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Matthew: regarding newspapers, it was not uncommon for a newspaper to lift an entire story verbatim from another paper. Papers subscribed to other papers to get the news. There was no copyright protection in those days. Sometimes the story would be editorialized and embellished too. Learned this in Vincennes at a state park near the George Rogers Clark Monument.
__________________ "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
__________________ "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 have heard and read of a 16,000 in the Confederate Army with thousands of others in support roles such as cooks, working on fortifications, teamsters, etc....
But the point of the matter is, is not that blacks served in the cause of the Confederacy, even to the point of taking up arms and serving as fighting men in the ranks, as the 37th Texas web site proves with no doubt, but the fact that LARGE numbers did NOT serve as soldiers as some would have us believe.
YMOS,
Unionblue
Wonder why there is no controversy here (I suppose 'PC' has something to do with it):
A slave and a teamster...
...called Soldiers-
Prince Whipple
"...Another black soldier served in close proximity to Washington....so close, in fact, that he appears in many of the paintings of the prebattle preparations and as a rower in the general's boat during the actual crossing of the Delaware. This African American was Prince Whipple...
Prince accompanied his owner, William Whipple, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, into the army at the beginning of the Revolution and served as the general's bodyguard and personal servant. At Trenton, General Whipple acted as a member of Washington's staff, and Prince fought alongside both officers for the entire campaign...."
African Americans in the Revolutionary War by Michael Lee Lanning (Lt.Col., U.S. Army, retired/more than 20 years service)
~
Edward "Ned" Hector
"One of the lesser-known heroes of the Battle of Brandywine was a black soldier from Pennsylvania named Edward Hector.
Hector was a wagoneer in Captain Courtney's Company of Colonel Proctor's 3rd Pennsylvania Artillery Regiment. This unit was positioned near Chad's Ford, probably on the ridge behind the John Chads House. Late in the afternoon of September 11th, the British and Hessians began to overrun the American positions on the East side of the Brandywine and the order was given to abandon the guns, wagons, and horses and "save yourself". Edward Hector is reported to have said, "The enemy shall not have my team; I shall save my horses and myself." He then grabbed up a stack of abandoned arms (he probably was unarmed), threw them in his wagon, fended off his pursuers and escaped with his wagon-the only salvage from his company. Obviously, these items were most needed by the Army in the ensuing days.
We know little of Hector's later activities in the war or subsequently. However, we do know he was never granted a pension as were many Continental soldiers. Finally, years later, a "grateful" Pennsylvania Legislature granted him a donation of $40 for his heroics! Edward Hector lived in the Norristown area where he died in 1834 at the age of 90. He was truly an unsung and unrewarded hero of the Battle of Brandywine."
"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."
Uh, thanks Battalion, but Revolutionary War examples are a bit too early. Even earlier is one black who served in Rogers' Rangers during the French & Indian War (Seven Years War). During the Revolution there was Pompey, a renegade black fought with the Cherokees against the settlers of Boonesboro. Perhaps the best known black man was York, a slave who accompanied Lewis & Clark's Corps of Discovery. None of these examples are relevant to the issue though.
Glad you mentioned that, Gary. Was going to do it myself, but went to bed instead. Priorities!
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
The distinctions that existed in the Confederate Armies between soldiers and support personnel were considerably different from those that exist in the US Army today. If teamsters, musicians, cooks, and personnel that work on entrenchments were considered army personnel in the Confederate army then I could probably agree with some of the estimates I see concerning "Black Confederates".
Likewise in the USCT were cooks, teamsters, musicians, hospital stewards, and many others in non-combat roles and they are counted as soldiers.
They are included in that oft quoted number- 180,000.
__________________ 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."
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