Black Confederates

[Battalion]

Originally Posted by johan_steele

Timewalker & Trice thank you for several quite useful posts.

Battalion thank you for allowing your consistant playing fast & loose w/ sources to once again be proven beyond a shadow of doubt and to once again put your credibility into question.

If I might suggest you should actually read your sources before you cut and paste snippets from them. Especially when the source can be tracked down and found you are presenting only part of the story. Not to mention the purposeful omision of things that so obviously contradict what you want the source to say. It has long ago become the expectation that you will distort whatever you can to prove your point.

When someone quotes Amazon book reviews... perhaps it is asking too much that they will eventually mature in their abilities.

Battalion; on a personal note I do consider Unionblue a better man than I, a man who has served his country w/ honor and pride. A man who has spent real time actually researching, learning and sharing that knowledge. Instead of looking only at sources that agree w/ his views and sniping at those who disagree w/ him he has listened learned and contributed. He is indeed a better man than either you or I.

Unionblue thank you for your courtesy, civility and most of all your service.

Well, one of the 'moderators' has shown up to 'moderate'...

[timewalker]

Originally Posted by Battalion

These pensions were only for servants and laborers.

Note that on page 318 of the article it notes that Holt Collier is the "only negro ever enrolled in our army." Note also on the page preceding, "African Americans who may have enlisted as soldiers in the Confederate army, entitling them to larger pensions, would have used a soldier's pensioner form."

Anyway, I am confused. You seem to use the pension numbers to show that a large number of African Americans served in the Confederate Army as "soldiers" and now you say that "these pensions were only for servants and laborers." So are you now saying that these pension numbers do not prove your point?

What exactly, then, is your point?

[Battalion]

Originally Posted by timewalker

Note that on page 318 of the article it notes that Holt Collier is the "only negro ever enrolled in our army." Note also on the page preceding, "African Americans who may have enlisted as soldiers in the Confederate army, entitling them to larger pensions, would have used a soldier's pensioner form."

Anyway, I am confused. You seem to use the pension numbers to show that a large number of African Americans served in the Confederate Army as "soldiers"

I called them 'Black Confederate pensioners."

You need to read my post...not Johan Steele's mis-representations.

Originally Posted by timew

and now you say that "these pensions were only for servants and laborers." So are you now saying that these pension numbers do not prove your point?

What exactly, then, is your point?

See title of thread- "Black Conderates"

What's the problem? Are they not Black Confederates?

[trice]

Originally Posted by Battalion

Wow...that's a cheery-picked article if I've ever seen one...and I thought that was what you accused others of?

Tsk...tsk...

I haven't the slightest idea what you mean. Please stop trying so hard to be obscure and come out into the light to say clearly what you mean and what you are referring to.

Tim

[matthew mckeon]

I check in with D. Rostov's Civil War Bookshelf now and again. He's a contrarian about a lot of issues, which can be useful, because it makes you think about the CW, not just repeat things. A long term cause of his is the rehabilitation of George McClellan, unfairly maligned in his view.

I read North and South Magazine and have read the editorials and letters about black Confederate soldiers. Levine engages the evidence presented about black Confederate soldiers and demolishes it with logic and research. Apparently unable to respond with their own evidence, their facts disproved, their arguments dismantled, advocates for the phantom legions of blacks in gray are left sputtering about "arrogance."

It's a shopworn debater's trick, when losing an argument on the merits, ratchet up the emotion, change the subject to the alleged personal shortcomings of your opponent.

[matthew mckeon]

Poulter, the editor of N and S, let the black confederates champions and Levine do a couple of rounds in the letters page, which is two more than I would have. So he let folks have their say.

I believe Rebprof, a former poster has had an article published in a recent issue, about Missouri and the nastiness there. Check it out.

[J_Man0507]

Thanks for that article, Timewalker. Very interesting read indeed. It shall be filed away for future reference.

This seems to be one more work that points to the fact that there were few black Confederate soldiers. Mr. Hollandsworth puts it out there right from the beginning that black southerners contributed to the Confederate war effort in four ways, and not one of them was as a soldier. And while he does not deny that there were probably some out there, he found no record of them in his research, and he admits that the few who did serve would have pention roles elsewhere.

I think Mr. Hollandsworth makes a very good case, and it was really quite an enlightening article. The elusive black confederate soldier is still yet to show up! Does anybody still have their camcorders still on?

[ole]

Well, one of the 'moderators' has shown up...

The other is close by. He is moderating a beer right now, and can't be bothered.

ole

[trice]

Originally Posted by J_Man0507

Thanks for that article, Timewalker. Very interesting read indeed. It shall be filed away for future reference.

This seems to be one more work that points to the fact that there were few black Confederate soldiers. Mr. Hollandsworth puts it out there right from the beginning that black southerners contributed to the Confederate war effort in four ways, and not one of them was as a soldier. And while he does not deny that there were probably some out there, he found no record of them in his research, and he admits that the few who did serve would have pention roles elsewhere.

I think Mr. Hollandsworth makes a very good case, and it was really quite an enlightening article. The elusive black confederate soldier is still yet to show up! Does anybody still have their camcorders still on?

To make this even a little more interesting, Mr. Hollandsworth is actually the author of The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War from Louisiana State University Press. He is associate provost and lecturer in history at the University of Southern Mississippi, is also the author of Pretense of Glory: The Life of General Nathaniel P. Banks and An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot of July 30, 1866. His credentials on the subject of blacks and the Civil War are fairly strong -- and he is probably one of the biggest experts on the Louisiana Native Guards that exists today.

Tim

[unionblue]

Originally Posted by Battalion

"When did I say servants were soldiers?...

Where? When?"
...and so you cannot site a single instance of what you claim.

Par for the course.

Battalion,

Since I cannot tell if you are confusing me with Johan Steele, I invite you to go back and check my post #217 of this thread, where I was replying to some of your previous questions.

In that post I quoted your statement where you asked:

"When did I say servants were soldiers?..."

I replied:

"Did you? Did I?"

My point being, did you ever say servants were soldiers? Did I ever say you said such? In other words, no, I do not recall you ever saying such, nor do I recall ever saying that you did such.

But now I see you seem to be leaning to the idea that no matter what capacity these black slaves and freedmen served, either as servants, cooks, teamsters, etc., they should be called "Black Confederates."

Misdirection and dishonest in my own opinion.

As for your response concerning the USCT (Your post #41 on the thread you started entitled, "The USCT (United States Colored Troops)....How many were Volunteers?) and your efforts to prove not all were volunteers, you were asked to provide figures as to those who were drafted and those who were volunteers. And your response was what?

I don't know.

I will concede to the idea that not all 180,000 USCT were volunteers. But it what way does it detract that large numbers of former black slaves and freedmen were fighting for their freedom and respect in order to be considered MEN instead of slaves?

By the same token, what does it add or detract from the historical truth that there were no vast numbers of black slaves who fought for the Confederacy by clouding the issue that servants, cooks, teamsters, etc., should be called "Black Confederates?" Slight of hand and distraction to make up for lack of historical evidence, nothing more.

In my opinion. Not Johan's.

Sincerely,
Unionblue