Description:

Poster: Civil War.

Top picture.
Black troops in North Carolina, USA, liberated slaves. Thousands of ex-slaves joined the Union Army and Navy.

Middle left picture.
In 1862, the First South Carolina Volunteers, first official Negro regiment in the Union Army, battled Confederates and their dogs.

Middle right picture.
The Fort Pillow Massacre, April 12, 1864. Confederates, angered at the use of black men as Union soldiers, threatened to treat prisoners as slave rebels and to sell them into slavery or execute them. When these soldiers at Fort Pillow surrendered, they were massacred by the enemy.

Bottom left picture.
Major Martin R Delany, first Negro field officer in the countrys history, had the highest rank of the seventy-five black officers appointed during the Civil War. Delany, a medical man, world traveller, writer, and lecturer, was extremely proud that he was black.

Bottom right picture.
Black Charlestonians greet the Negro 55th Massachusetts Regiment on February 21, 1865, when it liberated the city. Colonel Charles B Fox (riding horse) wrote, The glory and the triumph of this hour can be imagined, but can never be described.

The American Civil War began in 1861. It was fought mainly over the issue of whether the different states in the Union had the right to allow slavery in their own state. Most of the southern states supported slavery, most of the northern states were opposed to it. The war ended in 1865, and slavery was abolished throughout the United States.

Contributed by John Judkyn Memorial.

The language used to describe people of African descent in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries is unacceptable in today’s terms. We cannot avoid using this language in its original context. To change the words would impose 20th century attitudes on history.

Date: c1860s

Copyright: The American Museum in Britain, Bath

Object ID:74.179.1