It looked like a triumphal march for the slave barons, but each step cost
more than the last. Missouri gave rise to the early abolitionist movement.
Mexico and the fugitive slave law aroused deep opposition in the North,
and Kansas developed an attack upon the free labor system, not simply of
the North, but of the civilized world. The result was war; but the war was
not against slavery. It was fought to protect free white laborers against
the competition of slaves, and it was thought possible to do this by
segregating slavery.

The first thing that vexed the Northern armies on Southern soil during the
war was the question of the disposition of the fugitive slaves, who
immediately began to arrive in increasing numbers. Butler confiscated
them, Fremont freed them, and Halleck caught and returned them; but their
numbers swelled to such large proportions that the mere economic problem
of their presence overshadowed everything else, especially after the
Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln was glad to have them come after once
he realized their strength to the Confederacy.

The Emancipation Proclamation was forced, not simply by the necessity of
paralyzing industry in the South, but also by the necessity of employing
Negro soldiers. During the first two years of the war no one wanted Negro
soldiers. It was declared to be a "white man's war." General Hunter tried
to raise a regiment in South Carolina, but the War Department disavowed
the act. In Louisiana the Negroes were anxious to enlist, but were held
off. In the meantime the war did not go as well as the North had hoped,
and on the twenty-sixth of January, 1863, the Secretary of War authorized
the Governor of Massachusetts to raise two regiments of Negro troops.
Frederick Douglass and others began the work with enthusiasm, and in the
end one hundred and eighty-seven thousand Negroes enlisted in the Northern
armies, of whom seventy thousand were killed and wounded. The conduct of
these troops was exemplary. They were indispensable in camp duties and
brave on the field, where they fought in two hundred and thirteen battles.
General Banks wrote, "Their conduct was heroic. No troops could be more
determined or more daring."[96]

The assault on Fort Wagner, led by a thousand black soldiers under the
white Colonel Shaw, is one of the greatest deeds of desperate bravery on
record. On the other hand the treatment of Negro soldiers when captured by
the Confederates was barbarous.