time that the only way we're going to win this is to take direct action against slavery. confederate soldiers you mostly get a see, we told you so. it's what lincoln has been up to from the beginning, now they are showing their hand. that's how people respond at the time. the proclamation's military measure which means a couple of things. first, no authority for emancipation in time of peace, it only applies in time of war and that is why an amendment to the united states constitution becomes a focus for lincoln and the republican party so soon after the passage of the emancipation. if it's going to last into peacetime you need something else. it will take an amendment. it means the other thing to remember about this as a military measure it means nothing unless the union wins. if the confederacy wins, then the proclamation is exactly what some confederate leaders called it as effective as pope's control over a comet.

you know from our discussion last week that and earlier today that a factor in winning was go withing to be manpower. who could keep armies in the field the longest. and by 1862, everybody's having a harder time of that. you know that the confederates had a draft in april 1862. the union hasn't had the draft yet but it's having a harder time than it did april 1861 getting men to volunteer. there is one pool of willing recruits, however. that the union forces have not yet tap tapped. in 1862 into 1863 is the year, is the time in which this pool will be tapped and here is another indication, i think we have, that we've got -- we don't have limited war, we have a harder war, a deeper change than any one had anticipated. that is, tapping the pool of black soldiers available to the union. black men had attempted to enlist in the union army from

the outset in 1861, we read alfred green's speech in philadelphia last week. alfred green is a prominent black philadelphians assumes that the black men will be enlisting and gives a speech. so imagine his surprise and everybody he talked to that day when at first the union army does not take black soldiers. at least not officially. there are a couple of ways, some individual isolated cases of black individuals who do enlist in white units and fight. you guys read -- you remember cyrus boyd was an iowa soldier and i had you read his account of shiloh. it sort of woke him up to what war is about. there was a soldier named thomas jeffreys. thomas it turns out, if you go in the roles you won't find this but in the back of cyrus boyd's diary he has a cast of

characters, he talks like tiny biographical sketch of everybody in his regimen. thomas was a local black man. he enlisted and faced a lot of resistance, some thought it was a good idea, some didn't. she accepted, then dies of tyfus. my point about jeffreys -- pardon -- i know. exactly. i'd love to tell enthusiasm is a happy story, it's really not. what it does say is that there's a clear attempt from the beginning on the part of black men to serve in the union army and they do serve in the union navy and merchant marine. but to be rebuffed from the army officially is enormously significant. and that's the official army line. really for more than a year for the beginning of the war. the bar was officially lifted against black enlistment by the militia act of july 1862. well, sort of lifted.

it's lifted in that the militia act allows the president to accept offers of service of black men in any capacity he may see fit. it doesn't say as soldiers and in fact, most people read it as sort of normalizing the black army laborer phenomenon figuring sort of equalizing how we pay for contraband labor. but lincoln sees it -- go ahead. >> wasn't that the justification in the militia act for setting a lower wage because it was anticipated or was a justification. >> yes. we're getting to the many ways in which they will face discrimination. the militia act is exactly how the pay differential gets -- well, the case that's tried to be made. so this militia act will matter for a lot of reasons. the final emancipation proclamation endorses black soldiers.

there are two units in the field, one in kansas, one in south carolina but it's really the emancipation proclamation that makes clear this is official union policy now. we've got a couple of questions on our hands. we should have a great new pool of recruits but would black men enlist? yeah. would black men enlist? there is a sort of -- there is a pretty wide swath of white opinion which says no, they are cowards, they will never enlist. we can discount that obviously. what we need to think about is what about some free northern black opposition? why would you, if you were a plaque man in 1862, 3, want to enlist in the union army? you tried it in 1861, they said no. this is a white man's war. the united states government has legalized slavery its entire existence, there is no state where you are treated equally. you have been listening to all of this about a white man's war.

the black families seemed to be closer to the economic margins. your family will probably face hardship and you might be discriminated against. why would you want to enlist and some say don't for all of those reasons. and my point here is we shouldn't, we shouldn't talk about white opinion, black opinion. there are divisions even among the groups you think of as unified. at the end of the day, though, many prominent black northerners did encourage enlistment and come out in favor. notably frederick douglas. he worked hard as a recruiter among black soldiers. men of color to arms, that's douglas' line. his notion is you put those brass letters on a black man and there is no question not only has he gotten freedom but citizenship so. for douglas and people who think like him army is important blow

against slavely but it's a blow on behalf of black equality too. which leads us to the question okay, so if some of them clearly a lot of them, i'll tell you how many, do enlist, and there are a couple of reasons why. some black recruits talk in terms of like white recruits, talk about the revolution and saving the legacy of the founders for free government and representative government. it's not like white soldiers and black soldiers are speaking totally different languages but the war is a crusade against savory, much less of a complicated or problematic issue for black soldiers than for white soldiers. and as douglas in his u.s. black or brass letters of u.s. indicate, black soldiers are far more likely than white soldiers to talk about service as a road to a way to obtain full privileges and rights of u.s. citizenship. you fight for a country, it owes

you something in return. there is another way in which black soldiers talk about union army service we need to think about. it sounds a little odd to us. black soldiers talk about fighting for the manhood of the race. i think they mean a couple of things when they talk about that. i think one is their own masculine identity, recognition of themselves as adult black men. think for a minute back to the very beginning of class when we talked about how 19th century americans think about or define manhood. you remember any of the qualities that define manhood were? now i'm asking you to go back. >> property, control. >> having a family to take care of. >> caring for a family, owning property sometimes, being able to control, people who depended

upon you. courage is another one. each of these things i think you'll notice is impossible under the institution of slavery. right. and in fact, you know, one of the sort of reasons why slavery wrankles is because there's a lot of reasons but one of them is because it systematically denies to black men the markers that white men accord with manhood and they say see, they are not really men. there is circular logic going on. soldiering is a chance to break this vicious circle. you can demonstrate courage. as a soldier you might -- you'll be paid, you have a chance to perhaps, whether you accumulate property or not that's paid to you. soldiering is a free and independent choice. you decide to do that. someone doesn't do that for you. soldiering can be a way of taking care of your family in a

couple of ways. one is that blackest listment in the union army will free the members of the black man's family. they become freed as well as him. now some of them of course already were under the terms of the emancipation proclamation, but where aren't people free yet? right. so this is a really important key for soldiers from the border states because if you are a slave in missouri, for example, here's a way for your family to get free. my favorite examples of soldiering as a way of taking care of one's family comes from a missouri slave, spotswood rice. joins the union army, and he finds out that his regiment is going through the neighborhood of a woman who still owns his daughters. and the owner's name is miss kitty. he's tried to purchase his daughters from miss kitty to get them free. she wouldn't sell. so he writes her a letter that he finltds that her regiment is going through.

he says i'm taking my children and you cannot stop me because you will burn in hell if you try and prevent a man from taking care of his family. so the link between soldiering and manhood is pretty explicit in that letter. there is another thing i think the black soldiers sometimes mean when they talk about manhood of the race. i think they mean recognition of the full humanity of all slaves, of all black people. i don't think they see this as just about men, they see this about black women, about black children, that by battling against an institution that keeps southern blacks in bondage, black men see themselves as smashing the chains of prejudice, dehumanization, that have kept all slaves and not just slave men in bondage. and that's a pretty powerful

mote motivator. about 80,000 black men serve, they make up 10% of the union army. they make up only 1.2% of the northern population but 10% of the union army. the numbers, 34,000 of them were free black northerners, the rest escaped slaves. they fought in 30 major battles, 449 engagements, their death rate was one out of three, a higher death rate than white soldiers. they fought in segregated units with worse equipment. for less pay. the reason tim is ringing up. initially they are paid under the terms of militia act. which most thought was about army labor. it was $10 a month. soldiers received $13 a month. there is massive activism on

this score throughout black ranks. congress equalizes black soldier pay in 1864 and makes it retroactive. i think the black soldier pay controversy, that's a victory, that one is hard to see as anything other than black men really, really using the war as an opportunity to gain, to set a goal to gain it. black soldering finally matters in terms of eroding white prejudice. to think slavery is a problem we need to get rid of as we noted as one thing. thinking that black people deserve equal rights are fully equal with whites is entirely different. i will not say that black soldering leaps, squares that circle. it doesn't but it does make a dent in white northerners' preconceptions. an illinois soldier fought with black soldiers in june of 1863 and wrote home, i never more

wished to hear the expression the negroes won't fight. come with me and i can show you the wounds that cover the bodies of his brave, loyal and patriotic soldiers as ever drew bead on a rebel. they fought and died defending the cause that we revere. fort wagner in the east, massachusetts 54th, has the same effect for eastern audiences. but i think black soldiers for our purposes obvious and unavoidable. the linkage between the union army, more violence and the end of slavery. emancipation happened at gunpoint. it took a cast of thousands, a president, an army, individual slave men and women to end slavery and took a war. those processes i think are pretty closely linked. we call the slavery had been founded in and depended on violence. it lived by the sword. i think 1862 tells us that it also died by the sword.

and that's part of what we're talking about. when we talk about hard war. so i want to return again to this battle hymn of the republic. this time we'll play in the background the instrumental version so you can talk at the same time. this instrumental version is i think people now they are not real soldiers but it's a band playing the song as a regimental band would have played it. if you have the lyrics bring them out and let's revisit this song and see what you see in it that tells you hard war. then this is it for the day. any questions while i try and make this work? >> i really see it, at that sort

of association of christ imagery with emancipation, sort of seen it before and you taught us how religious leaders are more apt to be abolitionists, can they consider it kind of a moral sin. but that image association i think is really sort of interesting. to think about. >> that was one of my gripes with the other version we heard. when it gets to that as he died to make men holy let us die to make men free. it gets sing-songy. >> you take out the instrumentals it's like nice acpella. >> i think you're right. i think that's -- that's hard stuff there. that's stirring. thank you. yes. >> in the union was there --

between the privates and the captain's pay as there was in the confederacy. >> everywhere. >> and then -- >> the james -- >> i was shocked about that. $200 and $11. >> i don't remember if it's a disparity is dollar for dollar. it's noticeable, though. >> so that's more what it would have sounded like. does any one know that the tune the battle hymn was set to? john brown's body. what do normal white northerners think about with john brown in 1859? >> crazy. >>so marching to that tune in 1862, 1863, itself i think tells us something. anything else you see in the lyrics. we're sort of observations, you see hard war. >> well, the point brought up

the linkage between the punishing steal and the great god. just woven together all the way through the lyrics. >> yes. there's not a lot of conciliation in these. >> there is a theme of stomping of the pigs. trampling the graves, crush the serpent with his heel, things like that. it's sort of putting your foot down on them. on their neck kind of feel to it. >> the extend of hand is not what we see. we see the crushing heel. all right. any last parting thoughts? if not, thanks very much. i'll see you friday. we'll talk about among other things, how slavery ended in the united states. so, thanks a lot.

>> next week on lectures in history author michael barone at the citadel college in charleston, south carolina. he talks about conservative conceptions of liberty, equality and community. join us each saturday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern and sundays at 1:00 p.m. for classroom lectures on different topics and eras of american history. lectures in history are available as podcasts. visit our website or download them from itunes. >> the battle of midway was fought between june 4th and june 7th, 1942. about 6 months after the japanese attacked pearl harbor. it resulted in a victory over the japanese and consider add turning point in the pacific war. next on american history tv, to

mark the 70th anniversary of the battle a commemoration ceremony held this past monday at the united states navy memorial here in washington. this is about 40 minutes. >> today we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the battle of midway. will the guests please rise for the march on of the flags and honors court on for our official parting. smots ♪

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♪ ♪ >> will the guests please be seated.

>> please rise to the presentation of colors. ♪ ♪

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>> will the guests pleasing seated.

♪ >> will the guests please rise for the arrival of the official party, the rendering of honors, our national anthem and refrain.

♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, our national anthem.

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