From another point of view, this employment of colored troops with their good conduct on the field was an important event in the history of the Negro. It was the first opportunity given to him to demonstrate, on a large scale, that he was superior to the estimate put upon him at that time by the American people. The current of popular feeling against the race rapidly changed. The Southern soldiers also altered their attitude when they discovered in black skin courage and character worthy of honor and respect.
On both sides of the firing-line the colored men proved themselves to be friends of the white race. They shrank from no danger, however great; they refused no task, however difficult; but worked, and fought, and died without complaint. Negro men and women, as non-combatants, secretly fed, hid, and protected thousands of Union soldiers who were in perilous positions and without a friend or hope of favor in a hostile country. Many a man in blue owed life and liberty to the nursing and protection of some tender-hearted slave. It was to the care and devotion of these same humble folk that the Southern masters, when summoned to war, entrusted the cultivation of their lands and the lives and property of their families. The Negro was the “good Samaritan” in those terrible days, when white men were savagely bent upon destroying one another.
The armies on both sides of the conflict were indebted to the black man as friend and as fighter. In the South, he fought against himself; in the North, he fought for himself. In helping to save the Union by his service and by his death on battlefields, he put himself in a position to claim a share in the fruits of reëstablished peace, and in the good-will of a reunited country. In view of his recorded part in this civil contest, it can never be said that the Negro was a mere passive recipient of the freedom that came to all the members of his race.
After the government had fully committed itself to the policy of enlisting colored men in the Union army, the struggle began to assume the character of a war for liberty. It became so as a military necessity. President Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation, issued on the first day of January, 1863, sounded the death-knell of slavery, and was an expression of a changed attitude on the part of the government and of the people generally, foretelling the end of the war.
The President had been criticised by the Abolitionists, because he chose to fight battles for the preservation of the Union, rather than for the extirpation of slavery. If Douglass had ever faltered in his faith in Mr. Lincoln’s desire for Abolition, he was reassured by an incident which occurred at this time. Shortly after the Proclamation was issued, the President summoned him to the White House. He reports that Mr. Lincoln was somewhat anxious because the slaves in the South were not coming into the Union lines as fast as he expected and wished. He said that he might be forced into arrangements for peace before his purposes could be realized, and if so, he wanted the greatest possible number of slaves within the territory of freedom. The President thought that Douglass could, in some way, bring his Proclamation to the knowledge of the Negroes, and organize raiding parties, which would aid them to escape from bondage and reach Union ground. Referring to this interview Mr. Douglass said:
“Mr. Lincoln saw the danger of premature peace, and like a thoughtful and sagacious man, he wished to provide means of rendering such consummation as harmless as possible. I was most impressed by this benevolent consideration because he had before said, in answer to the peace clamor, that his object was to save the Union.... What he said on this day showed a deeper moral conviction against slavery than I had ever seen before in anything spoken or written by him. I listened with the deepest interest and profoundest satisfaction and at his suggestion agreed to undertake the organization of a band of scouts, ... and urge the slaves to come within our boundaries.”
This plan, however, was soon rendered unnecessary by Union victories in the field and a better military outlook.
Two incidents occurred at this meeting which showed the President’s strong and almost affectionate regard for Frederick Douglass. What these were are best told by Douglass himself. He says: “While in conversation with him, his secretary twice announced Governor Buckingham of Connecticut, one of the noblest and most patriotic of the loyal governors. Mr. Lincoln said: ‘Tell Governor Buckingham to wait, for I want to have a long talk with my friend, Frederick Douglass.’ I interposed and begged him to see the governor at once, as I could wait, but no, he persisted that he wanted to talk with me and that Governor Buckingham could wait.... In his company I was never in any way reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color.”
The other pleasing incident of this visit is likewise best told in Douglass’s own words: “At the door of my friend, John A. Gray, where I was stopping in Washington, I found one afternoon the carriage of Secretary Dole, and a messenger from President Lincoln with an invitation for me to take tea with him at the Soldiers’ Home, where he then passed his nights, riding out after the business of the day was over at the Executive Mansion. Unfortunately, I had an engagement to speak that evening and having made it one of the rules of my conduct in life never to break an engagement if possible to keep it, I felt obliged to decline the honor. I have often regretted that I did not make this an exception to my general rule. Could I have known that no such opportunity could come to me again, I should have justified myself in disappointing a large audience for the sake of a visit with Abraham Lincoln.”
The Emancipation Proclamation, as Mr. Douglass at the time said, was “the turning point in the conflict between freedom and slavery.” He and his race lived through the first two years of the administration of the “party of liberty,” in a kind of agony of hope and doubt. What the colored race, North and South, wanted in a hurry came with slowness. As the time approached for the word of deliverance, the country was in a state of feverish excitement. For those who had been connected with the movement for Abolition, everything else, for the moment, seemed to lose its interest, its importance, and its value in the presence of this impending event. Indeed, the whole country vibrated with expectation.