The 20 Negro Law and Emancipation

Today, 150 years ago, the Confederacy enacted its infamous “Twenty Negro Law,” which exempted persons owning twenty or more slaves from military service in the southern army. The law read:

The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact… to secure the proper police of the country, one person, either as agent, owner or overseer on each plantation on which one white person is required to be kept by the laws or ordinances of any State, and on which there is no white male adult not liable to do military service, and in States having no such law, one person as agent, owner or overseer, on each plantation of twenty negroes, and on which there is no white male adult not liable to military service; And furthermore, For additional police for every twenty negroes on two or more plantations, within five miles of each other, and each having less than twenty negroes, and of which there is no white male adult not liable to military duty, one person, being the oldest of the owners or overseers on such plantations;… are hereby exempted from military service in the armies of the Confederate States;…Provided, further, That the exemptions hereinabove enumerated and granted hereby, shall only continue whilst the persons exempted are actually engaged in their respective pursuits or occupations.

Scholars generally analyze the law in relation to class tensions in the Confederacy. As evidence, that while slaveholders were willing to send others to risk their lives defending the right to own slaves, they engineered a law that largely exempted the planter class from military service. And this analysis does have a point, as the Twenty Negro Law led to grumbling from non-slaveholding soldiers in the Confederate Army of “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight.”

While the law certainly created inequities in the Confederacy concerning the obligation to military service, its ostensible purpose should be taken seriously. Certainly it exempted slaveholders and/or their agents from service in the Confederate Army, but the Twenty Negro Law also obligated them to another purpose: “policing” the slaves. In other words, taken at its word, the law’s main purpose was meant to prevent unrest by slaves on the Confederate home front.

The fear of slave unrest in the Confederate South was quite real. Early in the war, as white men left to join the army and local militia units were sent away from home for service at the front, letters began appearing on the desks of southern leaders pleading that some men be left at home to maintain discipline among the slaves. (Civil War Emancipation has covered this topic before. To access those posts, <click here>.) The fear of slave revolt had helped create the Confederacy in the first place. It is ironic that instead of bringing white Southerners the feeling of security they craved, it made them only more worried.

This worry was not unfounded. As white manpower departed the traditional system of enforcing the slave system was strained or collapsed entirely. Armed force quite literally maintained slavery in the American South. Besides the activities of planters and overseers, a system of policing existed beyond the plantation to defend slavery. Patrols traveled the roads of the South, stopping African Americans away from their plantations to see if they had passes from their owners, and arresting those that did not. Private slave catchers operated to track down slaves that evaded the patrols, if they had not already been taken into custody by county sheriffs or village constables. And just about any town of a certain size in the South had facilities to detain fugitive slaves until they could be returned to their owners.

Yet to make this system work required manpower, and the insatiable demands of the Confederate military drained away the portion of the southern population bested suited to enforce the slave system: young adult white males. Hence, with the Twenty Negro Law, the Confederate government tried to keep a minimal level of manpower at home to prop up slavery and prevent the feared race war that white Southerners believed would come with emancipation.

To judge from the results of the Twenty Negro Law, in the end it was a failure. The number of white men retained on the plantations by the law was not enough to keep the slave system functioning as before, as patrollers, slave-catchers, and law men went off to war. In many parts of the South, even some places far removed from the front, lacking an effective enforcement system behind them, planters had to make concessions to their slaves, even paying them, to keep their plantations functioning. And if Union forces moved into an area or even nearby, the slaves system often crumbled for good. Regardless of the Twenty Negro Law, the Confederate Army ultimately was unable to defend the South from Union forces, and even with this law, planters were ultimately unable to keep slavery alive without the backing of antebellum enforcement mechanisms increasingly deprived of manpower. Hence, as legislation designed to prevent emancipation, the Twenty Negro Law was a miserable failure.

Source: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1466

Cult of the Emancipation Proclamation, Part 2

Do not get me wrong: I have nothing but respect for the Emancipation Proclamation and consider it to be one of the most important milestones on the path to freedom for the slaves in the Civil War. But overemphasizing it at the expense of other important events/causes of emancipation distorts the truth that freedom in the Civil War was a process involving many people not the act of one man, Abraham Lincoln, even if he was very important.

This past June, I commented critically on the tendency to turn early copies of the Emancipation Proclamation into objects of reverence in American civil religion, akin to, if not quite as important as early copies of the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence. While I have no problem with people lining up to view copies of the Emancipation Proclamation, the exercise serves little productive historical purpose, if people gain no appreciation of its content and historical significance. That is one reason I was critical of Allen Guelzo’s essay in the National Review Online in July wondering why there was not a holiday to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation. My point was the decentralized, ad hoc celebrations of emancipation that exist in the United States are appropriate for an event that occurred largely in a decentralized, ad hoc fashion.

So, not surprisingly, I was appalled by a newspaper article I ran across recently promoting the display of a hand-written copy of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in Syracuse, N.Y. The article made a big deal that the document was not only in Abraham Lincoln’s hand but also likely contained Lincoln’s finger prints preserved by an ink smudge on the paper. Intriguing perhaps, but so what? No doubt the prospect of seeing Lincoln’s hand writing and his finger prints will attract a few extra people to the exhibit, but will they learn anything about the story of freedom for the slaves in the American Civil War behind this hand-written copy of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation? Who knows? But I have my doubts.

They would do better to read the most recent piece in Disunion in the New York Times written by Paul Finkleman, entitled “From Union to Freedom.” Finkleman does a wonderful job of explaining the release of the Emancipation Proclamation in the context of the many other significant events related to emancipation in the spring, summer, and fall of 1862. He describes the Emancipation Proclamation, in other words, in the context of a larger process, not as the be all of emancipation, which public perception and even some distinguished historians try to make it. Bravo, Paul Finkleman, bravo!

Other Historians’ Perspectives on the Emancipation Proclamation

Not surprisingly, other historians are weighing in on the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. Here is what I’ve come across so far. No doubt there is more to come. Readers: feel free to send me links to any other essays of this sort you come across.

Eric Foner, “The Emancipation Proclamation at 150: Abraham Lincoln’s turning-point” (in The Guardian). Some good thoughts on the Emancipation Proclamation from the dean of Reconstruction historians. I appreciate that Foner reminded me that the Preliminary version had a last overture to the slave states to accept gradual compensated emancipation.

Allen Guelzo, “How Lincoln Saved the ‘Central Idea’ of America” (in the Wall Street Journal). A nice piece from the most prominent proponent of the Emancipation Proclamation’s centrality in freeing the slaves. Still, I respectfully disagree with Guelzo on the practicality of returning contrabands to slavery had there been a negotiated settlement to end the Civil War. “Rendition” (as Guelzo describes it) would have been much more difficult in the Civil War given that slavery was a much bigger institution and anti-slavery sentiments much more prevalent among white Northerners than in the aftermath of the American Revolution and War of 1812. Still, this is speculative “what if” history that is of questionable value in seeking insight into the Emancipation Proclamation. (Helpful hint: if you are not a subscriber, type the title of Guelzo’s article into Google and then follow the link it provides to the story to get through the WSJ paywall.)

Brooks Simpson, “Countdown to Emancipation” (in his blog, Crossroads). Simpson issues a useful reminder that September 22 was the start not the end of the Emancipation Proclamation’s public life and that there would be much more to come on this issue. How true.

Richard Striner, “Lincoln’s Great Gamble” (in Disunion in the New York Times). Striner discusses what a political risk Lincoln took in announcing the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation less than two months before the November 1862 midterm elections. (Tip of the hat to Albert Mackey for bringing this piece to my attention.)

Stay tuned to Civil War Emancipation for more on the Emancipation Proclamation.

Why the Emancipation Proclamation Mattered and Why It Didn’t

Tomorrow is the sesquicentennial of the release of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. It is certainly one of the most momentous events concerning emancipation in the Civil War, demonstrating the Lincoln administration’s embrace of immediate, uncompensated freedom for the slaves. Or did it?

One thing that can be certain in September 1862 was Abraham Lincoln was committed to freeing the slaves. For the first half of 1862, President Lincoln had sought to coax the remaining four loyal slave states (Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky) into embracing gradual compensated emancipation. If nothing else demonstrated Lincoln’s sincerity on emancipation, his patient lobbying on this doomed initiative should put all doubts to rest.

Yet if the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation shows anything, it was that Abraham Lincoln was willing to be flexible about the terms of emancipation, and let slavery persist for a time (although likely not permanently) if it would end the war and save the Union. For one thing, the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation exempted the loyal slave states and areas of the Confederacy then under Union occupation in the hopes of conciliating slaveholders there to the federal government. For another, Lincoln would not free any slaves if the rebellious states returned to the Union by the end of 1862.

No doubt Lincoln did not expect the leaders of the Confederacy to accept his offer of reconciliation. But as he had with his plan of gradual compensated emancipation with the loyal slaves states, it was necessary politically to give the slaveholders of the rebel states the chance to keep their slaves for the time being if they would resume their loyalty to the Union. But the Confederates’ rejection of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation helped to justify divesting them of their slaves immediately when the document became final on New Year’s Day 1863.

Yet would the Emancipation Proclamation free any slaves at all? It was one thing for Lincoln to declare emancipation. It was quite another to put it into effect. This is where historians like Gary Gallagher have a point. Without a doubt the Union Army was indispensable to freeing the slaves. Indeed, the Emancipation Proclamation effectively turned it into an army of liberation. Where the Union Army went freedom usually followed for the slaves. It also turned the Confederate army into a force seeking to keep slavery, however much many southern soldiers might deny that fact. Hence, in a clever bit of political jujitsu, Abraham Lincoln made it difficult for the South to claim it merely was fighting for independence, and in the process made it all but impossible for the nations of Europe to recognize the Confederacy, however much it was otherwise in their geo-political interest to do so.

Still, it also is impossible to deny that without the slaves’ initiative, Abraham Lincoln likely would not have moved as far as fast as he had. Without intending to, but in countless acts of self interest by people desperate to be free, slaves fled to the Union-controlled territory and by doing so made an issue of themselves, and one that could not be ignored, however much certain Union commanders tried. So many slaves had fled to and fallen into Union hands by September 1862, slavery in the United States had suffered a grievous blow that made its long-term survival questionable, especially if the war continued, which it would for two and a half more years that would seal the completion of emancipation.

So, the Emancipation Proclamation, preliminary or final, was the executive branch of U.S. government recognizing what was already in many ways an accomplished fact. Adam Goodheart, in his April 2011 article on emancipation in the New York Times magazine relates a wonderful anecdote to this effect, which like he did I will close with. He writes:

On the September day of Lincoln’s edict, a Union colonel ran into William Seward, the president’s canny secretary of state, on the street in Washington and took the opportunity to congratulate him on the administration’s epochal act.

Seward snorted. “Yes,” he said, “we have let off a puff of wind over an accomplished fact.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Seward?” the officer asked.

“I mean,” the secretary replied, “that the Emancipation Proclamation was uttered in the first gun fired at Sumter, and we have been the last to hear it.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/magazine/mag-03CivilWar-t.html

Fleeing to Remain Free

Virginia slaves, c. 1862

Shifting military fortunes had significance for emancipation during the American Civil War. Although Union forces tended to occupy more and more Confederate territory over the course of the conflict, at times the Confederates rolled back the Union tide, especially in the volatile Eastern theater. For example, in early September 1862, after the Union disaster at Second Bull Run, the Confederates pushed federal forces out of Virginia and invaded Maryland, hoping a battlefield victory on Union soil would force the Lincoln administration to sue for peace, securing southern independence.

Caught up in the federal retreat from Virginia were thousands of slaves who had effectively become free as the Union Army had campaigned and occupied parts of northern Virginia in the first year and a half of the war. One such place was Stafford County, Virginia, about 45 miles directly south of Washington, D.C. Much of Stafford County, including its principal city, Fredericksburg, had come under occupation in Spring 1862, when Confederate forces there, anticipating Gen. McClellan’s campaign against Richmond had moved to more defensible positions south of the Rappahannock River.

The Confederate retreat brought many Stafford County slaves under the Union Army’s protection, and thousands went to work for them as laborers. Yet their liberation threatened to prove short-lived, when in the wake of the Union defeat at Second Bull Run in late August 1862, Union forces in Stafford County were obliged to retreat north. It speaks volumes of their desire to remain ex-slaves that thousands of African Americans joined the exodus of Union forces across Aquia Creek in the direction of Washington, D.C.

Their story became the subject of an article in the New York Times, published on September 7, 1862 (from a letter dated about a week earlier). It read:

FREDERICKSBURGH, Saturday, Aug. 30, 1862.

Gen. BURNSIDE has been occupied, during the last three days, in putting himself in condition to meet any emergency that may arise at this place. He has disposed of his surplus baggage and commissary stores, placing them out of reach of any descent of a force in this direction, and leaving him free to dispute the advance of the rebel army. The movement has been very deliberate, and the sympathizers with rebellion seem at a loss how to interpret it. The usual picket guard keep their position in advance of the town, watching all its approaches. The Provost Guard patrol the town night and day; and on the opposite bank of the river siege guns and field artillery open their brazen throats in this direction, as if ready to belch destruction upon the devoted place. Secesh have watched every movement with the greatest interest, and naturally interpret it as indicating the evacuation of the town by the Union troops.

Nothing could be further from his purpose. They have, however, grown more bold and defiant in their behavior, and have evidently been preparing for some important change in their favor. They hourly hear the most extravagant reports of the success of the Confederate Army at the westward, and act as if they believed all they hear. All the Sutlers have sold out their stock and crossed the river. The public houses, such as the “Shakespeare” and “Burnside House,” have been suddenly closed. The few boarding-houses have been relieved of their guests, and their occupation is gone. On the part of the rebels there is a looking-for of judgment and fiery indignatton, which shall doom the adverse Yankees “right soon.”

The colored people yesterday morning became excited by fears that Stonewall was coming, and were on the qui vive. Many of them have shown too zealously their friendship for Union officers and Union soldiers, and they know what their fate will be if they are trapped. The result is that there is now going on, or rather going off, a grand skedaddle of the whole colored population from the town. I estimated, by former values in the Richmond slave-market, two hundred thousand dollars worth of this “property” have taken to itself legs and run away. “Git up in de mornin’ airly,” was the favorite chorus to-day. All night preparations were going on in the garrets and back kitchens. Beds and clothing were hurriedly tied up in bundles, and old trunks, plethoric with valued articles, were packed for the start. At daybreak the exodus began, and out of every gate and alley-way sallied groups of men, women and children, carrying bundles, trunks and boxes, and bending their steps towards the railroad station. By 7 o’clock A.M., the railroad depot was thronged by these children of Ham. The first train went full, and before the last whistle of the locomotive had died away on the other side of Jordan, as many more had congregated to be taken off. The large quantity of “traps,” which were brought by many of them, were found to occupy too much valuable space, and they had to be left behind. Every person who applied to the Provost-Marshal for a pass was accommodated, and no questions were asked.

All these people have been within our lines for months past, and many of them have been faithfully and most loyally serving the army in some useful capacity. Of course, they are entitled, by every argument of justice and reason, to say nothing of the acts of Congress and the President, to follow the army of the Union, and enjoy its protection. It is not a very grievous spectacle to witness the madness and dismay manifested by the Secessionists, as they look on and see this army of their “most trusted and faithful servants” going off. They have let no opportunity pass of heaping insult upon the Union soldiers, who have quietly, and in the most orderly manner, occupied their town, and to express the belief that we should soon all be driven out by the valorous Southern army. This morning they have risen from their quiet slumbers to have their astonished vision greeted by the skedaddle, not of the Union soldiers, but of an army of their household servants and working hands. There was many a late breakfast, or a cold one, depend upon it, in Fredericksburgh this morning.

The cars continued to run frequently during the day, and to have full freights of these self-exiled people, with their few household and personal effects, which were carried to Aquia Creek.

During the afternoon some cavalry men or infantry soldiers on picket outside of the town, saw a big dust on the road toward Richmond, and “fell back” instanter, bringing report that a large force was advancing on the place. In an incredible short space of time a long sable procession appeared upon the streets leading to the wire bridge. They carried mule loads of beds, trunks and boxes upon their heads and shoulders, and so thronged the bridge that I found it almost impossible to crowd by with my horse on my way to the town. In the course of half an hour, two or three hundred additional pilgrims passed over this one bridge. They also poured over the railroad and pontoon bridge below, until it seemed that the town would indeed be wholly depopulated. This exodus continued until near sundown; the people, leading large groups of very small children or carrying them in their arms, went to the railroad depot, or encamped in the open fields for the night. It is, indeed, a painful incident of this war to see so many of these defenceless people exiling themselves and children from their homes, to go they know not whither, in order to escape the dreaded fate of falling into the hands of the rebel soldiers.

Compared with the colored people whom I have seen in North Carolina and elsewhere, they are, upon the average, a very superior class. Many of them have been small tradespeople, by which means they have earned comfortable livings. Some free persons had amassed small properties, and lived in comparative comfort. Should these people, numbering nearly a thousand persons, be sent to Washington, I would bespeak a kindly reception for them on the part of Mr. POMEROY, the Commissioner of Emigration. Gen. BURNSIDE will hold this town as long as it is possible to do so — depend upon it — and will not yield the position without a severe struggle in which the town itself may suffer. I trust it may be spared. E.S.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/1862/09/07/news/fredericksburgh-exodus-slave-population-gen-burnside-strong-position-hold-place.html

Sherman Explains the New Facts of Life, Part 2

In early September 1862, William Tecumseh Sherman wrote his brother, John, then in his early years as a U.S. Senator from Ohio. It is a useful letter because it reveals clearly the attitude of Sherman to African-American slaves alluded to in the August 26 edition of Civil War Emancipation.

To recap, in late August/early September 1862, Sherman was serving as the federal commander of Union-occupied Memphis. As a Northerner who had spent considerable time in the South before the Civil War, he considered himself more knowledgeable than most people of his section on the slaves, and felt he needed to educate his brother on the subject, especially now that John had become an important policy maker in Washington, D.C.

This letter, in late Summer 1862, between Sherman and his brother reveals unsurprisingly that William Tecumseh Sherman did not hold a high opinion of African Americans, and he was unimpressed by congressional efforts to free them through passing the Second Confiscation Act. He wrote John:

I have your letter and Still think you are wrong in saying that Negros are free & entitled to be treated accordingly by simple declaration of Congress.  It requires a Judicial decree in each instance before the officers of our Treasury will give faith to their receipts or recognise any dealings with them.  Besides, no army could take care of the wants of the host of slaves, women & children that would hang about if freed without the condition attached of earning their food & clothing.  I know instead of helping us it would be an incumbrance.

As he would for most of the rest of the war, Sherman saw slaves as essentially incapable of caring for themselves, and primarily a potential hindrance to the military mission of the Union Army. While he recognized their value as laborers, William Tecumseh Sherman was loath to free the slaves in early September 1862 because he believed it would create tremendous problems for the army and for the nation. He wrote his brother:

Now, I have in my orders appropriated the labor of negroes as far as will benefit the army.  To injure our enemy, universal emancipation with the machinery to carry it into Effect would be of course effectual, but by no means conclusive.  Not one slave in ten wants to run off.  There are 25,000 in 20 miles of Memphis.  All could escape & would receive protection here, but we have only about 2000 of whom full one half are hanging about camps as officers servants.  Some plan, some system of labor must be devised in connection with these slaves else the whole scheme fails.  It is easy to say “thou shalt not steal” but to stop stealing puzzles the brains of hundreds of men and employs thousands of bailiffs, sheriffs, &c. &c.  So you or Congress may command, “Slaves shall be free” but to make them free, and see that they are not converted into thieves, idlers or worse is a difficult problem and will require much machinery to carry out.

Our commissaries must be enduced to feed them, and some provision must be made for the women & children.  My order gives employment to say 2000—all men.  Now that is about 1/8 of the command.  Extend that proportion to the whole army of 800,000, gives 100,000 slaves.  And if we pay $10 a month the estimate can be made.  If the women & children are to be provided for, we must allow for the support of say one million. Where are they to get work?  Who is to feed them? Clothe them? & House them?  We cannot now give tents to our soldiers, our wagon trains are now a horrible impediment, and if we are to take along & feed the negroes who flee to us for refuge, it will be an impossible task.  You cannot solve this negro question in a day.

So while William Tecumseh Sherman recognized the military value of emancipation and how it would harm the Confederacy, he feared that it also would harm the Union cause because the slaves would become a burden the Union Army was not capable of dealing with. Eventually, of course, Sherman would accept emancipation and famously give southern slaves the means to help themselves, with Special Field Orders No. 15 in January 1865 (the historical basis for “40 acres and a mule”), but in September 1862, he still saw them as a potential administrative disaster, and preferred the slaves to stay on their plantations even if it kept them in bondage. But this reasoning was predicated on the belief the slaves were incapable of caring for themselves. Like other white Northerners, it would take time to for Sherman to be set straight on that common misconception.

Source: http://sherman150.wordpress.com/

Calling on Africa: Official Black Recruitment Begins

 Punch (London), August 9, 1862

As we enter September, with the sesquicentennial of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation only a few weeks away, let us take a last look at August 1862. It was a momentous month in the history of emancipation in its own right because with the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation imminent, merely awaiting Union victory on the battlefield, the Lincoln administration quietly dropped its objection to black soldiers and began officially recruiting African Americans into the Union Army.

If any move by the Lincoln administration pushed forward emancipation in practical terms, it was allowing African Americans to serve as soldiers. This is because military service not only gave black men a claim to freedom, but also to full citizenship. For in the mid-nineteenth century, Americans thought of citizenship as entailing obligations as well as rights. And the most onerous duty of the citizen was military service. Hence, if black men served as soldiers they would stake a potent claim to both freedom and equal rights for themselves and their race.

Of course, actual recruitment had begun earlier as a result of David Hunter and James H. Lane’s efforts in South Carolina and Kansas, respectively, to begin enlistment of black soldiers on their own initiative. Hunter in May 1862 and Lane in early July 1862. Both men meant to prod the Lincoln administration to take the very step it finally made with little fanfare in late August. No doubt Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton was not about to authorize black soldiers for the Union Army until Lincoln after shared with his cabinet an early draft of the Emancipation Proclamation in late July 1862.

Sanctioned or at least tacitly approved recruitment began in Louisiana and South Carolina. What these places had in common was that they both were low priority areas for leaders in Washington, D.C. Which meant they did not receive much in the way of reinforcements or supplies. This fact does much to explain, besides his fervent abolitionism, why David Hunter tried to form a black regiment in South Carolina in the late spring of 1862. Hunter needed the troops and saw no other way to  get them. The irascible James Lane certainly needed more troops in Kansas, but probably more wanted to test the limits of the new Militia Act that implicitly authorized black recruitment.

The first Union leader to form an official black Union regiment was none other than the crafty Benjamin Butler. He had resisted the efforts of his subordinate, John W. Phelps, to recruit black troops on his own authority from among the state’s slaves earlier in the Summer 1862. Butler feared angering Louisiana slaveholders that he hoped could be convinced to resume their loyalty to the Union. But by August, facing the looming threat of a Confederate assault aiming to retake New Orleans, and with little prospect of white reinforcements from outside Louisiana, Butler, as he put it, decided to “call on Africa.”

Without waiting for explicit authority from the War Department, Ben Butler quickly raised black troops. He did so on August 22, 1862, by reforming the Louisiana Native Guards, a state militia unit composed of free men of color that had formed in 1861 for Confederate service. Largely rebuffed in their attempts to serve the Confederacy, the unit had been dissolved shortly before New Orleans fell to Union forces. Desperate for troops, and with many of the same men in the old Louisiana Native Guard willing to fight for the Union, Ben Butler accepted them into service. As the free black population of New Orleans was substantial, it also allowed Butler to raise black troops, at least initially, without recruiting among the state’s slave population, although no doubt some slaves joined on the sly the new Union incarnation of the old Confederate state militia unit.

Ben Butler received an enthusiastic response to his call for black soldiers in New Orleans among the gens de couleur libre, the French-speaking free mulattoes. By the end of September, he had raised two regiments in addition to the original one. While he did so without explicit permission from the War Department, neither did Secretary Stanton rebuke Butler, as he had James H. Lane, only a month before. But Butler was unsuccessful in getting an explicit authorization for the unit from the War Department. He continued to press the matter until he was transferred out of New Orleans in November 1862.

No doubt an important reason that the pro-Union Native Guard regiments did not receive explicit sanction was that Ben Butler, by reconstituting the old Confederate militia unit into Union service, accepted that African Americans could serve as officers for these regiments, a highly controversial move, in an era where virtually all whites utterly rejected the notion of answering to a black superior. When Nathaniel Banks replaced Ben Butler in charge of Union forces in Louisiana, he slowly purge these black officers by making the circumstances of their service increasingly humiliating and distasteful. Nonetheless, some of them held long enough on to see combat at the siege of Port Hudson in late spring 1863, and Captain André Cailloux was killed there in May 1863, leading a charge on the Confederate fortifications, becoming an early black martyr to the Union cause. The Louisiana Native Guards regiments were reorganized in June 1863 as the Corps d’Afrique and in April 1864, with original black officers long since forced out, the remnants of the original Native Guard regiments officially joined the U.S. Colored Troops as the 73rd and 74th U.S. Colored Infantry.

Despite all the machinations over the Louisiana Native Guards, developments elsewhere in late August 1863 clearly show that the Lincoln Administration had shifted from opposition to black soldiers in the Union Army in July 1862 to approving them by the end of the following month. Days  after Ben Butler reconstituted the Louisiana Native Guards, on August 25, 1862, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton sent a letter to General Rufus Saxton in South Carolina explicitly authorizing the recruitment of black soldiers there. The key passage read:

In view of the small force under your command and the inability of the Government at the present time to increase it, in order to guard the plantations and settlements occupied by the United States from invasion and protect the inhabitants hereof from captivity and murder by the enemy, you are also authorized to arm, uniform, equip, and receive into the service of the United States such number of volunteers of African descent as you may deem expedient, not exceeding 5,000, and may detail  officers to instruct them in military drill, discipline, and duty, and to command them. The persons so received into service and their officers to instruct them in military drill, discipline, and duty, and to command them. The persons so received into service and their officers to be entitled to and receive the same pay and rations as are allowed by law to volunteers in the service.

In an important respect, the recruitment authority given Saxton was momentous because there was no doubt that he would be recruiting his soldiers from among the slave population of South Carolina, as their were few if any free blacks in the rural Sea Islands. While the black population around Port Royal had effectively become free since Confederate forces fled the area the previous November, in the eyes of the law they still were slaves. But once they put on the federal uniform, these men could never again be slaves. Their officers would be white, but unquestionably they would be fighting for freedom, for themselves and for their people. Hence, by calling on Africa, Abraham Lincoln had taken an irrevocable step in the direction of emancipation.

Source: http://www.drbronsontours.com/bronsongeneralrufussaxtonauthorizedtoraiseblackregiments.html