But captured black Union troops were often massacred - and sometimes sold as property. 566.)ĭavis never carried out this threat. Jefferson Davis’ message to Congress on January 12, 1863, proclaimed the Emancipation Proclamation “the most execrable measure in the history of guilty man.” Davis promised to turn over captured Union officers to state governments for punishment as “criminals engaged in inciting servile insurrection.” The punishment for this crime, of course, was death. Both sides of the terrible conflict insisted that the war was a war for freedom. What struck me most, on this rediscovery, is how brilliantly apt is McPherson’s title.
Battle cry of freedom confederate download#
The anniversary moved me to download the book in audio format and re-ingest it after the long lapse of time. James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom is now, incredibly, 25 years old. Slavery was always, always there: the war’s fundamental cause, the war’s shaping reality. This refusal ended the negotiations, for (as Grant wrote), the United States “is bound to secure to all persons received into her armies the rights due as soldiers.”įrom time to time, we hear denials of the centrality of slavery to the Civil War. “egroes belonging to our citizens are not considered subjects of exchange and were not included in my proposition.” Grant imposed only one condition: black soldiers must be exchanged on the same terms as whites. A presidential election was approaching, and anything that could be done for the benefit of the soldiers would redound to the benefit of the administration party. More than 100,000 men were held in camps on both sides, but more in the South than in the North. By the fall of 1864, word of the horrific conditions at Southern prisoner of war camps - especially Georgia’s Andersonville - had spread through the North. He proposed to Grant that the two armies resume the prisoner exchanges that had ceased in the first half of 1863.ĭespite his reputation as a ruthless practitioner of attrition warfare, Grant was amenable to Lee’s request. Lee needed every man he could get to defend the lines, and he didn’t have enough.
Now, Lee’s force were besieged inside the Richmond-Petersburg fortifications. Yet that smaller Confederate total represented a higher proportion of Confederate strength, 46%. Union forces had suffered about 50,000 casualties the Confederates, about 32,000. In May and June of that year, Grant had chased Lee across Virginia in the murderous Overland Campaign.
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