African Americans in the Civil War

The Civil War created turmoil for everyone in the States, northerner and southerner, free and slave. Southern African Americans, most of whom were slaves, suddenly found what little security they had vanishing completely. The war touched the black experience in ways that inspired both hope and fear. Some black southerners would realize a taste of freedom they would not otherwise have known. Others found their terror and distrust more of a reality.

Slavery in North Carolina varied from that in other states in the Union. Many blacks worked as labor on farms, including those for cotton, rice, hogs and tobacco, and others were artisans and skilled laborers. The slave communities on the coast and at some of the larger plantations, like Somerset Place, represented many skilled trades. Coastal slaves, for instance, were shipbuilders, sailors, fishermen, and tradesmen. In addition, because of their constant contact with seamen from other areas, they developed more of a political awareness than many of the blacks who lived inland.

Slaves could be "ingenious chameleons," wearing one face with their white owners and another face with the black community. Most slaves set up an unspoken contract with their owners that exchanged free labor for protection of self and family. But for the most part, slaves were aware of the seeming permanence of their shackles. Some North Carolina African Americans, like John Anthony Copeland, Jr., joined some of the pre-Civil War slave rebellions, such as John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry.

North Carolina's secession changed that. With the upheaval created by the state's new independence, slaves took advantage of their owners' dilemma and confusion. Several walked off of their farms, hopeful that their freedom would soon be in sight. But most kept a careful watch on the white people who now called themselves "Unionists."

With the hope of freedom, many blacks traveled to Federal territories and placed ads in local newspapers looking for family members. In areas of the North Carolina coast, blacks congregated and organized black churches, like the AME Zion church that was founded in Beaufort. Others built African American schools and militia. In fact, New Bern slaves organized the first black militia, before Lincoln approved the inclusion of African Americans in the Union army. Several other coastal slaves gathered to start the first civil rights group.

As the war progressed, African Americans proved themselves more and more necessary to a Union victory. In one instance, Federal armies, led by African American sea pilots, captured the city of Beaufort at night without firing a shot. Further inland, slaves provided horses and other materials to Union soldiers as a kind of barter for their lives. However, even with the hope that a Union victory would mean their freedom, many slaves feared that they could not trust any white person--no matter what color his uniform. As Union officers scorned or raped slaves, the African Americans' fear proved quite reasonable.

Although the war's conclusion brought an end to slavery as an institution, slavery survived for African Americans as a painful way of life. Slaves who did not commandeer their owner's plantation were left homeless and poor, forced back into manual labor livelihoods like sharecropping. The "freedom" the Union had given them was, for most African Americans, a token in name only, and a reconstruction period and a new era of repression would begin before any of them experienced liberty in even the smallest way.

The South Surrenders >>

Sources:
Harris, William C. North Carolina and the Coming of the Civil War. Raleigh: NC Dept of Cultural Resources, 1988.>

Bradley, Mark L. This Astounding Close: The Road to Bennett Place. Chapel Hill: The U of North Carolina P, 2000.