1. The Final Emancipation

2. The civil war begins
The Civil War on April 12, 1861 Southern guns fired on Fort Sumter – South Carolina To prevent US Navy from resupplying the fort Background: December 1860 – February states leave the Union to est. an independent nation South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas Four more states leave after firing on Fort Sumter Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee

3. Another look at the map

4. Why did the first Seven states “Secede”?
A Republican had been elected president
Abraham Lincoln
Republicans wanted to stop the spread of slavery.
Many Republicans were abolitionists
Southerners saw abolition as a threat to their way of life
Southerners left to preserve their way of life
To protect their property -- slaves)

5. Slavery was the root cause of the civil war
Would a northern victory end slavery? At first, Lincoln said “no.” The war was fought to “save the union” Lincoln, August, “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

6. Lincoln wanted to free the slaves
Already drafted the Emancipation Proclamation Waiting for the North to win a major battle Lincoln was a politician – acted with caution Others were not constrained Others knew the Civil War was really about ending slavery

7. The slaves were the first to know
Slaves ran away as soon as slaves saw the Union troops
The Battle of Bull Run – July 21, 1861
In Maryland and Virginia
In Missouri and Kentucky
Slaves joined the Northern army as it moved South
Slaves took advantage of the chaos of war

8. Northern soldiers: next to know the true meaning of the war
What should they do when slaves arrived?
Give them sanctuary (shelter – take them in)?
Send them away?
Return them to their owners?
Sheltering fugitives antagonized loyal slaveholders
Returning fugitives antagonized abolitionists
Soldiers resented being ordered to capture runaways
Soldiers realize slaves were an important war issue
Lincoln orders commanders to return slaves

9. Commanding officers free slaves
Two of Lincoln's commanders freed slaves their districts
General John C. Frémont
General David Hunter
Lincoln was publically embarrassed
Lincoln countermanded their orders

10. Congress acts to deprive south of Slaves
July of 1861 U.S. Congress passes laws ● Runways were not to be returned ● Slaves used in the war effort were to be confiscated. The status of those slaves effected by these laws was uncertain -- Slave or free? Came to be called “contraband” Benjamin Butler

11. Congress abolishes slavery in some places
April Washington, DC June 1862 – All federal territories July, 1862 – Slaves in Missouri whose owners supported the rebellion

12. Lincoln moves cautiously
Afraid to alienate certain groups of people
Border states
Soldiers
Northern opponents of abolition
Backed compensation and colonization.
Lincoln offered the border states money to gradually free their slaves
Border state reject Lincoln’s offer
Lincoln decides it’s time to free the slaves

13. The emancipation proclamation
July 22, 1862, Lincoln told his cabinet
Waits for a military victory before making his plan public
The Battle of Antietam , 17 September 1862
September 22, The Emancipation Proclamation
“On the 1st day of January in the year of our lord 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thence forth and forever free.”

14. The proclamation did not free all the slaves
The Emancipation Proclamation transformed the Civil War
From a war to save the union, into a war to free the slaves
It transformed the northern army into an army of liberation