Some would just enlist because they had no place to go and it was the only choice for them to survive. According to the textbook, “Give Me Liberty” by Eric Foner, “By the end of the war more than 180,000 black men had served in the Union army, and 24,000 in the navy. One-third died in battle or of wound and disease. Fifteen black soldiers and eight soldiers’ received the medal of honor the highest award of military valor.” Expresses the final turning point in the war that the Union expected to have. Important because it shows that the Emancipation Proclamation helped to free slaves, yet I feel they really wouldn’t be free, they just graduated to being slaves of war. Though they were free they still had to fight for their freedom more than they already …show more content…
The United States was able to remain a federal republic with separate states and national governments. Though they were a nation it just didn’t fit in. the transition from Union to nation felt a bit weird to those who were happy in their separate states not necessarily under one government. According to “Give Me Liberty”, “ But the war forged a new national self-consciousness, reflected in the increasing use of the word “nation”-a unified political entity-in place of the older “Union” of separate states.” Not many people were happy with the universal term “nation” and felt they should keep the unique title Union to make them stand out, expressing the unity within the United States of America. Lincoln in his inaugural address in 1861 expressed the word union as much as twenty times with no regards to the word nation. Later on in 1863 at the Gettysburg address, Lincoln expressed the word nation five times and had no regards to