers. As the war went on, the pay became equal and black soldiers were allowed to fight on the front lines. More than 200,000 fought for the union army and almost 40,000 gave their lives.

Sargeant William H. Carney Colonel Robert Gould Shaw,