What role did Canada play in the American Civil War?
At the time of the American Civil War, "Canada" referred to a very small part of what is now part of the country by the same name. The Province of Canada was formed by the 1841 merger of the colonies of Upper Canada and Lower Canada. This came out to what's now Quebec along the St. Lawrence and Ontario along the Great Lakes. The rest of what's now Canada had been very sparsely colonized, and the indigenous peoples of the area were not involved in the American Civil War.At the time Canada, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island were all British colonies. The UK remained neutral in the American Civil War. There were some elements in Parliament that wished to recognize the Confederacy, but by and large, public opinion in both the British metropole and the colonies was against doing so - to the point where somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 men from the British colonies in North America volunteered to fight for the Union and some 29 were awarded the Medal of Honor. Furthermore, the British colonies were often the last stop on the Underground Railroad, a role they played before and during the warHaving said that, there were parts of the British colonies that were more sympathetic to the Confederacy, primarily in the east. In 1863, Confederate agents commandeered a Union vessel and docked it in Nova Scotia, almost causing an international incident. The British handed the vessel back to the Union; however, the Confederate agents escaped. This was the "Chesapeake Affair," named for the stolen ship. In late 1864, Confederates used Montreal as a base of operations to raid St. Albans in Vermont. The raiders were pursued back over the border, causing an incident, one that was compounded when the arrested raiders were not extradited. Nevertheless, the situation was resolved diplomatically.That said, probably the largest role Canada played in the American Civil War was economic: the colonies had a wealth of raw resources and agricultural products, vast quantities of which were exported to the Union - the Union had both the money and the ability to transport the goods. The war turned out to be an economic boon to Canada.
What impact did the Civil War have on African Americans?
African Americans In The Civil War summary: African-Americans served in the in the Civil War on both the Union and Confederate side. In the Union army, over 179,000 African American men served in over 160 units, as well as more serving in the Navy and in support positions. This number comprised of both northern free African Americans and runaway slaves from the South who enlisted to fight. In the Confederacy, African-Americans were still slaves and they served mostly in labor positions. By 1865, the South allowed slaves to enlist but very few actually did. African-Americans In the Union Army At the onset of the Civil War, free black men rushed to volunteer for service with the Union forces. Although African Americans had served in the army and navy during the American Revolution and in the War of 1812 (few, if any served in the Mexican War), they were not permitted to enlist because of a 1792 law that barred them from bearing arms in the U.S. Army. President Abraham Lincoln also feared that accepting black men into the military would cause border states like Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri to secede. Free black men were finally permitted to enlist late in 1862, following the passage of the Second Confiscation and Militia Act, which freed slaves who had masters in the Confederate Army, and Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. By May 1863, the Bureau of Colored Troops was established to manage black enlistees. Recruitment was low until active efforts were made to enlist black volunteers—leaders like Frederick Douglass encouraged free black men to volunteer as a way to ensure eventual full citizenship.
What impact did African American troops have on the Civil War?
It occurred to white soldiers that black men in blue could stop a bullet meant for a white man. The mathematics of war are sometimes harsh. 150 years ago, that was the extent of racial equality.New England raised soldiers tended toward Abolitionism to a greater degree than western soldiers. Black regiments, generally, were not considered front line quality by the War Department, so, except for a few notable instances, they spent the war guarding supplies, manning railroad block houses and forts. Guard duty is important, but it is way down on the list of desired duties. (Until you are getting shot at, when guarding a pile of bacon would be infinitely preferred.)Guard duty did not protect black troops from getting killed, (Ft Pillow, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba... ), or dying of disease, bad water, poor nutrition. For that matter, Burnside, the general who commanded the units who were to exploit the mine under the Petersburg trenches, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba...), was ordered to lead the attack with white troops, although his black brigade had been specially training for the attack. The was a fear at headquarters that it would look bad if black troops were used as the initial assault force. He was then condemned for using his black troops to try to reverse the white failure.
What effects did the Civil War have on women and African Americans?
One of the best answers to this question is Sojourner Truth. She was an escaped slave who was better known as a women’s rights activist, even before slavery was ended. She raised money for the women’s rights movement on speaking tours and inspired many men and women to address the issues surrounding ‘freeing’ women as well as blacks.
How did African American soldiers affect the Civil War?
African American soldiers helped the Union Army win the Civil War in several ways. To the extent those soldiers were escaped or liberated slaves, they reduced the civilian labor strength of the Confederate States of America. The more talented and capable slaves tended to leave first for the Union Army lines. African American troops fought, killed enemy soldiers and advanced the military objectives of the Union Army while providing a moral or propaganda boost to the Union cause and its anti-slavery stance, adopted officially in 1863. Black Union soldiers began the movement towards equality of the races.Prison & Slavery - A Surprising Comparison: John Dewar Gleissner: 9781432753832: Amazon.com: Books
How do parents in the American South explain the American Civil War to children?
Maintaining anonymity as I don't really want to be associated with these largely heinous views, but here it is. My dad told me: It was the War of Northern Agression and it was over states' rights, not slavery. He told me that the North held slaves, too, so how bad could it have been? He told me that slavery was the best thing to have ever happened to blacks. He told me that they whine about it too much now while white people don't whine about their times of "slavery." The Confederates were valiant soldiers defending their homeland and way of life. The Republicans at the time were nigger-lovers and bent on putting down the white man. The United States would have been far better off if it was split into two countries North and South. Bonus: He also told me that Obama's election and later on the BLM "anti-white" movement signaled the coming of a second Civil War. All white men should become armed. I have known other Southern parents that agree. I have known other Southern parents that were too extreme for my own Dad, actually. I've also known Southern parents that didn't agree. But it's real. They're out there.
How close african americans come to gaining full civil rights during reconstruction?
A lot of them did, but only for a few years. Many African-Americans were elected to public office, including the U.S. Senate and House; many started businesses and prospered. On the other hand, many of the poorer African-Americans struggled because there was never any meaningful land reform and they became almost like serfs working as sharecroppers and tenant farmers. And of course when Reconstruction ended and the bad guys got back into power, they were made second-class citizens for decades.
What are the long-term effects of the American civil war on African Americans today?
The real effects are that they are free people that count as a whole person (rather than 3/5th of a person as in the original draft of the Constitution for representative purposes), they are citizens with all the civil rights that are given to any other American citizen. Which includes the right to vote, citizenship and to own property. The issue is that because the Republicans wanted to hold on to the Presidency in 1876 they sold out the Freedmen's Bureau's, ended Reconstruction and let former racist Confederates return to state and national office. Which in turn led to Jim Crow and all the gains that occurred in the decade after the Civil War being lost and it taking African-Americans another century, hundreds of deaths and unimaginable indignities in the South AND North in order to truly get the rights permanently. Even though it's been 60 years in the Civil Rights Act of 1965 they still are struggling for true equality in all areas. What I find distressing is that while there is no doubt slavery is forever a black mark on our national reputation and meant that at any one time 10-15% of our national population was nothing but chattel even after gaining true Constitutional protection, they achieved voting rights and recognition and are actually ahead in many ways of the forgotten 51% "minority" citizens in this country that are women. Distressingly it is the patriarchal religious beliefs that we proudly hold as the founding principles our nation was build on. Yet those beliefs put women below children and continue to hold them to less pay for equal work, and glass ceilings. Despite making up 51 percent of the population we've had an African American President before a female one and we've not allowed them to contribute their talents and ideas to making our nation what it truly could be until the last 40 years or so.
How did racism affect the American Civil War?
In several ways, but here are a few:- by providing justification for slavery. Initially, slaveholders were honest about their economic motives but over time they started developing a more explicitly racist ideology that justified slavery: blacks were an inferior race who benefited from being enslaved because rather than being left to their own savage nature, they were being taught thrift and industry by their masters. Slavery, of course, in spite of the popular version where it was all presumably due to States rights, was the sine qua non of the war. No slavery = no civil war. And if you read what the secessionists said at the time they were seceding, rather than what they wrote after they lost, you can clearly see what they were fighting for: slavery, slavery, slavery.- by limiting the number of enlisted blacks on both sides. Both sides would have benefited from enlisting as many black men as they possibly could in the ranks of their armies, racism and prejudice were prevalent, North and South and many people knew, just knew, that blacks couldn't possibly make good soldiers. Thomas Jefferson himself had called them "inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind." Of course, in time, the North came to enlist more blacks, but even so, only about 1 out of every 10 enlistee was black. In comparison, blacks comprised 14% of the population. What is more, relatively few of those black enlistees were actually used for combat duty.- By leading to the death of Lincoln. One of the things that really infuriated John Wilkes Booth, was that Lincoln wanted to give some blacks the right to vote. "that means nigger citizenship," he is said to have exclaimed.