He transformed the Confederate militia into the First Regiment Native Louisiana Guards led by black captains and lieutenants. After some hesitation, Butler accepted the offer. This all-black militia came to Butler and volunteered to join the Union Army. The Confederate government of Louisiana had formed a militia consisting of free black men led by their own officers. Major General Benjamin Butler commanded the Union forces that had captured and occupied New Orleans in the spring of 1862. In effect, both free black men and escaped slaves were banned from the Union Army. He said that this would push border states like Missouri over to the Confederacy. These stereotypes led most whites to assume that a black man could never be trained to fight like a white soldier.ĭuring the early part of the war, President Lincoln opposed accepting blacks into the army. Slavery had stripped black men of their manhood, so the thinking went, making them dependent and irresponsible. Most white Americans at this time thought of black adults as children, lacking in mental ability and discipline. Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery to become a famous abolitionist leader, stated "We are ready and would go." But prejudice against black people-both free and slave-was strong and deep in the North as well as the South. As soon as the Civil War began, many free black men in the North wanted to fight for the Union cause.
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