Climbing Up to Glory

by Wilbert L. Jenkins

  Gabe Butler, for example, found out about the Emancipation Proclamation in this way: “I didn’t hear much talk ‘bout de war, but slaves wud cum frum udder plantations an’ dey wud tell how old man Abe was going to sot us free.”51 Thomas Rutling learned about it from his master’s son, a medical doctor who did not support slavery. Rutling was sitting in the slave quarters waiting for breakfast when the young doctor came along and spoke to his brother and sister at the front door. His siblings “jumped up and down, and shouted, and sang, and then told me I was free.”52 Benjamin Holmes, a slave in Charleston, South Carolina, read Lincoln’s entire Proclamation to a group of slaves who reacted with loud rejoicing.53 In Louisiana, L‘Union, a French-English journal started by free blacks in New Orleans in September 1862, spread the news and urged all black men in the state to make the best of their new opportunities “in freedom.”54 Blacks in Union-held territory such as the Sea Islands of South Carolina were informed by Union officials. The Sea Islands blacks were so overcome with joy at services held to celebrate the Proclamation that they began to sing, “My Country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing!”55 In addition, Susie King Taylor, on hearing it read, described January 1,1863, as a “glorious day.”56 Pierce Harper was also in Union-held territory when the news reached him. Union officials “read it to all de colored people who went to town an’ had men go ‘round an’ read it to de ones dat didn’t get to town.” Once all the blacks returned to the plantation, the celebrating began. Harper remembered “how dey stayed up half de night at Mr. Harper’s after de men had read de ‘mancipation to us, singing an’ shouting. Dat was all dey did, jus’ sing an’ shout an’ go on.”57

  Despite these efforts because of the effectiveness of white owners in withholding information from their slaves, a large number did not know of the Proclamation for several months after it was issued. In fact, one former slave recalled not having heard of it as late as 1864: “De White folks nebber talk ‘fore black men, dey mighty Free from dat.”58 Lincoln had earlier predicted with great enthusiasm that the Proclamation would immediately lead to a mass exodus of blacks to Union lines. This did not happen, causing Lincoln to say with concern a few months after the Proclamation was announced that “the slaves are not coming so rapidly and so numerously to us as I had hoped.”59 Thus, August 1863, Lincoln proposed a daring, even revolutionary, secret plan to remedy the problem. This plan called for Frederick Douglass to organize a band of black “scouts” to pass through Union lines into the plantation South “and carry the news of emancipation, and urge the slaves to come within our boundaries.” Although Douglass agreed with Lincoln’s goal of informing the slaves about the Proclamation, he thought that the president’s secret plan was suicidal, akin to the original plan of John Brown at Harpers Ferry. A few days later Douglass offered a counterproposal calling for the employment of agents who would infiltrate the South “to warn [the slaves] as to what will be their probable condition should peace be concluded while they remain within the Rebel lines; and more especially to urge upon them the necessity of making their escape.”60

  At the tender age of fifteen, George Washington Albright was employed as one of the agents who carried from plantation to plantation the news that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed in Washington. Albright explained the nature of this process: “I traveled about the plantations within a certain range, and got together small meetings in the cabins to tell the slaves the great news. Some of these slaves in turn would find their way to still other plantations—and so the story spread. We had to work in dead secrecy; we had knocks and signs and passwords.”61 As a consequence of this successful plan, Albright maintained thousands of slaves were apprised of the Proclamation. The black men and women who served as agents showed great courage, as this was a dangerous enterprise. Detection was possible at anytime. All it would take was the confession of a nervous or loyal slave to the owner that an outsider was disseminating such news and encouraging them to run away. Certainly, if caught, the punishment would be death.

  MRS. FRANCES E. W. HARPER, AN OUTSTANDING POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVIST.

  Library of Congress

  Northern free blacks so anxiously awaited Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation that in many cities they arranged celebratory meetings of prayer and thanksgiving on the eve of its announcement. One such meeting took place in Boston and was attended by such prominent black leaders as J. Sella Martin, William Wells Brown, and Frederick Douglass.62 When the actual document was proclaimed on January 1, 1863, these meetings grew in number and intensity. On New Year’s Day, hundreds of blacks gathered in Washington, DC, outside the White House and cheered the president, calling out to him, as the black pastor and future Reconstruction politician Henry M. Turner recalled, that “if he would come out of the palace, they would hug him to death.”63 A Pennsylvania gathering declared that “we, the Colored Citizens of the city of Harrisburg, hail this 1st day of January, 1863, as a new era in our country’s history—a day in which injustice and oppression were forced to flee and cower before the benign principles of justice and righteousness.”64 Echoing the sentiments of most abolitionists and Northern free blacks who thought that the Proclamation was only a stride toward freedom and complained that Lincoln had not gone far enough, the black Pennsylvanians further declared, “We would have preferred that the proclamation should have been general instead of partial, but we can only say to our brethren of the ‘Border States,’ be of good cheer—the day of your deliverance draweth nigh.”65 Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a black leader, regarded the announcement as “a day for poetry and song.”66 And Frederick Douglass was almost overcome. “We shout for joy that we live to record this righteous decree,” he wrote .67Northern and Southern white reaction to the Emancipation was varied.68

  THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LINCOLN’S PROCLAMATION

  On the day that the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, it did not free one slave. Technically it freed slaves in the South, but the U.S. government could not make this act binding until after the Confederacy was defeated. The Proclamation did not even claim to free the slaves in the Border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. Likewise, it exempted those working on plantations in areas occupied by federal forces, such as the Mississippi Valley and the Sea Islands, where many owners had taken an oath of allegiance and pledged their “loyalty” to the federal government. It was the Thirteenth Amendment, approved by Congress in February 1865 and ratified the following December, that actually emancipated all the slaves.

  The Emancipation Proclamation was of critical importance, however, in meeting Lincoln’s manpower goals for the Union military by encouraging slaves to escape and take up arms. Although the first black troops were mustered into service in the fall of 1862, recruitment did not begin in earnest until the spring of 1863, after the proclamation had been issued. In the occupied areas of the South where enlistment drives were launched, many slaves responded enthusiastically. 69 As Solomon Bradley of South Carolina put it, “I used to pray the Lord for this opportunity to be released from bondage and to fight for my liberty, and I could not feel right so long as I was not in the regiment.”70 And in the North, blacks welcomed the chance to fight for their freedom and for that of their families. The Proclamation also strengthened the moral cause of the Union at home and abroad. It rallied the North by adding the idealistic appeal of a war being fought not only to preserve the Union but also to free the slaves. Before Lincoln issued the Proclamation, there was a real possibility that European powers, led by Britain, might formally recognize the Confederacy and intervene militarily on its behalf. But that all changed with the stroke of a pen. The Proclamation turned out to be a shrewd diplomatic move. Thousands of English and European laborers who were anxious to see workers gain their freedom throughout the world perceived that the Union was fighting to free black workers, while the Confederacy was fighting to keep them in bondage.71

  Lincoln remained undaunted in the face of relentless attacks against
the Proclamation. The president stood foursquare behind it. The pressure from his numerous critics got to him; he wavered but did not buckle. Instead, he told weakened Republicans that “no human power can subdue this rebellion without using the emancipation lever as I have done.” Lincoln was also quick to dismiss any suggestions that he return to slavery those blacks who had fought for the Union. To the whites who dared propose this, Lincoln passionately replied, “I should be damned in time and in eternity for so doing. The world shall know that I will keep my faith to friends and enemies, come what will!” Lincoln made this statement in the midst of strong political opposition to his emancipation policies on the eve of the 1864 presidential election, which he clearly expected to lose. In effect, he was saying that he would rather be right than president. As matters turned out, of course, he was both right and president,72 and the nation as a whole benefited from his dual triumph. First, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation was an excellent moral and ethical decision of paramount importance to humanity. Despite any strategic and political dividends that might come to him, the fact that Lincoln stood forthright behind it is noble. And, second, he certainly deserved the opportunity to lead the country to the successful completion of the war. At this point in the nation’s history, no other person was better equipped than Lincoln to guide the country through its national nightmare. That the country fully understood this, and reelected him to the presidency in 1864, was indeed a triumph for the nation.

  THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT

  Realizing that preservation of the Union was tied to black emancipation, Lincoln endorsed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery even before the election of 1864. When Lincoln and the Republicans won large majorities at the polls, the president moved immediately to get Congress to pass the emancipation amendment. In fact, he began pressuring Congress to act in December 1864, only a few days after the election. As Lincoln viewed it, the large majorities that the Republicans won at the polls, including Democratic votes, had dampened the morale of the Confederacy. And, passage of an emancipation amendment, Lincoln believed, especially by the slave states, would further erode its morale. As he told Missouri Democrat James Rollins, “I am very anxious that the war be brought to a close at the earliest possible date. I don’t believe this can be accomplished as long as those fellows down South can rely on the border states to help them; but if the members of the border states would unite, at least enough of them to pass the amendment, they would soon see that they could not expect much help from that quarter.” Lincoln believed that he was now operating from a position of strength and insisted that the national election had given him a mandate for permanent emancipation. Perhaps the current political climate would help shift the necessary votes in the House in his direction. If not, the next House would surely provide enough votes.73

  Momentum seemed to be on the president’s side in the days just prior to the vote, but a last-minute rumor threatened to stop it. A rumor swept through the Capitol that Southern commissioners were on their way to Washington for peace talks. If this was true, some who had announced their intentions to support the amendment might recant, particularly those representatives from the Border slave states. From their vantage point, why emancipate slaves to save the Union if one could save the Union without emancipation? In a last-ditch effort to hold the votes in line, James Ashley, who was in charge of the measure on the floor of the House, asked Lincoln to issue a direct denial of the rumor. Lincoln readily assented with a one-sentence response: “So far as I know, there are no peace commissioners in the city, or likely to be in it.”74

  There was considerable suspense on January 31, 1865, the day of the vote. No one could be certain of the outcome. Spectators filled the corridors and galleries of the Capitol to observe history in the making. The Thirteenth Amendment abolishing the institution of slavery passed with the necessary two-thirds votes. All 102 Republicans, joined by seventeen Democrats, voted for the amendment. Some fifty-eight Democrats voted no on the measure, and eight Democrats helped out by abstaining. The final tabulation represented just three votes more than the required two-thirds majority.75 Success, at long last Lincoln’s, had taken all of the resources at his disposal to make the Thirteenth Amendment a reality. Indeed, the president lent his talents of eloquence to this effort as well as his political skills, engaging in secret patronage negotiations. As expected, blacks greeted news of the passage of the amendment with unbounded joy. They gathered in mass meetings and clapped and sang: “Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea, Jehovah has triumphed, His people are free.”76 In the White House, Lincoln pronounced the amendment “a great moral victory.” And, beaming, he pointed south across the Potomac and remarked, “if the people over the river had behaved themselves, I could not have done what I have.”77

  Sadly, within three short months after this “crowning achievement,” Lincoln would be dead, the victim of an assassin’s bullet. Although his voice was silenced, his contributions to humanity would live on. The Emancipation Proclamation and his subsequent efforts on behalf of the Thirteenth Amendment represented the pinnacle of his heroic legacy: the substance of his image as the Great Emancipator. However, although Lincoln had been an indispensable player in the black liberation drama, his primary concern was for the Union. Therefore, as Frederick Douglass noted, Lincoln’s image as the Great Emancipator was somewhat exaggerated. Nevertheless, in spite of his shortcomings, he was a vital agent in an inexorable progression of circumstances that would result in the total abolition of slavery.78

  Lincoln’s presidency ushered in a period of symbolic advancement for blacks. For example, on the very day that the House passed the Thirteenth Amendment, the chamber’s galleries were packed with cheering blacks—one of the first times that they were allowed to sit in the galleries. Blacks had been denied entry until 1864. And, on February 1, 1865, history was again made. For the first time in the country’s history, a black lawyer from Boston, John S. Rock, was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.79 Yet prior to these events, Lincoln had begun to show more sensitivity and respect in his attitude toward blacks. For example, as no president before him had done, Lincoln opened the White House to black visitors; four black men were in attendance at the New Year’s Day reception in 1864. Frederick Douglass met him several times at the Soldiers Home, paid at least three calls at the White House, and made his last visit as a guest at the reception on the night of the second inauguration.80 Accompanied by her fourteen-year-old grandson, Sammy Banks, Sojourner Truth went to Washington in the fall of 1864, where on October 20 she met the president. Lincoln also complied with a request from a delegation of black clergymen to meet with him at the White House. The clergymen sought and were granted permission to preach to black soldiers.81

  Frederick Douglass, who had more contact with Lincoln than any other black, summed up the legacy of his presidency in regard to black freedom in his “Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln” given on April 14,1876, at the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Memorial Monument in Washington, DC. Douglass gave Lincoln due credit for eradicating slavery. Nonetheless, he saw the president as primarily pro-Union and pro-white and only unwittingly pro-black. Douglass maintained that “Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model.” Further, Douglass asserted, “in his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thoughts, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.” White Americans were “the children of Abraham Lincoln,” but black Americans were at best only his stepchildren, children by adoption, children by forces of circumstance and necessity.82 In the end, therefore, Lincoln ought to be best remembered as a reluctant friend of blacks.

  CHAPTER TWO

  UNWANTED PARTICIPANTS

  Service in the War

  ONCE BLACKS WERE finally permitted to enlist in the Union army, they reacted with enthusiasm. Popular black leaders such as Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Charles L. Remond, Martin Delany, John M. Langston, Henry Highland Garnet, John S. Rock, Mary
Ann Shadd Cary (the only woman officially commissioned as a recruiting agent), and others were called upon to serve as recruiters in the North. In Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other cities, rallies were organized where speakers urged blacks to enlist, and blacks responded by appearing in huge numbers at recruiting stations. Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who was working as a teacher in Canada to support her two children, was encouraged by her dear friend Martin Delany to become a recruiter and secured soldiers for Connecticut, Indiana, and Massachusetts regiments. That she succeeded in this effort came as no surprise to her contemporaries. William Wells Brown wrote that “she raised recruits with as much skill, tact, and order as any government recruiting officer and that her men were always considered among the best recruited.”

  Although Shadd Cary was the only woman officially commissioned, she was by no means the lone woman recruiter. As the war progressed, many of the black male recruiters expanded their work into Canada and Union-held territory in the South. In these endeavors they were aided by black women such as Josephine Ruffin in Boston, who had recently married, and Harriet Jacobs, who wrote from Alexandria, Virginia, “I hope to obtain some recruits for the Massachusetts Cavalry, not for money, but because I want to do all I can to strengthen the hands of those who battle for freedom.”1 Indeed, the rationale given by Jacobs expresses the sentiments of most black recruiters. Douglass, Garnet, Wells Brown, Langston, Remond, Delany, Shadd Cary, and others had devoted a lifetime of energy and sacrifice to eradicate the institution of slavery and promote racial justice. Thus, their efforts to secure black soldiers represented their ongoing commitment to excise the cancer of racial oppression from American society. In their minds, the recruitment of a large black liberation force was of paramount importance.