A Great Sacrifice: Northern Black Soldiers, Their Families, and the Experience of Civil War

By James G. Mendez

“Offers readers new insight into the lives of African American men and women from the North in the era of the Civil War.” —Liz Regosin, Charles A. Dana Professor of History, St. Lawrence University

A Great Sacrifice is an in-depth analysis of the effects of the Civil War on northern black families carried out using letters from northern black women—mothers, wives, sisters, and female family friends—addressed to a number of Union military officials.

Collectively, the letters give a voice to the black family members left on the northern homefront. Through their explanations and requests, readers obtain a greater apprehension of the struggles African American families faced during the war, and their conditions as the war progressed. The original letters that were received by government agencies, as well as many of the copies of the letters sent in response, are held by the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

This study is unique because it examines the effects of the war specifically on northern black families. Most other studies on African Americans during the Civil War focused almost exclusively on the soldiers.

“In this deeply researched and revealing book, James G. Mendez seeks to recover the experience of northern black soldiers and their families during the Civil War era in order to discover the ways they engaged the governments of their day both to recognize and respect their service and sacrifice during the war and to count the costs northern blacks paid out in impoverished families, wartime casualties, and unfulfilled promises . . . Mendez’s book deserves our attention and appreciation.” —American Historical Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9780823282517

Book preview

A GREAT SACRIFICE

THE NORTH’S CIVIL WAR

Andrew L. Slap, series editor

A Great Sacrifice

Northern Black Soldiers, Their Families, and the Experience of Civil War

James G. Mendez

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS

NEW YORK    2019

Copyright © 2019 Fordham University Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mendez, James (James G.), author.

Title: A great sacrifice : Northern Black soldiers, their families, and the experience of Civil War / James G. Mendez.

Description: First edition. | New York : Fordham University Press, 2019. | Series: The North’s Civil War | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018028220| ISBN 9780823282500 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780823282494 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: African American soldiers—History—19th century. | African American soldiers—Family relationships—History—19th century. | African American women—Correspondence. | African American families—History—19th century. | United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—African Americans. | United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Social aspects. | Northeastern States—Social conditions—19th century.

Classification: LCC E540.N3 M46 2019 | DDC 973.7/415—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018028220

Printed in the United States of America

21 20 19    5 4 3 2 1

First edition

For my loving parents, Larisla and James A. Mendez, Sr.

Contents

List of Figures

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Life in the North: Before the War

2. A Grand Opportunity: 1861 and 1862

3. The Forming of Black Regiments and Success in Battle

4. The Unequal Pay Issue

5. Violence on Two Fronts

6. Information Requests

7. Discharge Requests

8. The Conclusion of the War

9. After the War: A Different Kind of Battle

10. Even Farther Away from Home: Occupation Duty Continues

11. Home Again

Appendix: Northern Black Regiments

Acknowledgments

Notes

Cited Literature

Index

Figures

1. Black Refugees 1

2. Black Refugees 2

3. Watch meeting, Dec. 31, 1862, waiting for the hour

4. 54th Massachusetts Regiment’s charge on Ft. Wagner

5. Bounties

6. Public gathering for New York’s first black regiment—the 20th USCT

7. Grand Review of the Army

8. Forms of soldier punishment during the Civil War

9. Members of a black regiment using down time to for reading classes

10. Be Citizens in Peace

Additional photographs

Abbreviations

A GREAT SACRIFICE

Introduction

Mr Abraham lincoln sir I with mutch plasur set down to address you with a few lines to let you know that my husband is in the army and left me hear with a helpless famely and he has not recived any pay and I get no reliefe I would like to know if you please what will be done. . . . pleas rite and let me know." In her letter to Lincoln, Matilld Burr made an impassioned plea for financial help as she struggled to provide for herself and family while her husband was away fighting to preserve the Union, but with no pay, or very little pay, to send home. Burr’s letter was a response to the arduous conditions under which northern African-American families had to live and how they were affected by the Civil War. Mattild wrote the letter addressed to Abraham Lincoln on January 18, 1864. Her husband, Charles, was twenty-five years old and a boatman when he joined the regiment as a substitute on July 18, 1863.¹

Northern blacks supported the military and the Union in spite of the hardships the soldiers and their families experienced. And as the war persisted and the role of black soldiers expanded, families found it even harder to survive under increasingly difficult conditions. Moreover, the patriotism of these families, though greatly affected, was not broken by the unequal pay issue, which was still unresolved and resulted in continued hardship for them. Soldiers and their families were also not deterred by the racism soldiers faced on the front lines, in the form of excess fatigue duty and mistreatment at the hands of their officers and white Union troops. Black troops faced these obstacles serving in the very segregated Union army. Nor were they dissuaded by the racism their families faced at home, in the form of the threat of violence and race riots or limited access to relief resources and aid to help the families survive financially while their main bread-winners were away serving in the army. In spite of these uncertainties and concerns, as well as the threat of execution or enslavement if Confederate forces caught them, black men continued to enlist and serve their country.

When northern black men joined the armed forces of the Union and went off to fight in the Civil War, they were the vanguard of a black community that faithfully supported the Union effort in large numbers and steadfastly sent their men to fight. They did this even though they had to know the sacrifices would be great, not just for themselves on the battlefield but for their families at home. Northern blacks would have to face obstacles and challenges very different from those white Union soldiers and families encountered. From their reasons for supporting the war to their expectations after a Union victory, the participation and experiences of northern black families were at times very divergent from those of the Union’s white soldiers, and even their black brothers from the South who also served in the Union army.

This study analyzes the effects of the Civil War on northern black families as they sacrificed for a Union victory, and asks the question, how were black Union soldiers from the North and their families affected by their involvement in the Civil War? In sending their men off to fight the war, black families lost the income these men provided and their presence as fathers and leaders within the family. These losses caused temporary or long-term family disruptions, depending on whether a family member returned home from the war unharmed or injured, or whether he did not return at all because he died while serving. Regardless, the families had to find a way to survive with their men gone, and they did. At the same time, northern black troops had to perform their duties as soldiers while confronting discrimination from Union authorities and white troops, as well as the Confederacy. This they did while acutely concerned about the well being of their wives, mothers, sisters, fathers, brothers, and children.

In addition, this study attempts to gain an understanding of what the family unit expected to gain or lose by the soldier’s involvement in the war. Did these African-American families expect financial rewards, greater social acceptance, or political gains in return for their support of the Union? Did they fully realize what was ultimately being sacrificed and that many of their men would not return home, or would return permanently disabled? This study will attempt to discern how the family compensated for the lost income and the loss of male family members. By sending letters to federal government officials, the family members worked actively to get their problems and many inquiries addressed.

I explore these questions by telling the story of northern black soldiers right before the start of the Civil War to early 1866 after the last northern black regiment returned home.² The Civil War history of black soldiers is examined from the events leading up to the formation of the first black regiments and their initial participation in minor skirmishes and then major battles, to their role in a Union victory, occupation duty, and eventual return home. However, woven into this history is the story of the families, mainly women and children, who remained at home. Presented in this manner, it becomes easier to grasp, from the beginning to the end of the northern black participation in the war, the interrelation of the battlefront and the Union home front. Each front affected the other front as soldiers and their families went about on a daily basis trying to bear the rigors and challenges of being at war.

By focusing on these questions and how the war affected northern African Americans, this work will highlight the sacrifices made by northern black families, as well as black soldiers, to obtain Union victory. Though northern white families also suffered from the loss of income and the male presence while their men served in the military, the loss was greater for black families as a group because, in proportion to whites and southern blacks, more men in the northern black communities enlisted. Therefore, there were proportionally more black northern families without males around. Additionally, the black families in the North were smaller, consisting of two parents and their children. Also, black families were less likely than white families in similar economic conditions to include older parents, siblings, and cousins living together under one roof. Hence, they were less capable of compensating for losses through the support of older or younger males who remained at home. And black families were less capable of meeting the standard of living obtained prior to the war. Lost wages were not a factor for black Union soldiers from the South because they had not been paid as slaves. In addition, slavery had made the presence of males less of a factor in many slave families, whether or not they resided with their families, but especially if they did not.³

While northern black families struggled at home, their men experienced their own difficulties at the front. They had to fight the Union policy to pay black soldiers less than white soldiers. They had to confront hostility from white Union soldiers, many of whom initially did not support the idea of black soldiers, especially not in combat. In addition, the Confederate government threatened to put them into slavery if they were caught, or even to hang them and their white officers as rebels attempting to incite slave insurrections. A greater concern for black troops was the threat of being caught by Confederates and not given any quarter or the chance to surrender. This Confederate practice sometimes led to the murder of black soldiers, such as the massacre that occurred on the banks of the Mississippi River at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, in April 1864. Black Union soldiers from the South experienced these same hostilities at the front, while white Union soldiers did not, unless they were officers in black regiments.

Black families at home also confronted hostility from northern whites who opposed the war, especially after the end of slavery in the South became an official Union goal. An extreme example of this hostility is the New York Draft Riots, where many innocent blacks were killed and their property destroyed by mobs who opposed the new federal initiative to recruit blacks. The white mobs displayed their anger by lashing out at blacks, any blacks. The families of white northern soldiers did not have to face such hazards. The families of black soldiers from the South were in constant fear of retaliation from Confederates supporters due to the actions of the families’ soldiers serving in the Union army.⁴

Because they made a significant sacrifice, these families deserve to have their stories told about their contribution to the Union war effort and how their lives were directly affected by their participation in the Civil War. This book tells their story, not in a secondary manner or as an afterthought to the heroics of the soldiers, but rather, simultaneously and in tandem because the role of northern blacks, both the soldiers and their families, evolved and became more significant from the beginning of their involvement in the war. Until now, the full story of these African-American families has not been truly told because the focus has been on the men who went to war. But the soldiers’ story is just one part of the overall sacrifice these families made. The families functioned as a unit before and after the war. Therefore, in many ways they must be examined as a functioning unit during the war, especially because, together, they had to overcome many impediments directly associated with their participation in the war. By examining what was occurring on the home front, and not just on the front line, it becomes clear for readers that though Union families, North and South, deserve to have recognized their efforts to make possible a Union victory, the unique sacrifice of black northern families deserves particular recognition.

Northern black women—mothers, wives, sisters, and female family friends—wrote most of the letters examined in this project. If they did not write the letters themselves, someone wrote the letters on their behalf, which they then signed or put their mark on by writing an X next to their names. There is a sprinkling of letters from male family members—fathers, brothers, and family friends—but most northern black men of military age were in a Union uniform at the time, leaving women behind to care for children and the elderly. Or in the case of soldiers without wives and children, their mothers, many of them dependent on their sons, wrote letters to the army inquiring about their sons. Most of the letters from male family members are from fathers.

The letters are addressed to a number of Union military officials. In the majority of cases, it was the Adjutant General of the Union Army, Brigadier General Lorenzo Thomas, who was the recipient. It is not clear how people knew to write to him and request his assistance in resolving their issues, but it could be that, through word-of-mouth, people learned the Adjutant General was the official with the authority to approve their requests. Letter writers quite often wrote to the commanding officer of a soldier’s corps or regiment for information. It appears that the intended recipient of the letter depended a lot on how much information the family member had about the soldier’s company, regiment, and commanding officers, and how much assistance they received from people more sophisticated and experienced in dealing with the military hierarchy and bureaucracy. Interestingly, a number of the letter writers felt the need to go directly to the top of the Union leadership and addressed their letters to Abraham Lincoln or the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton.

Family members wrote to Union officials to obtain information, to get problems fixed, and, at times, to influence government officials in their decision making. Usually, these letters were not the first written about a family’s problem. Instead, these letters served as follow-up letters to ongoing problems and reflect the feelings of frustration families experienced after weeks or months of trying to get information and questions answered about their soldiers. Thus, the letters served as another attempt at, or means of, dealing with particular difficulties, such as the lack of the soldier’s pay. In most cases, the soldier tried to deal with such problems himself through the normal chain of command; however, family members often felt the need to follow up on a soldier’s appeal or add information that might help lead to a positive outcome for the soldier. In other cases, a family member made his or her request after not hearing from their soldier for weeks, months, and sometimes years. What is a constant are the feelings of despair, fear, and concern the families felt and attempted to express to Union authorities. The letters used in this analysis were not the only letters sent by family members. Families most often wrote to their soldiers but very few of those letters exist today. However, the letters used in this work are available today because they were originally sent to an army and a government that was very bureaucratic and efficient in its handling of correspondences received. Unlike letters family members first sent to soldiers, which over time were either lost or discarded by their owners, these letters exist because they remained with the government and were eventually deposited in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

The letters discussed in this book are important for a number of reasons. Collectively, they give a voice to the black family members left on the northern home front, which has not been heard loudly before. The explanations and requests provide for readers a greater understanding of the difficulties the African-American family faced during the war, their conditions as the war progressed, and in rare instances, the expectations of northern black families for fully supporting the war effort. The letters from the black women are the most valuable of the sources used in this study. Though most of the letters are no more than one page, they are significant because they represent the few written primary sources and records left behind by African-American women during the Civil War era. These are their words, sometimes written by them or written for them, in which they are saying what is on their minds and what their needs, concerns, and desires are. Because many blacks were not literate at the time, there exists no other nineteenth-century collection as rich and as numerous by black women.

The war created a situation where there was a need to correspond with the government, and black women, whether literate or not, found ways to get their thoughts and requests on paper and into the right government hands. And in taking these actions and asserting what they felt were their rights, black families achieved something they hadn’t before: nearly full participation as citizens, the only limitation being the lack of a universal right to vote throughout the Union. Yet even without the vote, their letters were treated like any other citizen’s letter. The letters were usually read, responded to, and acted upon in an official manner. Though the letters don’t represent any type of organized or grassroots movement by these families, the act of writing itself verifies that with the right to fight as Union troops in the war came expectations of equality, both with the soldiers and their families, as a recompense for their sacrifices in the war. And in sending these letters, families used an access to the federal government that never existed before because the war represented the first time in U.S. history that black troops were formally a part of the military.⁵

In addition, the letters describe the economic difficulties northern black families endured while their men were away. Usually the person in the military was the main economic provider for the family, but most black families in the North already lived a precarious existence even when the men were home. Most black men worked menial jobs; due to racism and competition with other ethnic groups, that was all that was available to them. Many black women found it necessary to further supplement their families’ income by working as domestics. With their main source of income gone, it became even more difficult for families to provide for themselves. The letters discuss what was going on during the participation of black troops during the war, and simultaneously give greater details as to how northern black families struggled.

In rare instances, individual letters give great insight into the minds and thoughts of these family members. These most valuable of writings reveal why northern blacks supported the war and what they expected in return. They discuss loyalty, citizenship, and the pride of a people. These letters are usually, but not always, written by the more literate and articulate of northern blacks and are usually addressed to Lincoln or Stanton. The authors of these particular letters went straight to the top of the Union leadership to make their requests. They also reminded the leadership of why black families sacrificed and how they expected to be treated for their strong support. Northern black families wanted equal treatment under the law. They also wanted the right to vote because it distinctly marked them as participants in the American political process who could use the system to improve the lives of people in their community. And they felt sacrificing for a Union victory and the spilling of the blood of their men on battlefields entitled them to these rights.

These letters also display what historian Gregory P. Downs refers to as a transformed relationship between Americans and their government. People (black or white, North or South) no longer limited their requests to the government for political desires, but now requested more private and personal needs. Only one of the letters used in this project asked for a government appointment, though such letters exist in the National Archives. Instead, what poured out of the correspondences used in A Great Sacrifice were stories about the daily struggles of families, concern about their individual soldiers, and requests for resources to provide basic needs (food and shelter). And with these requests, explained Downs, came expectations from families that government could and would act on their behalf.⁶

Southern back families also wrote letters to the federal government. Because literacy for slaves was a crime in the South, such letters were not produced until Union armies took control of formerly Confederate territory, such as southern Louisiana and the South Carolina coastal islands. The letters from southern black families were written for similar reasons as those from northern blacks: information about the whereabouts of their soldiers, the health and well being of their soldiers, and soldiers’ pay. However, the newly freed slaves also wrote to address mistreatment by their former masters and white Union soldiers. Still, these letters are far fewer in comparison to those from northern families because the literacy rate (or access to people who could write) was much lower in the South.⁷

The letters consulted in this study were chosen because they provide a better understanding of the plight of northern black families during the war. Often written in the words of the family members themselves, the letters chosen here best articulate the condition of the families in the absence of the soldiers, and the issues affecting them during the war. Depending on the context, all or portions of the letter’s content was used.

The letters are original and the text has not been altered. Though many of the letters possess numerous spelling, grammatical, spacing, and punctuation errors, they are reproduced exactly as in their original handwritten form in order to enable family members to speak in their own words. The letters show the level of literacy of many blacks, revealing a higher level of education and refinement of some black northerners. However, the letters also show that the majority of the letter writers were illiterate or nearly illiterate, and their authors struggled to articulate their desires, needs, and emotions on paper. Thus, in their original form, the letters are able to retain their historical value as the real words left behind by the people who lived through the war and endured its many challenges.

The letters show the determination and resourcefulness of many blacks during the war. In spite of the inability to read and write, blacks found other ways of getting their messages out to Union military and government officials. Refusing to be deterred from getting the information they needed, illiterate blacks found other family members, friends, employers, or other associates who could write the letters for them or who could write on their behalf.

During the Civil War, all letters mailed to government agencies regarding soldiers, black or white, were systematically recorded as received. If any action was taken on the letters, such as a government response to the letter’s author, these actions were also recorded, usually with specific markings on the letter received by the government, as well as in separate books in which the response letters were copied by hand. Government agencies often responded to family letters in two to three weeks time, and sometimes just a week after receiving the initial letter. It is because of the efficiency of this system and the adeptness of an army of clerks that these letters exist in abundance today.

I made an effort to choose letters that said a lot about the condition of the families in the absence of the soldiers and that best describe, either individually or collectively, the condition of the families and the northern black community during the war. More specifically, the letters chosen for this project fall into three main categories. The first category consists of general inquiries. Families were always sensitive to the whereabouts of their soldiers, and when they did not hear from them for long periods of time, they made inquiries to Union officials. These became the most common requests submitted by northern black families throughout the war and, as the war progressed, these letters became more specific as families asked if a soldier was dead or alive. The second category referred to financial distress. Families sent letters about the lack of funds coming from their soldiers and the state of deprivation, even destitution, that resulted for the family. They wanted to know where their soldier’s pay was, and they wanted Union officials to know the family was impoverished because their soldiers were not receiving their pay and thus had nothing to send home. In the third category are requests for discharges. Family members asked Union officials for their soldiers to be discharged. Family members made these requests for a number of reasons: so the male member could come home and work to support the family, because the soldier was in poor health, because the soldier was under-age or had been duped when he enlisted, or because the family felt that their soldier had already performed his duties once the fighting was over.

As much as possible, the letters are presented in chronological order within the chapters. The first letter I used, in Chapter 3, was sent to Union officials in 1863, the first year northern black regiments participated in the war. The latest letter appearing in this study (see Chapter 10) was sent in January 1866. Presenting the letters in a chronological order enables readers to see the trends in the number of letters sent and the evolution of topics. For example, black families wrote very few letters in 1863 because northern black regiments had just begun to be formed and the problems families would face had not yet become acute. However, the number of letters increased dramatically as black troops continued to serve and their numbers increased. In addition, letters requesting confirmation about a soldier’s death became more common as the war progressed and black troops consistently proved themselves to be brave and competent soldiers, though letters requesting information about the status and whereabouts of soldiers remained the most common topic of letters from 1863 until northern black troops returned home at the end of 1865. As a result of their proven competency, the number of black men who participated in combat increased, which led to more casualties within their ranks and more letters from their families.

For the sake of clarity, it is important to explain this study’s definition of northern blacks. The term northern blacks refers to African Americans who resided in the Union free states, where slavery had not existed for decades.⁸ The only exceptions in the use of this term are Delaware and Washington, D.C. Delaware was still a slave state, but slavery there was a diluted and dying version compared to that which existed in the other slave states. There were very few slaves residing in Delaware and the number was decreasing quickly due to natural causes. In addition, Delaware had more free blacks than slaves.⁹ And slavery in Washington, D.C. was banned in April 1862, less than six months before the preliminary announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation. The focus of this study is on blacks who were free—either by law or after running away from their masters prior to the start of the Civil War—and their decisions to fight for and support the Union effort. These blacks had been free for years, often decades, and had created lives and communities that were distinctly northern in culture and liberties, though severely limited liberties. Even the former slaves, many of whom had escaped from their southern masters, had assimilated to northern life, specifically the freedoms allowed. Northern blacks went to war for reasons that in many ways were very different from their brethren in the South, who needed to defeat slavery to obtain their freedom permanently or that of their family members who were still in bondage. The distinction is important for appreciating the intricacies and sacrifices made by northern blacks when they chose to support the Union. Consistent with the theme and focus on northern blacks, the bulk of the letters used in this study are from family members who resided in the free states, and not from blacks from the border states (Missouri, Kentucky, or Maryland).

Scholars have written very little on the Civil War experiences of northern black families and how the war affected their lives. Instead, scholars have focused their attention on other aspects of the northern and southern home fronts. The studies completed on the northern home front focused on white families, the economy, and the political atmosphere during the war. The issues that scholars examined in the South are more numerous and include relationships between Confederate soldiers and their families at home as well as relationships between the Confederate government and its citizens and between slaves and masters. These projects also examine the South’s economy during the war. The focus on the northern black experience in the Civil War remains centered on military history and not the social aspects of the Union war effort.

This study is different because it examines the effects of the war specifically on northern black families. Most other studies on African Americans during the Civil War focus almost exclusively on the soldiers. While some scholars have highlighted the lives of northern black families, this study, with the use of their letters to Union officials, puts families at the center of the narrative. At the same time, this study tells the story of northern black soldiers during the war and examines how the events and problems at the home front affected the soldiers at the front line, and how many of the problems and obstacles endured by northern black troops directly affected their families at home. Thus, this study’s focus on northern black women links them and their survival directly to the everyday lives of northern black troops.

1

Life in the North

Before the War

When war broke out on April 12, 1861, about two hundred thousand African Americans were scratching out a life for themselves in a northern society that was hostile to their very existence. Despite this hostility, a few northern blacks were able to accumulate property and live in a manner similar to white citizens. However, the majority of African Americans struggled to survive at the bottom of the political, economic, and social structure of northern society. Though their lives were better than those of their brothers and sisters in the South who lived under the institution of slavery, northern blacks were marginalized and discriminated against. Whites were successful at creating an environment in cities and towns throughout the North where blacks were legally, economically, and socially designated as a separate, dependent, and unequal group within the community.¹

In the decades leading to the Civil War, African Americans had to also endure the constant fear of violence and race riots that usually ended with the loss of black property and black lives. Yet blacks found a way to survive in a hostile environment, despite these many obstacles, by building strong social institutions and by organizing and resisting oppressive laws and practices. And in the background were the constant and determined efforts to end slavery.

In spite of the many difficulties African Americans experienced, northern black families in large numbers supported the Union efforts to win the war. Nearly 200,000 black soldiers served in the Civil War—178,975 in the army and the remainder in the navy. Out of the total number in the army, 32,723 were from the North. That number meant 70 percent of all black men of military age in the North—between the ages of eighteen and forty-five—served. For readers to understand what motivated northern African-American families to support the Civil War, despite their hardships, it is vital to examine northern black society during the antebellum era. A review and analysis of the important challenges in this community before the start of the war—such as efforts to gain voting rights, to end discrimination, and to abolish slavery—provide an understanding of how these matters influenced African Americans to both support the Union and participate in the war. Understanding both their struggles and accomplishments sheds light on their motivations for fighting, why they accepted discrimination on the home front and battlefront, and what they expected from America in return for fighting for and helping to save the Union.²

By 1860, approximately 225,000 African Americans lived in the northern states. They mostly lived in heavily populated cities in the east, but they also inhabited smaller cities and towns from the Atlantic coast to beyond the Mississippi River. They settled in states as far north as Maine and Minnesota, as well as those states that bordered and had strong cultural and economic connections with the slave states, especially the southernmost parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Many northern blacks were born free in the North because they descended from families who were free for generations. Others were born free or were manumitted in the South, but emigrated north in search of economic opportunities and increased freedom. Still, many others had escaped from the South as individuals, or as part of a family.³

Many African Americans in the antebellum period worked to better their status and obtain from whites the state and federal rights they felt they were deserving of as productive and law-abiding inhabitants of the United States. Whether in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Chicago, or rural areas, they hoped equal rights would enable them to improve their conditions and open up opportunities for them to succeed in all aspects of American society. However, obtaining these rights was a constant struggle, one with few victories before the war. Yet the struggle itself reveals an active northern black community with established and organized institutions and talented and capable leadership that, in a difficult environment where they were greatly outnumbered, used whatever resources they could to improve their lot. Northern black communities had different access to resources, heavily dependent on their community and the generosity and cooperation of white allies, but they strove for the same political, economic, and social opportunities.⁴

Northern African Americans used their limited resources to organize and try to bring about positive change to end or reduce the effects of discrimination, just as they would as soldiers in the Union army. Black leaders organized within their states to influence and pressure general assemblies, county commissioners, city