...CANNON FODDER???

Unlike the Confederate army, Union troops were totally segregated (and remained so until 1950). 

About 8% of the Union Army was composed of black soldiers while accounting for almost 20% of the suffered deaths. They were also paid less per month then their white counter parts. 

95% of free blacks voluntarily remained in the south after the war and the lagrest part of the black population still resides in the South. Why...Martin Luther King said Jim Crow and racism was always worse in the North.