During the Civil War, voluntary enlistments in the Union Army fell by early 1863. The federal government’s plan to combat this problem was twofold: institute a military draft and enlist Black soldiers. The latter strategy would build on the US Navy’s ongoing recruitment of Black sailors, state militias’ recruitment of self-emancipated men, and military policies that gave wages to employed Black refugees.For their part, African American men previously petitioned for the opportunity to enlist. In 1861 William A. Jones of Oberlin, Ohio, had wrote to the secretary of war to affirm that “very many of the colored citizens of Ohio and other states have a great desire to assist the government in putting down this injurious rebellion.” Jones further noted that “we are partly drilled and would wish to enter active service immediately.”The Black men seeking an opportunity to enlist supported the Union, an end to slavery, and the postwar expansion of civil rights; military service would help them advance all of these interests.Black soldiers’ and sailors’ enlistment allowed President Lincoln to resist demands for a negotiated peace that might have included the retention of slavery in the United States. Altogether, around 180,000 Black soldiers served in the Union Army and around 18,000 Black sailors served in the Navy. Black soldiers accounted for nearly 10 percent of all Union forces and around 40 percent of the Union dead or missing. Twenty-four Black soldiers and sailors were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor during their generation’s lifetime for their extraordinary bravery in battle, and one additional soldier, Corporal Andrew Jackson Smith, was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001.
