USA HISTORY

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR(1861 1865)

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

[SOURCES]
What would happen to African American soldiers who were captured in battle by the Confederacy?

(A) Set free.

(B) They were put to work.

(C) ** They were executed.

(D) They were sold back to the Union army.

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -The Confederate government threatened to summarily execute or sell into slavery any captured black Union soldiers–and did sometimes carry out those threats. Lincoln responded by threatening to retaliate against Confederate prisoners whenever black soldiers were killed or enslaved.

Concept note-2: -Black soldiers and their officers were also in grave danger if they were captured in battle. Confederate President Jefferson Davis called the Emancipation Proclamation “the most execrable measure in the history of guilty man” and promised that Black prisoners of war would be enslaved or executed on the spot.

Concept note-3: -Black troops also faced greater peril than white troops when captured by the Confederate Army. In 1863 the Confederate Congress threatened to severely punish officers of black troops and to enslave black soldiers.

Concept note-4: -As a result of the Union victory in the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1865), nearly four million slaves were freed. The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) granted African Americans citizenship, and the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) guaranteed their right to vote.