The culmination of Hayes’s transformation from someone who was raised to despise abolitionists to a defender of freedom seekers during the era of the Fugitive Slave Act comes in his decision to enlist in the Union Army at the outset of the Civil War.

    Upon choosing to join the Union Army in 1861, Hayes jotted in his journal, “I would prefer to go into it if I knew I was to die or be killed in the course of it, than to live through and after it without taking any part in it.”

   This is a ubiquitous quote at Hayes Presidential because it highlights Hayes’s patriotism and willingness to sacrifice. Considering he was 39, married, a father of three and a thriving lawyer, it is hard to ignore that compelling story.

   However, when I read one of Hayes’s letters to his uncle Sardis, I feel social and cultural pressures likely led to his decision.

   “I could not feel contented if I were not … taking part,” Hayes wrote, “I should feel about myself as I do about people who lived through the Revolution, seeing their neighbors leaving home, but doing nothing themselves.”

   Yet, it would be wrong to assume this played the major role. I am struck by the words he wrote to set up the former, more famous quote. He wrote that he and Stanley Matthews, his long-time friend with whom he conferred, agreed “that this was a just and necessary war and that it demanded the whole power of the country.”

   This additional line portends a deeper consideration from Hayes in his decision-making. In a subsequent letter, he quoted a friend referring to this as “a holy war.” And immediately after South Carolina’s secession, Hayes mused of a new northern United States that would be “moral” and “above all, free – all free.”

   These lines indirectly point to how Hayes had internalized the war’s objective to either stop the spread or to end slavery.

   Part of Hayes’ evolution in thought closely mimicked the majorities within the Whig and Republican parties. As the nation devolved into civil conflict, he took a typical Republican and northern stance against the Confederate secession.

   But his reaction to questions of slavery seemed to have been propelled forward by more than his adherence to a political party. That’s what I find interesting about Hayes’ journal entries during the 1860s.

   If Hayes’ earlier references to slavery seem sheepish and vague, his later statements make it clear that he eventually took a sharp stand against the institution.

   T.R. Williams, who wrote about Hayes’ war years, described Hayes as becoming “more open and impulsive, much more inclined to let his feelings rule his actions.”

   This change in Hayes becomes just as apparent in his writing. Starting in December 1861, Hayes routinely witnessed escaping enslaved individuals entering his camp.

   Determined to be contrabands by the U.S. government, these individuals were not to be returned to the South. On one occasion, Hayes even attempted to send a contraband to Sardis in Fremont for employment.

   A few months later, Hayes jots in his journal his first emotionally charged statement on slavery: “I am gradually drifting to the opinion that this Rebellion can only be crushed finally by either the execution of all the traitors or the abolition of slavery. Crushed, I mean, so as to remove all danger of its breaking out again in the future.”

   While Hayes’ extreme suggestion for execution leads this passage, it’s merely a prop to show his hardening commitment. He’s calling for abolition and closed out his thought by sharing his approval of Lincoln’s call for gradual emancipation.

   In May, Hayes wrote “seven more contrabands just in.” And later, “Two more contrabands!!”

   The following month, Hayes’s “drifting opinion” became more concrete upon reading a letter from James Garfield to James Cox lamenting Union officers who had not accepted the need to end slavery, including William Tecumseh Sherman, who reportedly claimed he was “ashamed to acknowledge he had a brother who was one of those damned Black Republicans!” (a pejorative term that some used to describe Republicans sympathetic to ending slavery).

   Hayes retorted in his journal, referring to individuals like Sherman,

“These semi-traitors must be watched.—Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of the Rebellion. The man who thinks the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery — in fact, its only enemy.” This pairs well with his earlier declaration: “freedom, freedom for all. We all know that is the essence of this contest.”

   Hayes’ anti-slavery pronouncements preceded Lincoln’s unveiling of his Emancipation Proclamation. We might then assume that Hayes would praise Lincoln’s speech. Instead he wrote, “I am not sure about it…”

   It may stand to reason that Hayes was unsure about the need to end slavery. But a few months later, complaining about the president’s unwillingness to drive towards the enemy, he argued, “We have now the Emancipation Proclamation to go upon. Will not this stiffen the President’s backbone so as to drive it through?”

   Instead, it seemed Hayes felt the Emancipation Proclamation was not forceful enough to compel action. Referencing slavery, he argued, “Desperate diseases require desperate remedies.”

   Ultimately, Hayes was a resolute advocate for slavery’s end. The political climate helped generate the call. But his court cases dealing with freedom seeking individuals in the 1850s and his direct interactions with contrabands in the war woke an emotional response to the corrupt institution.

   In many ways this mimicked the evolution of many northerners. But Hayes, nonetheless, chose the path of “freedom, freedom for all.”