The formal Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January, 1863, freed all slaves in rebellious states with the exception of those in areas already under Union control. Continued pressure by abolitionists and awareness of the potential of black labor as the Confederacy had already discovered, also contributed to lifting the Army's prohibition of 'Negroes or Mulattoes,' in existence since 1820. Declining Union enlistments, heavy battle losses and the realization that the war would take more time and resources than expected, confronted President Abraham Lincoln and the Union Army. However, by the fall of 1862, events had changed in favor of accepting black soldiers. The government's call for 75,000 volunteers in April 1861 compelled many Northern blacks to offer their services to a War Department opposed to arming blacks for fear it would induce the loyal slave-holding border states to join the Confederacy. By the mid-nineteenth century, their earlier efforts were all but forgotten. American blacks had taken part in the country's defense since the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

The Federal program to admit black soldiers during the Civil War was not without precedent or resistance.

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