Bruce Levine’s book, Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves during the Civil War might more aptly have been titled “Confederate Desperation: Southern Plans to Grant Incredibly Limited Freedoms to a few Slaves who would join the South’s rapidly Failing Military Efforts in the Civil War.” Levine chronicles the efforts of Southern political and military leaders to boost the South’s declining numbers of soldiers, and although he uses the words “emancipation” and “free” in his title, his central thesis is not that Confederate leaders ever intended to truly free the slaves. Instead, Levine notes that the Confederacy considered arming the slaves and granting freedom to those who fought for the Confederacy only as a desperate war effort, and Confederates believed that “If we triumph in the end…The institution itself will be preserved,” (Kindle Edition, Location 1454). “Emancipation” and “freedom” to the Confederacy meant nothing more than granting some limited rights to African-American slaves in order to preserve white supremacy and Confederate independence.
Emancipation for the Confederacy then, meant something very different than it meant to the Union, but this was not the case throughout the entire war. Indeed, the first Confiscation Act defined freedom in a way very similar to the way that the Confederacy defined Emancipation. The first Confiscation Act sought to deal with the fact that slaves were running away to Union soldiers, and many Union troops felt that sending slaves back to their owners, where they would surely be forced to aid the Confederate war effort, was absurd. The First Confiscation Act thus freed slaves who had been used to help aid the Confederate rebellion, and it allowed Union troops to employ these slaves to help the Union cause. Importantly, this did not free slaves’ families. Similarly, the Confederacy wanted to free a select group of slaves who could help them in their war effort. There was no mention of freeing loyal slaves family members. But the spirit of the laws was similar as well. Levine notes, “In 1861 it [the Union] was still flatly refusing to champion emancipation of southern slaves, still insisting that it fought exclusively to restore the Union,” (Location 1982). Ultimately, this meant that even if a slave gained their freedom by running away to Union lines and stating that their masters had been using them to aid the Confederate war effort, this slave would be aiding a Union that was not committed to ending slavery in the South—they could have received their freedom and helped the Union to preserve the status quo, that is, to keep slavery in the South. Similarly, one slave said of the Confederate option for emancipation, “they said I should fight for my freedom…[but] to gain my freedom…I must fight to keep my wife and children slaves,” (Location 2193). Thus the Confederate definition of “emancipation” and the First Confiscation Act’s definition of “emancipation” were very similar to one another, and did not offer true emancipation.
Ultimately, however, the Union’s definition of emancipation did change. Although the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 did end slavery largely because of Lincoln’s war aims, it freed all slaves and their families, allowed black soldiers to enlist in the Union Army and was the first step in the Union towards granting African-Americans a number of basic human rights. In contrast, the Confederacy never thought that allowing slaves to fight in the Confederate Army or giving them some basic freedoms would lead to any sort of complete emancipation or political and social rights for African-Americans. Levine notes, “Ultimately, the key difference between Union and Confederate emancipation would be found in the nature of the legal status that would replace slavery” and the Confederacy planned to give limited freedom and then “make statues for the regulation of labor,” prevent emancipated slaves from owning property, and keep them politically disenfranchised (Location 1487-1498).
The Confederacy never sought to offer slaves freedom, it sought to do the bare minimum necessary to win the war. Once they had won the war, the Confederacy would work to maintain the status quo, and to keep slaves oppressed and dependent on working on white plantations. This was not freedom; it was a paltry attempt to give slaves in the Confederacy minimal rights to get the maximum reward of Confederate victory.

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