You should read up on Nathan Bedford Forrest sometime. Among other things he did, he offered freedom to 25 of his own slaves if they would serve with him. At one point in which he thought he might get killed in battle, he filled out 24 manumission papers and signed them. In case he died, he still wanted his promise of freedom to them kept.
From what I have read, he used them as armed cavalry.
Doesn’t mean the “Unionists” were all angels. But their cause was righteous. And I believe it was in the sight of Almighty God.
God tends to favor the side that has four times the population and is far more Industrially based. Apparently he favored the Germans in the 1930s for some reason.
I don't agree that their cause was righteous. I used to believe that before I learned more facts about what actually happened. Their cause was about the worst cause of which you can imagine. Slapping subjugation on another people for money.
The Civil War was about the money stream coming from European trade. If it were about slavery, Lincoln would not have offered to protect slavery permanently.
1) The real disaster is not that the North won, but that Lincoln was assassinated before he could implement his vision for Southern reconstruction following the war. His main goal for his second term was national reconciliation, and building up and integrating the Southern economy.
What happened to the South instead was similar to what happened to a defeated Germany at the signing of Versailles treaty “ending” WWI. In choosing to punish, humiliate, and leave Germany with a massive debt - its neighbors helped set the groundwork for Hitler, the Nazis, and ultimately World War II. Germany’s revenge.
The Nazis lost WWII. And to this day there are Neo-Nazis who wave or tatoo Confederate flags on themselves in the South and around the world.
2) Regardless of the actual motives behind it —economic or otherwise: the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Lincoln was the first major step setting African-Americans on the path towards freedom..