Father Comes Home From the Wars

The American Civil War started on April 12, 1861, and ended on May 26, 1865. However, enslaved people in some states—like Texas, where Hero, Homer, and Penny live—didn’t find out about their emancipation until June 19, 1965, inspiring the holiday Juneteenth. The American Civil War was fought between two geographical areas of the United States: the northern “Union” and the Southern “Confederacy.” Between the United States’ official secession from England in 1774 and the year 1804, “most of the northern states abolished slavery or started the process to abolish slavery” (“Slavery in America.” History, 2024). The “proximate” cause of conflict between the North and South was a “Constitutional principle: the U.S. government refused to recognize the southern states’ right to secede from the Union;” in retaliation, the southern states “asserted that right by seizing federal property within its states’ borders” (Coski, John. “Myths & Misunderstandings: What Caused the Civil War.” The American Civil War Museum, 2017). However, efforts to “downplay the importance of slavery” to the Confederacy’s secession began as a Confederate “post-war effort” (Coski). In the actual lead-up to the war, the desire to continue the practice of chattel enslavement “dominated the thinking and the rhetoric of southern statesmen” (Coski). Similarly, in Father Comes Home From the Wars, when the Colonel and Smith are discussing their differences as a Confederate and Union man respectively, the only difference they discuss is their opinion on enslavement.

At first, President Abraham Lincoln insisted that the “sole reason” for the Union’s militant engagement with the confederacy was “the preservation of the Union” (Boston, Nicholas, and Jennifer Hallam. “Freedom & Emancipation.” PBS: Slavery and the Making of America, 2004). The Union’s Confiscation Act of 1861 “allow[ed] the federal government to seize property, including slave property, being used to support the Confederate rebellion” (“The Confiscation Acts of 1861 and 1862.” United States Senate). Enslaved people, who were considered “property” by their enslavers, were legally classified as “contraband” in the Union, and fugitives from slavery could therefore be enlisted in the Union Army. The Second Confiscation Act of 1862 allowed Union forces to free enslaved people in conquered territory, and to recruit Black soldiers into the Union forces. In the play, Smith was freed when his enslaver died; he likely enrolled under the Second Confiscation Act.

Smith is in the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry. Kansas was “the first Northern state to recruit, train, and send black soldiers into combat during the Civil War” (“First to Serve-1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment.” National Park Service). This regiment assembled as a state militia in August 1862, after the Second Confiscation Act but before the Emancipation Proclamation “officially authorized the recruitment of African American soldiers for federal service” in 1863 (“First to Serve”). Part 2 of the play takes place in late summer 1862; Smith and his fellow servicemen were likely the first men enrolled in the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry under the Second Confiscation Act.

By contrast, the Confederacy forbade Black men from serving as soldiers in the war. Instead, “enslaved or marginally free laborers [served] in capacities in a military setting analogous to their roles in civilian life” such as “body servants, laborers, teamsters, hospital workers, and cooks” (Coski, John. “Myths & Misunderstandings: Black Confederates.” The American Civil War Museum, 2017). This introduces an important differentiation between “military service” and “forced labor” (Coski, “Black Confederates”). In Part 1 of the play, Hero debates the “choice” the Colonel has given him to join the Confederate Army as the Colonel’s bodyguard. Old Man points out the fallacy of this “crumb” of choice since Hero ultimately has no real choice but to follow the Colonel into battle.