African Americans in the American Civil War
Captured black Union soldiers were a problem for the Confederacy. They could not treat them the same as captured white soldiers or they would be legitimizing them as being equal. It would also imply they accepted Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which they did not. Three days before the Emancipation Proclamation was to take effect, Jefferson Davis stated: “All negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered over to the executive authorities of the respective States to which they belong.” The Congress of the Confederate States decided to take it a step further. They later adopted a resolution that any negroes taken in arms would be put on trial for "inciting servile insurrection" and would be punished by the death penalty.