![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Racial prejudice shaped the experience of black soldiers in state and federal units. Some 180,000 African Americans served in the Union army and approximately 18,000 served in the Union Navy. Ultimately, the need for more soldiers fighting for the Union and fewer slaves working for the Confederacy convinced many Northerners to accept African Americans in the Union Army and Northerners who rejected emancipation as a war aim accepted it as a military measure to save the Union. White northerners shared white Southerners racial views. While Northern whites welcomed a new source of soldiers, many doubted black soldiers’ willingness to fight. Voluntary recruitment of black soldiers began in 1863, just as the North began drafting white soldiers. African American soldiers fighting in the Civil War mattered because their service advanced a broader and unstated strategic necessity-white Northerners accepting emancipation as a means of winning the war, if not as an end in and of itself. ![]()
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