Let Us Die To Make Men Free

[Freddy]

My great grandfather did not mention slavery as a reason for enlisting in July 1862. Patriotism, duty, and bounties are mentioned as reasons, but not slavery. He even mentions soldiers arguing about Lincoln's EP. Later in 1863 he does voice his dislike of slavery. I doubt before 1863 that a majority of Union soldiers were motivated to fight against slavery.

[ole]

One more time: Slavery was the reason for the war, not the reason a soldier fought.

A number of Union soldier soon realized (one author said even before Lincoln) that the war, even if won, would have to be fought all over again if slavery was not eliminated. Hence, the letters from the 12th Wisconsin agrees with modern historians.

ole

[timewalker]

Bruce Catton argues in Grant Moves South that generally the individual union soldier was at best indifferent to slavery and, at worst, was a closet supporter thereof. Abolitionists were looked on with suspicion and dislike. However, once the soldiers spent a significant time in the South and saw the effects of slavery and, even more importantly, realized that slavery in the South was aiding the Southern war effort and prolonging the war, the soldiers became anti-slavery as an expediency to end the war. Thereafter, they became very anti-slavery, seeing its destruction as the only way to bring the war to a swift and final end.