Read The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism for Free Online
Book: Read The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism for Free Online
Authors: Edward Baptist
McCall place near Donaldsonville.” There she met a man named Thomas Faro. They started a relationship. They went out into the field every day, demonstrating to Union officials “a disposition to work” that entitled them to receive government rations. Others resisted,and went hungry. This was not quite freedom. Still, enslaved people had been knocking on the portal of freedom for decades, in any way possible. Now, in a single moment, the Emancipation Proclamation had unbarred the door. Next, African Americans would force it all the way open.
That opportunity was even more tangible because, as Lincoln made emancipation the policy for a long-term war that couldonly end with the fall of slavery’s empire, another policy shifted, too. Since the beginning of the war, free northern blacks had been pushing for enlistment. The federal government, afraid of the reaction of the border states, resisted. Policymakers knew that as much as many northern whites hated the idea of disunion, many feared even more that Frederick Douglass had been right when he’d insistedthat “let the black man get upon his person the brass letters US . . . a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.” 6
Image A.1. Interior of former slave trader’s pen in Alexandria, Virginia, partially dismantled. This was probably the same structure used by John Armfield in the 1830s, though other traders had used it in the ensuing years before Union soldiers captured the city in 1861. Today the structure is the site of the Freedom House Museum, operated by the Northern Virginia Urban League. Photo c. 1861–1865. Library of Congress.
On January 1, 1863, Lincoln reaffirmed the Emancipation Proclamation. He also confirmed that the executive branch would fulfill Congress’s summer 1862 mandate, allowing the Union Army to enlist African Americans. Many had already been drilling under individual states’ authority—such as the soldiers of the famous 52nd Massachusetts Regiment. The new U.S.C.T.(United States Colored Troops) also included numerous new enlistees from places such as Fortress Monroe and Camp Parapet. Soon some enslaved men, drawn by word of mouth passed from one side of the battle lines to the other, were leaving slavery and enlisting immediately in the Union Army. One night in 1863, for instance, Cade McCallum and his friend James Douglass crept out of Madame Palang’s slavequarters and set off east through the deep woods. To the north, the Union was trying to encircle Vicksburg. They reached the Mississippi and found a tiny skiff lodged against the west side.
Douglass, who couldn’t swim, climbed into the skiff. McCallum, in the water, held the boat’s edge as he kicked it out into the stream. They drifted downriver. In the morning light, someone from the Confederate-controlledwest bank took a shot. Douglass lay in the bottom of the skiff. McCallum ducked like a turtle. A couple of other bullets whistled past. Then the shooting stopped.
Around a bend loomed a Union gunboat. Seeing the Stars and Stripes, Douglass and McCallum hailed the crew, and kicked and paddled that way. The sailors hauled the two men up the sloping iron-plated side of the Essex and told the river-soakedrunaways they had a choice. They could go to Bonnet Carré and do plantation labor. Or they could serve in the US Army. Douglass and McCallum immediately enlisted in the 80th Regiment of the U.S.C.T.
Over the next two years, almost 200,000 other African-American soldiers—many of them former slaves—did mighty things that defined the rest of their lives. McCallum and Douglass’s 80th Regiment tookpart in the siege of Port Hudson, one of the first Civil War battles in which black troops played a major role. Union victory there helped ensure the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863, which cut the Confederacy in half along the Mississippi. At
That opportunity was even more tangible because, as Lincoln made emancipation the policy for a long-term war that couldonly end with the fall of slavery’s empire, another policy shifted, too. Since the beginning of the war, free northern blacks had been pushing for enlistment. The federal government, afraid of the reaction of the border states, resisted. Policymakers knew that as much as many northern whites hated the idea of disunion, many feared even more that Frederick Douglass had been right when he’d insistedthat “let the black man get upon his person the brass letters US . . . a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.” 6
Image A.1. Interior of former slave trader’s pen in Alexandria, Virginia, partially dismantled. This was probably the same structure used by John Armfield in the 1830s, though other traders had used it in the ensuing years before Union soldiers captured the city in 1861. Today the structure is the site of the Freedom House Museum, operated by the Northern Virginia Urban League. Photo c. 1861–1865. Library of Congress.
On January 1, 1863, Lincoln reaffirmed the Emancipation Proclamation. He also confirmed that the executive branch would fulfill Congress’s summer 1862 mandate, allowing the Union Army to enlist African Americans. Many had already been drilling under individual states’ authority—such as the soldiers of the famous 52nd Massachusetts Regiment. The new U.S.C.T.(United States Colored Troops) also included numerous new enlistees from places such as Fortress Monroe and Camp Parapet. Soon some enslaved men, drawn by word of mouth passed from one side of the battle lines to the other, were leaving slavery and enlisting immediately in the Union Army. One night in 1863, for instance, Cade McCallum and his friend James Douglass crept out of Madame Palang’s slavequarters and set off east through the deep woods. To the north, the Union was trying to encircle Vicksburg. They reached the Mississippi and found a tiny skiff lodged against the west side.
Douglass, who couldn’t swim, climbed into the skiff. McCallum, in the water, held the boat’s edge as he kicked it out into the stream. They drifted downriver. In the morning light, someone from the Confederate-controlledwest bank took a shot. Douglass lay in the bottom of the skiff. McCallum ducked like a turtle. A couple of other bullets whistled past. Then the shooting stopped.
Around a bend loomed a Union gunboat. Seeing the Stars and Stripes, Douglass and McCallum hailed the crew, and kicked and paddled that way. The sailors hauled the two men up the sloping iron-plated side of the Essex and told the river-soakedrunaways they had a choice. They could go to Bonnet Carré and do plantation labor. Or they could serve in the US Army. Douglass and McCallum immediately enlisted in the 80th Regiment of the U.S.C.T.
Over the next two years, almost 200,000 other African-American soldiers—many of them former slaves—did mighty things that defined the rest of their lives. McCallum and Douglass’s 80th Regiment tookpart in the siege of Port Hudson, one of the first Civil War battles in which black troops played a major role. Union victory there helped ensure the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863, which cut the Confederacy in half along the Mississippi. At