"Muhammed Ali and the American Civil War" Topic

This is something that I didn't know;

"The Civil War generation of African Americans, wherever they were, helped to defeat the Confederacy and, as President Lincoln acknowledged, black soldiers were critical to victory. Freedom for the enslaved and the "use of colored troops," Lincoln wrote to a critic of the Emancipation Proclamation in the late summer of 1864, "constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion." Without them, he had concluded, "we can not longer maintain the contest." Military necessity had forced Lincoln to join the chorus of abolitionists like Frederick Douglass who called for the enlistment of black men and argued that military service translated into a right to freedom and citizenship. "Drive back to the support of the rebellion the physical force which the colored people now give, and promise us, and neither the present, nor any coming administration, can save the Union," Lincoln wrote. "Take from us, and give to the enemy, the hundred and thirty, forty, or fifty thousand colored persons now serving us as soldiers, seamen, and laborers, and we can not longer maintain the contest."[2] For black men, military service in the Civil War entailed unique dangers. Those who left slavery to become soldiers faced an enemy that refused to acknowledge them as enemy combatants and a U.S War Department that discriminated against them in matters of pay and disproportionate assignments to noncombat duties. Their families were vulnerable to retaliation from slaveholders. Even so, a future of slavery meant they had to make the sacrifice. Muhammad Ali's maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Morehead, was among those who reached this conclusion."

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I wonder why it says "Drafted" in the remarks section. Weren't Black men exempted from the draft?

I wonder why it says "Drafted" in the remarks section. Weren't Black men exempted from the draft?

I thought that they were as well but I guess not, unless it's a mistake on the card. It wouldn't be the first, my Dad's separation papers from WW2 (I think this was before the DD214) listed him as not having been wounded although he was outside of Metz and received a Purple Heart. It led to no end of trouble when I had to fight to get his correct Grave Marker from the VA. He had gone back in in 1947 and so had his original papers plus his later DD214 and convincing the VA that he was a WW2 Vet and had been wounded and was actually a Colonel and not a Lt.Col. eventually led to me having to have a Senator (Joe Lieberman) threaten them to get it corrected.

I was also under the impression that black men were exempt. That the card says "drafted" raises a couple of possibilities: 1) perhaps he was a substitute for someone who was drafted or 2) the army made a mistake with the paperwork (incredible as that may seem).

Perhaps drafted from a previous unit that he had volunteered for?

Thanks for the link.

the army made a mistake with the paperwork (incredible as that may seem)

Anyone who has worked for, with, or against a bureaucracy has to smile at that one.

I'd like to salute ALL the men who were drafted during the period of the Vietnam War and did their duty, It must have been hard to make such sacrifices but they did whatever the outcome.
Today I remember You!

No love for the raft of politicians in both parties who managed to avoid Vietnam?

The two Vietnam vets who ran both lost.

I salute those who had the sense and decency to stay out of that shabby little war. I respect even those who did it to save their own skins, let alone those who prefer not to burn little girls to death for being a different colour.
I have veteran friends who share my opinions.

People can simply not resist being random and useless.

As a conscientious objector, he didnt have any conscience about pummeling a guy in the ring to make a fortune, aside from feelings about Nam, he was a total hypocrite b'esser.

FWIW, a large percentage of the men who formed the colored units were free men, most being free born, and some being freed slaves. Some 185K colored men served in federal uniform, in all branches.

Interestingly enough, when the AoP learned of the government's intent to form colored units and send them into battle, there was a near-mutiny. Letter after letter, diary entry,etc, talks about how they felt that they didn't enlist to free the N-----s, but to preserve the union! Officers had their hands full trying to keep the men from refusing to fight, even to leave bivouac.

What changed their tune? An officer writing in the northern papers under the pseudonym of "Miles O'Reilly" who penned a poem entitled "Sambo's Right To Be Kilt" The poem pointed out that those colored troops could also catch a bullet the same as a white soldier, and if the colored troops were doing that,then it meant fewer bullets directed at the whites. The Soldiers cottoned onto that idea right quickly, and though they never fully recognized the colored troops as equals during the war, in the years following the veterans acknowledged the solid service of all those colored units and the bonds between white and black veterans became quite strong.

Here's a link to the poem.

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