The foundation for black participation in the Civil War began more than a hundred years 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 …showed first 75 words of 2168 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2168 total…Company, April 1985 Foner, Eric and Mahoney, Olivia A House Divided, Norton, Ww, Louisania University Press, May 1991 McPherson, James M. The Negro's Civil War: How Americans Felt and Acted During the War for the Union., Ballantine Books, Inc., February 1989 Stokesbury, James C. A Short History of the Civil War Morrow, William & Company, March, 1997 Wilson, Joseph T. The Black Phalanx: African-American Soliders in the War of Independence and the Civil War Plenum Publishing Corp., April 1994