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Ok. New topic. Neil made a reference to this earlier and I have been a part of several discussions in other forums concerning this assertion. Comments? Proofs?
Jeez Rick go ahead and start another battle will you? :-) All I know is this, as a SCV member here in New Yawk, leadership always brags about the 5 or so blacks that are in the SCV.
I remember a few years ago when a monument was dedicated to Black CW soldiers in Wash,DC that one Black descendant of a Confederate soldier wanted to lay a wreath at the monument and he was refused.
Depending on who you read there were 5,000 to 30,000 black soldiers in the Rebel army. I even read in a newspaper once where a few were captured at Gettysburg. As a general rule, I believe Southerners shied away from arming blacks for obvious reasons. Toward the end of the war Lee was able to convince the government to allow them to enlist to help make up the critical lack of manpower in the South.
Here is a real oddball for you. Did you all ever hear of the First Lousiana Native Guards? Well they were actually raised as a Confederate unit in the early days of the war. They saw little action and were captured. With just a teeny bit of convincing they all enlisted in the Union Army under the same name. So these guys were not only the first Black Confederates but the first Black Yankees. Not to steal the thunder from Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Mass, but they were NOT the first black troops raised in the war effort.
Not one hundred percent sure Frank except that I believe the monument was INTENDED for the Black UNION troops that assisted in saving the Union. The event organizers thought that the Black Confederate descendent was politicizing the event. It was covered in the Civil War News Newspaper as I recall. I don't think it is convenient or PC to admit that some Black men, regardless of the small percentage actually were Confederate soldiers. Though I believe those that did join up were mostly used as laborers.
There are a couple of books out about them but to be honest, I avoided them because i felt they were not published as true scholarly works but more as a stunt to bring attention to the miniscule numbers of soldiers. Then, point to them and say see if the war was about slavery why did Blacks fight for the Confederacy. If anybody out there has read these books,please feel free to jump in and say what you think about them. I'd be curious to see if they are a good read. I think one was called simply Black Soldiers of the Confederacy.
I have the names of 14 African-americans who applied for pensions in Marshall Co. Mississippi as Veterans of the Confederate Army. This info came from the Mississippi Dept. of Archives and History and I will be happy to post their names if anybody is interested. BTW - only 2 were denied, because their records as soldiers could not be verified, only their presence in the ranks possibly as servants.
Oldreb
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".
However, the distinction was made by Confederate authorities themselves when they explicitly forbade the use of blacks as armed soldiers. As late as 1864 when Patrick Cleburne suggested using blacks as soldiers, the response was decidedly negative; so much so that Davis actively attempted to block Cleburne's proposal from seeing the light of day.
Rick, I do agree that the Confederate government forbid the use of blacks as soldiers. I think however, that in the field, individual officers in individual armies, turned a blind eye to the armed black man, accepting it as he would if he were hunting rabbit and his "man" came with, also armed.
The Confederate armies were a living thing when you get right down to it. They had officers trained in the art of war, a lot of them, probably more of them at the start of the war were West Point graduates, Virginia Military Institute Graduates, Mississippi Military Institute graduates and so on, than were in the Federal army, but when you get down to the level of the Colonel, the Major, most Captains, Lieutenants, etc., the volunteers elected these men, from the ranks. They were not for the most part graduates of a military school. Hell, a few of them were barely graduates of elementary school, but they were officers. And if they could add a gun or two to the ranks, they did not care if the hand that held that gun was black or white.
There are just too many stories in too many diaries & memoirs that reflect African-Americans in the ranks, carrying weapons, and in some cases defending their master's bodies when they fell.
Think about it.
my best to you sir,
oldreb
Doug,
Ah just goes to show you how prejudice to the Western Theater people can be. To many it just never existed.
I read the first Union General was killed...at Bull run. ..last year sometime? It said it was 50/50 between two people who killed the officer, the "body servant was a known sharp shooter and he was trying etc etc..... I have it somewhere in my research. Sorry but right now my recall is not up to par. I looked last night online for about 5 minutes but right now I can't research much before I whimp out. Sorry. I will do my best to find it and when I do I will post right away.
Well, gosh I guess I have to eat a little crow here. Confederate General Barnard E. Bee was mortally wounded at Bull Run. He died the next day. He was the one that first called Jackson Stonewall. But, Lyon was the first Union General Killed in battle.
I like my crow with lots of mustard and garlic please.
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