before the outbreak of the war. Blacks in America had been in bondage since early

colonial times. In 1776, when Jefferson proclaimed mankind's inalienable right to life,

liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the institution of slavery had become firmly

established in America. Blacks worked in the tobacco fields of Virginia, in the rice fields

of South Carolina, and toiled in small farms and shops in the North. Foner and Mahoney

report in A House Divided, America in the Age of Lincoln that, "In 1776, slaves

composed forty percent of the population of the colonies from Maryland south to Georgia,

but well below ten percent in the colonies to the North." The invention of the cotton gin

by Eli Whitney in 1793 provided a demand for cotton thus increasing the demand for

slaves. By the 1800's slavery was an institution throughout the South, an institution in

which slaves had few rights, and could be sold or leased by their owners. They lacked any

voice in the government and lived a life of hardship. Considering these circumstances, the

slave population never abandoned the desire for freedom or the determination to resist

Confederacy faced an army that was daily thinned more to desertion than bullets.

minor skirmishes proved to be successful. Wilson also notes that "Kansas has ... the honor

Shaw, helped open the 22- month land and sea assault on Charleston, South Carolina.

were fighting for the North and trying to escape the bonds of slavery and gain freedom,

fortifications the slaves returned to the fields to help supply the needs of the confederate

that it never became as well organized or as successful as the South believed.

climate in America in 1860 found it unthinkable that blacks would bear arms against white

Some common words found in the essay are:
Civil War, Batty Parish, McPherson Wilson, Frederick Douglas, Eli Whitney, Underground Railroad, Confederate Army, Navy Stokesbury, Foner Mahoney, Bedford Forrest's, black soldiers, civil war, union army, foner mahoney, batty parish, war batty, black regiments, emancipation proclamation, institution slavery, confederate army, white black soldiers, war batty parish, history civil war, january 1 1863, negro's civil war,
Approximate Word count = 2207
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)