This is the third part in a series on the recent Central Virginia Battlefield Trust spring seminar: The Road to Fredericksburg.
There was a time when Civil War literature focused largely on military actions without appreciable consideration of related “social issues.” In 1993 when National Park Service historian John Hennessy published “Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas,” no one criticized him for his social omissions. Today, though, Hennessy would fully anticipate such criticism.
War continues and progresses between military actions, and Hennessy notes that no one in 1862 in the Union army had any thoughts or plans for how to deal with civilian populations and situations. Although armies were long known as instruments of change, more comprehensive planning only came into vogue during the 20th Century when military planners began to give consideration to who, where and when to invade and what to do when they did. Not entirely tongue-in-cheek and with a tip of the hat to current events, Hennessy suggested there is likely a plan somewhere in the military bureaucracy for the invasion of Canada!
However, as the Union armies began to creep into central Virginia in the spring and summer of 1862, they found themselves with no policies or guidance when it came to dealing with enslaved people who “presented themselves” to the army. While company, regimental, corps and army commanders ranged from being “concilliationists” seeking to restore the union without enraging the southerners to abolitionists who favored the ending of slavery, their devotion to the cause was devoid of guidance on the question of self-emancipating enslaved people. The army had no ready answer to the slaves who asked, in effect, “Here we are. What are you going to do with us now?”
The rank-and-file soldiers generally had their opinions, but they began to morph as they started to be affected by what they were witnessing as they ventured deeper into slave-holding Virginia. By today’s standards, most would have been considered racist; however, their feelings toward enslaved people were often paternalistic while they became increasingly embittered by white southerners.
Indeed, many would be unsupportive of a formal emancipation policy, but they would favor anything that would get them home sooner. Clearly, they were witnessing a “moral spectacle,” and they intuitively understood that slavery was a source of strength to their enemies. Wherever the army marched though, slavery disintegrated.
John Pope was brought east to command the newly-organized Army of Virginia consisting of corps commanded by Irwin McDowell, Franz Sigel and Nathaniel Banks. The corps commanders had somewhat divergent views on the slave question while Pope was known as an obnoxious, anti-slavery Republican. Although Hennessy suggests Abraham Lincoln may have actually placed him in command because of those traits to “shake things up,” the fact remains that during his entire command tenure from June through September 1862, John Pope made no public statements or issued any military orders like other generals had done previously on the subject of emancipation.
Based on the positions of the armies from April through August 1862, more than 10,000 enslaved people would emancipate themselves by way of Fredericksburg on their way to a place they did not know and where they would be generally unwelcomed. Yet they came anyway. 75-percent of Caroline County and 60-percent of Spotsylvania County were Black, and their populations would not return to antebellum levels until after World War II as a result of the outward migration of the slave population.
Letters to home folks and soldier correspondents showed the impacts and the changing attitudes within the army as it ranged through slave country. Still, they generally viewed a formal emancipation policy unfavorably, and many agreed with George McClellan who argued such a policy, “will divide the North and enrage the South.” However, as time went by and the soldiers recognized they were “practical abolitionists” (whether they wanted to be or not), they would begin to rail against those at home who actively fought against the Lincoln Administration’s Emancipation Proclamation because of how it impacted their lives and desire to return home.
In the end, a complete lack of planning and guidance on the subject of federal army relationships with the civilians they encountered, coupled with the intuitive recognition by enslaved people that the presence of the army had provided them with freedom, resulted in an unplanned and unintended moral transformation that changed the course of the Civil War and the future trajectory of the United States.
April 7th: “Jackson is with You! Confederates Turn the Tide at Cedar Mountain
