In numbers, scale, and the economic power of the institution of slavery, American emancipation dwarfed that of any other country. The whites however; refused the blacks who tried to fight in the war. Meanwhile, slaves themselves took actions that helped propel a reluctant white Americans down the road to emancipation.
When the African Americans were told that if they signed up for war that they would become free they started lining up to put their name down. What they didn’t expect was to be denied by the whites and not be able to sign up. The blacks determination to be able to get into the war proved to be a burden and hard on the administration. In August 1861, John C. Fremont, commanding Union forces in Missouri, a state racked by a bitter guerilla war between pro-northern and pro-southern bands, decreed the freedom of its slaves. In the book Battle Lines it shows that blacks were the lowest of the low. The blacks didn’t get along with whites or the Irish either. Battle Lines show how the Irish attacked a young colored man by the name James ten days after the Gettysburg’s address by Lincoln. Not only did the Irish show hatred to colored people they raided an orphanage for colored children then proceeded to burn down the building not caring if anyone was in