From: whale@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stephen Schmidt)
Subject: Re: Did Lincoln free the slaves for military purposes?
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 92 17:33:07 GMT

In article <1992Aug23.060318.8446@cco.caltech.edu> morphy@cco.caltech.edu (Jones Maxime Murphy) writes:
>whale@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stephen Schmidt) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Aug23.035253.22360@cco.caltech.edu> morphy@cco.caltech.edu (Jones Maxime Murphy) writes:
>
>Legal recognition of their freedom was a major psychological boost for the
>black allies of the Union. How could that not be a military advantage? Blacks
>served as spies and soldiers for the Union after emancipation, with their
>intimate knowledge of the land they were brutally compelled to work.

They did that before the Emancipation Proclamation too. (Not soldiers, of
course, but as spies and train drivers and so on). It's not clear that the
Proclamation had any particular effect on the activities of African-Americans
in the Union service.
>
>>>It created havoc at the very core of the South, and brought
>>>it to state of crisis.
>
>>Not true. It had essentially no effect on the South whatever except to
>>confirm the impression that they already had, that the Republican party
>>wanted to take their slaves away. Since they already thought that, what
>>impact could it have had?
>
>You are talking about *whites* as if they're the South. Stop it.

No, I'm not. I'm talking about the South as if the slaves had very little
impact on Southern miltary conduct and politics, which I think is true.

However, you claim that the EP "created havoc at the very core of the South".
Unless you are claiming that the Proclamation created havoc for the slaves,
which you may be though it seems to me unlikely, you are doing the same thing
you accuse me of: referring to "the South" (in your case "the very core") as
just the white folks.
>
>>>By the end of the war, well over 10% of the Union army
>>>was ex-slaves. Freeing the slaves brought fresh, highly motivated manpower into
>>>a beleaguered Union camp.
>
>"Arming slaves"? I'm not surprised the proclamation didn't refer to them,
>since they were not slaves any more, except perhaps in your mind and the mind
>of the whites in the South at the time.

In any practical terms, Southern slaves remained slaves until the Union army
came through. Since most of the Confederacy was still controlled by the
Confederate government when the Proclamation came out, I think this is a fair
term to use.
However, if you prefer we can use the term "former slaves" instead, which
does not alter the argument in any way. I'm surprised at the amount of vitroil
you put into a minor criticism of semantics. Perhaps to deflect attention
away from the discussion?
>
>How on earth can you separate the influx of "colored"(as opposed to colorless,
>no doubt) troops from their legal release from the chains of institutionalized
>slavery?

Simple. After the Emancipation Proclamation was passed, it remained illegal
for African Americans to enter US military service. It was not the EP that
made it possible for them to become soldiers.
Further, it would have been quite possible, had anyone been so inclined, to
draft slaves in Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri into the army
without freeing them, returning them to their owners after the war. (It
wasn't done, but it could have been.) So emancipation was not a necessary
condition for service either.
I use the term colored troops because that was the official name of the
units. It is not meant as a racist attack despite your distortionary attempt
to make it seem so. The opposite of colored troops would be volunteer
troops. (There are also white regular troops, of course).

>Up until the Emancipation proclamation, Federal officers were 
>technically bound to return blacks to their masters! And in fact, many often
>did until July 1862, when they were forbidden to do so. That was also when
>Congress authorized Lincoln to enlist "persons of African descent" for "any
>war service". Sounds an awful lot like arming the "slaves" to me. In fact,
>blacks had been fighting in the Union army long before that, and not just in
>state-recruited units.

Obviously you didn't read my following post. The order you claim was given
in May 1863.
>
>>Try not to be any more revisionist than your distorted positions force you
>>to be.
>
>And what exactly are my "distorted" positions, pray tell?

The belief that the Emancipation Proclamation had any significant military
effect.
-- 
Steve Schmidt			<><		   whale@leland.stanford.edu

"We have met the enemy and he is us" - Walt Kelly
Newsgroups: alt.war.civil.usa