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Oh I do, I don't distort or creatively edit things; you do enough of that for all of us here. Merely proof that Twain was quite adept at reading people and those who enjoy using stats... then and now.
Are you going to admit you don't consider the USCT soldiers? Or perhaps admit you overlooked USCT men from Alabama and Georgia. It's one or the other. So here are some facts for you to digest: http://www.civilwararchive.com/unional.htm
While I know you aren't familiar with Dyer, you really should be. It's full of all kinds of facts you can't dodge or discreedit including 186 USCT & 30 more Corps de Afrique organizations. Try referencing them sometime.
Freddy brings up a superb point that you have always ignored. Why are the hordes of Black Confederates soldier, you want to claim exist, not mentioned in the plethera of diaries and letters home?
strawman arguments
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
It's a strawman argument to ask why your hordes of Black Confedertes aren't mentioned in period letters and diaries?
It's a strawman argument to point out your errors and back them up w/ legitimate fact? Or are you somehow trying to imply that Dyer is a strawman argument?
Is it a strawman argument to point out your consistant and purposeful efforts to discredit the USCT?
If you are ignorant of Dyer, perhaps your should admit it and educate yourself. If you are ignorant of the lack of mention of Black Confederates in period letters and diaries... perhaps you should read some.
__________________ Shane Christen
American Legion Post 352
SUVCW Camp Abernethy# 48
Lifetime NRA member
3rd MN VI
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Eccl 1:18
Freddy, the sample of the diary has wetted my appetite. Please have it published - even if it's limited to 100 copies and unedited. People likely to buy it are those whose relatives served in the same regiment or fought in the same battle. Others who may be interested are those who study the PoW situation during the war. Personal diaries, journals, memoirs and letters are treasure troves enjoyed by all we would-be-scholars (and some real scholars too).
Freddy, the sample of the diary has wetted my appetite. Please have it published - even if it's limited to 100 copies and unedited. People likely to buy it are those whose relatives served in the same regiment or fought in the same battle. Others who may be interested are those who study the PoW situation during the war. Personal diaries, journals, memoirs and letters are treasure troves enjoyed by all we would-be-scholars (and some real scholars too).
From the book, Dixie Betrayed, by David J. Eicher, Chapter 15, pg. 218 - 219:
"A significant discussion had erupted on the floor of the (CSA) House on February 1 (1864) regarding the use of African American troops in the Confederate army, which to some implied the possibility of a form of emancipation. Joe Johnston wrote to his friend Wigfall, from a position north of Atlanta,
I propose to substitute slaves for all soldiers employed out of the ranks on detached service, extra duties, as cooks, engineer labourers, pioneers, or on any kind of work. Such details for this little army amount to more than 10,000 men. Negroes would serve for such purposes better than soldiers. The impressment of negroes has been practiced ever since the war commenced, but we have never been able to keep the impressed negroes with an army near the enemy. They desert & their owners, if they do not investigate, do not prevent it. If you can devise & pass a law to enable us to hold slaves or other negroes with armies, this one can, in a few weeks, be increased by the number given above.
Congress agreed on the following terms regarding free African Americans used as soldiers: not using free blacks while using poor whites as soldiers is discriminatory; black soldiers should be used for menial tasks only since those who could read and write might desert to the enemy; blacks make good laborers but poor soldiers; "free negroes...are inimical to our cause"; up to twenty thousand African Americans, aged between eighteen and fifty, should be employed for labor on fortifications, government workshops, hospitals, mess tents, etc; the pay of slaves should go to their masters; and should too few slaves volunteer or be furnished by their masters, they should be impressed.
In the House Porcher Miles brought up the act, which would increase the army by adding slaves and free blacks to labor in it. All black males between eighteen and fifty would be required to serve. Erasmus Gardenhire of Tennessee asked that if the bill passed, "would it not recognize Lincoln's right to conscribe our negroes?" Porcher Miles said, "We have a right to do what we please with our slaves, and Lincoln has no control over them." Henry Foote said that a difficulty might exist relative to prisoner exchange. "Suppose some of them are taken prisoner," he asked. "What would be done with them?" Miles reported the committee had not considered that.
A few days later in the Senate, a bill was intrduced to place free blacks in the military; it was then referred to committee. By order of the Senate leadership, the committee was discharged from considering the bill on February 5, 1864. Meanwhile, in the House, Miles again reported that he believed the act to employ slaves and free blacks would increase the army by forty thousand men. John Baldwin of Virginia wanted to exempt any free blacks engaged in food production, particularly in the Shenandoah Valley. Ethelbert Barksdale of Mississippi objected, saying that free blacks "are a blot upon our escutheon, and pernicious to our slave population...[Baldwin] says to the free negro, you shall not bear the burdens of this war--while [the white citizen] must take his place in the army." After further argument and slight massaging of the language, the bill was passed. Whether African American soldiers would serve in the Confederacy, however--whether they would be armed and whether slaves would be emancipated in compensation--was a t h o r n y topic to be held for another day. Like so many policy and military decisions the South needed to make, it was deferred."
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Whatever, southern military leaders thought, whatever the average citizen thought, whatever the soldiers in the ranks thought, the Confederate Leadership 'knew' exactly what the war was about.
In modern terms, the confederate gov't would have considered the words 'black confederate' as oxymoronic.
Several pages back someone claimed there was a LAW that prevented blacks from serving in the Confederate Army.
So far they haven't offered any explanation how the men listed below were mustered into Confederate service.
The notations- "freeman of color" &etc, are as stated on the rolls. All in plain sight-
25th Tennessee Infantry, CSA
Anda Lawson
Enlisted 30 July 1861 for 12 months. "A free man of color."
Alex Scott
Enlisted as Private 26 July 1861 for 12 months. "Freeman of color."
Rufus Harris
Enlisted as Private 30 July 1861 for 12 months. "A free man of color."
Jeff Bruington
Enlisted 25 July 1861. "Free negro."
Benjamin Watson
Enlisted as Private 15 September 1861 for 12 months. Age- 55. "Colored/Free negro."
Rufus Worley
Enlisted 25 July 1861. "Free negro."
Churchwell Randalls
Enlisted 5 October 1861 for 12 months. "Freeman of color."
Ab. Rickman
Enlisted 25 July 1861. "Free negro."
William Burgis
Enlisted as Private 18 August 1861 for 12 months. "Free man of color."
Joseph A. Rickman
Enlisted as Private 1 August 1861 for 12 months. Age-28. "Free man of color."
Sampson Alley
Enlisted 21 September 1861 for 12 months. "Free man of color."
James Farley
Enlisted as Private 25 July 1861 for 12 months. "Colored."
Stephen Randles
Enlisted 25 July 1861. "Free negro."
Brunton Alexander
Enlisted 30 July 1861 for 12 months. "A freeman of color."
James Fields
Enlisted as Private 30 July 1861 for 12 months. "Colored."
Micajah Scott
Enlisted 9 September 1861. "Free negro."
Vincent Bruington
Enlisted 9 September 1861. "Free negro."
[18.] Joseph Rickman
Enlisted as Private 26 July 1861 for 12 months. Age-18. "A freeman of color."
*
National Archives-"The 25th Regiment Tennessee Infantry was organized for State service August 10, 1861, transferred to the service of the Confederate States October 1, 1861..."
Information was taken either from Company Muster-In Rolls dated 1 October 1861 (to Confederate service) or Muster Rolls dated 31 October 1861.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
Several pages back someone claimed there was a LAW that prevented blacks from serving in the Confederate Army.
So far they haven't offered any explanation how the men listed below were mustered into Confederate service.
...
No, that is a false statement by you.
The Confederate Congress passed separate laws allowing blacks to serve as musicians and cooks. You know this, because those laws have been posted to you repeatedly in the past and you have acknowledged them.
It has also been pointed out to you that the Confederate Congress opposed allowing black people to serve as armed soldiers, and that the Confederate Secretary of War specifically refused to allow black people to serve as soldiers, telling one of his senior generals: "Our position with the North and before the world will not allow the employment as armed soldiers of negroes." You yourself have referred to this document in posts, so clearly you already know that as well.
Now anyone with any experience with the world will tell you that not all laws are obeyed in every case. My own opinion is that most of the black people with the Confederate Army did not served as armed soldiers. I would also feel that there were individuals who unit commanders put on their rosters and no one from above ever came by to make a stink about it: the Confederate equivalent of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (as I have mentioned to you before). Some number of them were probably light enough to "pass" as white, or kept out of sight when the brass and politicians came by. It may have become a common way to get a personal servant "assigned for rations" when times were tough.
But we do know -- absoutely and for certain -- that the higher authorities of the Confederacy consistently refused to use blacks as "armed soldiers" until March of 1865. You know this as well. You just want to talk around it, like someone ignoring the corpse on the floor in the middle of the room.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
I would also feel that there were individuals who unit commanders put on their rosters and no one from above ever came by to make a stink about it: the Confederate equivalent of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (as I have mentioned to you before).
...but Confederate mustering officers are inspecting the rolls...the ones with "freeman of color"/"free negro" etc, stated plainly on them.
And duplicate rolls are sent to Richmond.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
Some number of them were probably light enough to "pass" as white, or kept out of sight when the brass and politicians came by.
They are not 'passing' as white. The information on the rolls is there for everyone to see.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
...but Confederate mustering officers are inspecting the rolls...the ones with "freeman of color"/"free negro" etc, stated plainly on them.
And duplicate rolls are sent to Richmond.
They are not 'passing' as white. The information on the rolls is there for everyone to see.
Wake up and smell the coffee, Battalion. The people at the top usually don't want to know what the people at the bottom are doing, and so they won't. The Secretary of War said as much -- in writing, no less -- to Maury over the "Creole Guard" of Mobile. Maury could use them as "armed soldiers" if they didn't look like Negroes, and Maury could only use them as laborers if they did look like Negroes. Typical political spin-doctoring, obviously enough -- but the policy of Confederate officaldom just as obviously.
Now, to be an honest man, explain to us the direct and frequent refusal of the Confederate War Department to accept "Black Confederate" units and the Secretary of War's November 1863 statement that "Our position with the North and before the world will not allow the employment as armed soldiers of negroes." Don't ignore it, don't avoid it, don't make some scornful remark and think you've answered. Just clearly explain to us why the official Confederate policy contradicts you.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
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