How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

by Clint Smith

For whites in the Confederate Army, seeing these Black men in Union uniforms represented a profound and infuriating turning point in the war, one that tapped into their worst impulses. The use of Black soldiers was a threat to the entire social order the South had been predicated on. Black soldiers in the Union Army did not simply reflect a new demographic composition of their military opponents; Lee’s army saw Black soldiers as participants in a slave revolt, an insurrection of the most nightmarish proportions that was being actively supported by Lincoln and the US government. The Confederate government put in place policies that officially considered Black soldiers slaves participating in an insurrection, and thus subject to re-enslavement or execution. Their white officers, as enablers of the insurrection, could also be executed.