African Americans In The Civil War Essay

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African Americans contributed to the Union and Confederate sides during the Civil War (HistoryNet, n.d.). There were over 179,000 African Americans that had positions in the Union Army as well as support from the Navy (HistoryNet, n.d.). The states that were separated from the Union were called the Confederate states and they consisted of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas (Africans in America, n.d.). The states provisional president was Jefferson Davis (Africans in America, n.d.). On the Confederate side, African Americans were slaves and assisted in labor positions. Blacks were used as slave labor force in the Confederate Army (HistoryNet, n.d.). Slaves were brought along to help their slave owners in camp. Free black men wanted to be a part of the Union side to fight the war, in the beginning of the Civil War (HistoryNet, n.d.). African Americans could not use weapons in the U.S Army due to a law and that excluded African Americans from joining the army (HistoryNet, n.d.). On September 22, President Lincoln gave a warning to the Confederate states to give up or he would set the slaves free (Africans in America, n.d.). President Lincoln wanted to keep …show more content…
It was a new beginning in American history as the Thirteenth Amendment was passed in January of 1865 and abolished slavery (Africans in America, n.d.). The war had ended and African Americans were free. Former slaves began to look for their families that they had become separated from. Black and white people in the North and South began to rebuild. This period was called the Reconstruction. Two new amendments became part of the Constitution, as part of Reconstruction (Africans in America, n.d.). The Fourteenth Amendment gave citizenship to everyone born or naturalized in the United States. The Fifteenth Amendment gave Americans the right to vote (Africans in America,

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