wiz-icon
MyQuestionIcon
MyQuestionIcon
1
You visited us 1 times! Enjoying our articles? Unlock Full Access!
Question

Which statement about African-American soldiers in the Union Army during the Civil War is accurate?

A
Unlike white soldiers they faced being pressed back into slavery or outright execution if captured.
Right on! Give the BNAT exam to get a 100% scholarship for BYJUS courses
B
African-American units were commanded by soldiers promoted from within their ranks.
No worries! We‘ve got your back. Try BYJU‘S free classes today!
C
The primary role of African-American units was serving in combat.
No worries! We‘ve got your back. Try BYJU‘S free classes today!
D
They were eligible to be drafted and tens of thousands joined unwillingly.
No worries! We‘ve got your back. Try BYJU‘S free classes today!
E
The number of African-American soldiers overall was very small and they played an insignificant role in the war effort overall.
No worries! We‘ve got your back. Try BYJU‘S free classes today!
Open in App
Solution

The correct option is A Unlike white soldiers they faced being pressed back into slavery or outright execution if captured.
Unlike white soldiers they faced being pressed back into slavery or outright execution if captured.

flag
Suggest Corrections
thumbs-up
0
similar_icon
Similar questions
Q. Joseph Glatthaar’s Forged in Battle is not the first excellent study of Black soldiers and their White officers in the Civil War, but it uses more soldiers’ letters and diaries—including rare material from Black soldiers—and concentrates more intensely on Black-White relations in Black regiments than do any of its predecessors. Glatthaar’s title expresses his thesis: loyalty, friendship, and respect among White officers and Black soldiers were fostered by the mutual dangers they faced in combat.
Glatthaar accurately describes the government’s discriminatory treatment of Black soldiers in pay, promotion, medical care, and job assignments, appropriately emphasizing the campaign by Black soldiers and their officers to get the opportunity to fight. That chance remained limited throughout the war by army policies that kept most Black units serving in rear-echelon assignments and working in labor battalions. Thus, while their combat death rate was only one-third that of White units, their mortality rate from disease, a major killer in his war, was twice as great. Despite these obstacles, the courage and effectiveness of several Black units in combat won increasing respect from initially skeptical or hostile White soldiers. As one White officer put it, “they have fought their way into the respect of all the army.” In trying to demonstrate the magnitude of this attitudinal change, however, Glatthaar seems to exaggerate the prewar racism of the White men who became officers in Black regiments. “Prior to the war,” he writes of these men, “virtually all of them held powerful racial prejudices.” While perhaps true of those officers who joined Black units for promotion or other self-serving motives, this statement misrepresents the attitudes of the many abolitionists who became officers in Black regiments. Having spent years fighting against the race prejudice endemic in American society, they participated eagerly in this military experiment, which they hoped would help African Americans achieve freedom and postwar civil equality. By current standards of racial egalitarianism, these men’s paternalism toward African Americans was racist. But to call their feelings “powerful racial prejudices” is to indulge in generational chauvinism—to judge past eras by present standards
Q. The passage suggests that which of the following was true of Black units’ disease mortality rates in the Civil War?
View More
Join BYJU'S Learning Program
similar_icon
Related Videos
thumbnail
lock
Civil War
HISTORY
Watch in App
Join BYJU'S Learning Program
CrossIcon