The Civil War o American Civil War fought for four years (1861 to 1865) the forces of the Northern states (the Union ) against the newly formed Confederate States of America , made up of eleven southern states that proclaimed their independence. Although it is often sold as a confrontation between abolitionists and slave owners, there were also other issues that confronted both contenders:two completely different economies (the industrial North and the agrarian South based on slavery).
The Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln On January 1, 1863, he freed all slaves in the Confederate States. A measure of war that only affected the rebellious states. In fact, the slave states that remained faithful to the Union or that had been recovered continued to keep slaves. This measure allowed African Americans, both free blacks and escaped slaves, to join the Union army. About 190,000 volunteered, further increasing the numerical difference between the two armies. But the Confederatesdidn't officially recognize African-Americans as prisoners of war . In the words of Jefferson Davis , president of the newly created Confederate States of America…
All black slaves captured fighting will be handed over to the authorities of the respective states to which they belong […] they must be tried for insurrection and if found guilty they will be executed.
Although Lincoln's first intention was to use his new recruits in quartermaster tasks far from the front, their pressure forced him to allow them to fight on an equal footing with the rest of the soldiers. His response to Davis's words...
There should be no distinction in the treatment of prisoners of war because of the color of their skin… if the Confederacy executes one Union soldier, the Union will execute another; if the Confederacy enslaves a Union soldier, a Confederate prisoner will be subjected to hard labor.
Even so, everything was left in the hands of the commanders of the various Confederate regiments; African-Americans were usually simply separated from the rest, but not infrequently they were subjected to forced labor or returned to their former masters from whom they had fled or been killed. The Union tried to do what it could to avoid that situation:at Fort Gilmer (Virginia), several African-American soldiers who had been captured were forced to work in the trenches under enemy fire. In retaliation, Union General Benjamin F. Butler he put the same number of confederate prisoners of war in his trenches… African-American prisoners were removed from the front lines. But the Confederates went even further:during the first two years of the war, prisoner exchanges were frequent, but given the refusal of the Confederates to exchange African-American soldiers - for them they were not prisoners of war, they considered them as mules or wagons-Lincoln decided to ban them. This prohibition hurt the Confederates much more than the Union since they had far fewer troops. In the end, and only for a purely numerical issue , the Confederates had to give in and equate black and white prisoners.