Use of Arms

As the Civil War intensified, Africans in America living in Richmond faced worsening hardship, including shortages of clothing and food and increasing scrutiny, and by 1864 thousands of African men were arrested on the streets by the Provost Marshal and forced to labor on the city’s defenses. After Richmond became the Confederate capital, military engineer General Robert E. Lee quickly organized free and enslaved Africans to prepare the city for war by removing and reshaping soil by hand to form trenches and berms, clearing forests for camp lumber, and building dikes to control the waters. By 1864, 10,000 men were improving Richmond’s defenses, most of them African descendants compelled into the work. As Confederate strength declined, many military personnel believed the South’s only chance for victory depended on enslaved men, but President Davis opposed that recruitment strategy until the war was nearly over. In the North, blacks could enlist in Union units only after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and about 180,000 formerly enslaved or freed people served in the Union army while countless others fought as navy seamen. The response of Africa’s descendants to President Lincoln’s visit to Richmond on April 4, 1865, signified the fulfillment of emancipation.

Richmond, Virginia · United States