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All Slaves were made Freemen. By Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States . Come, then, able-bodied Colored Men, to the nearest United States Camp, and Fight for the Stars and Stripes. [Philadelphia, c.1863/1864.] Broadsheet, 8 1/2 x 10 in., chromolithographed illustration on recto, lettering on verso. Rare colorful recruitment broadsheet depicting a Union soldier holding a flag with an attached banner declaring "Freedom to the Slave." In the background on the right, marching troops hold a flag bearing the words "U. S. Regt. Colored Troops." On the left, African Americans walk into a public school. The Union man stands on a Confederate flag, while a slave tears that flag in half. A broken set of shackles lies in the foreground. Excellent example of this famous and rare recruiting broadsheet addressed to the formerly enslaved.Massachusetts soldiers apparently originated the song "John Brown's Body" by putting new lyrics to "Say Brothers," an old religious camp-meeting tune, but many were offended by it. Poet Henry Brownell decided to write new lyrics with more meaning and rhythm, to be sung to the music of George Frederic Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus." His version, presented here as "the original version,", it enjoyed only modest success. Julia Ward Howe also took up the challenge; her version of "John Brown's Body" became "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," first published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862.Excerpts"All SLAVES were made FREEMEN. BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN, president of the united states, JANUARY 1st, 1863. / Come, then, able-bodied COLORED MEN, to the nearest United States Camp, and fight for the STARS AND STRIPES.""ORIGINAL VERSION of the JOHN BROWN SONG. / The author of the original John Brown Song is H. H. Brownell, of Hartford, a nephew of Bishop Brownell. / Words that can be sung to the 'Hallelujah Chorus.'""Old John Brown lies a-mouldering in the grave,Old John Brown lies slumbering in the grave-But John Brown's soul is marching with the brave, His soul is marching on. Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! His soul is marching on."Henry Howard Brownell (1820-1872) was born in Providence, Rhode Island, but went with his family to Hartford, Connecticut, where he graduated from Trinity College in 1841. His uncle was Thomas Church Brownell (1779-1865), the founder of Trinity College and the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church from 1852 to 1865. After teaching briefly in Mobile, Henry H. Brownell returned to Hartford, gained admission to the bar, and began a law practice, while also pursuing literary work. During the Civil War, he composed a rhymed version of Admiral David Farragut's orders to his fleet before the attack on New Orleans that so pleased Farragut that he made Brownell his secretary, giving the poet an opportunity to see warfare. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. called Brownell "our battle laureate."Historical BackgroundAbraham Lincoln signed the final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, and one of the provisions of the Proclamation was that African American men "of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts." Organizers immediately began recruiting African Americans for service in the Union Army, and fliers such as this one were used in that effort. Given the direction to come to the "nearest United States camp," it seems likely that Union soldiers and others distributed this broadsheet in the South among enslaved and newly freed African Americans.Ultimately, some 180,000 African American men served as soldiers in the Union Army, and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Of those, nearly 40,000 died over the course of the war, three-quarters of them from infection or disease. If captured, they faced the Confederate threat of enslavement or re-enslavement, and at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, Confederates summarily . (See website for full description).
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