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And yet it seems they were aware of the conditions they were fleeing, does it not?
Strange, is it not, the agony and suffering one is willing to endure to place one in a situation of their own choosing, as long as you are the one doing that choosing?
I rather appreciate the fact (after reading the reports you have posted) that Shane has posted those who suffered from disease in military camps and other refugee sites in his own experiences. Actual experience does count and all here who have studied and researched the war know that disease in camps took a high toll, black or white, military or contraband. I am willing to accept the idea that the camps were more than likely not as tightly controlled or cared for as there was far more of a racist attitude towards blacks.
But again, you would have us believe that it would have been better for the slaves to remain in slavery than to attempt escape and freedom, even in the conditions of these camps? Hundreds of thousands of escaped slaves, plus the 180,000 that joined the Union army give little weight to your arguments.
You own sources do not support that. Again, you try to prove one thing and end up, ultimately, disproving another thing. (i.e. North, bad, South, good.)
It's just not that 'black or white.'
Sincerely,
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
Last edited by unionblue : 06-19-2006 at 09:54 AM.
To the English philanthropist who professes to feel so much for the African slave, I would say, come and see the sad and cruel workings of your favorite scheme.--Come and see the negro as he is now in the hands of his Yankee liberators. See the utter degradation--the ragged want--the squalid poverty. These false, pretended friends who have taken him away from a kind master and comfortable home, now treat him with criminal neglect, and permit him to die without pity. I give you good Yankee authority--one William H. Wilder, a convict in the penitentiary at Baton Rouge, pardoned by the President of the United States, and made the agent for Yankee plantations. He says the negroes on these estates have died like sheep with the rot. On one in the Parish of Iberville, out of six hundred and ten slaves, three hundred and ten have perished.
Tiger Island, at Berwicks Bay, is one solid grave yard. At New Orleans, Thibodaux, Donaldsonville, Plaquemine, Baton Rouge, Port Hudson, Morganza, Vidalia, Young's Point and Goodrich's Landing, the acres of the silent dead will ever be the monuments of Yankee cruelty to these unhappy wretches.
Under published orders from General Banks, the greatest farce was perpetrated on the negroes. The laboring men on plantations were to be paid from six to eight dollars per month, and the women from two to four dollars. In these orders the poor creatures after being promised this miserable pittance, were bound by every catch and saving clause that a New England lawyer could invent. For every disobedience their wages were docked. For every short absence from labor they were again docked. In the hands of the shrewd grasping Yankee overseer, the oppressed slave, without a friend or guardian, has been forced to toil free of cost to his new master. I saw a half-starved slave who had escaped from one of the Yankee plantations. In his own language he said "that he had worked hard for the Yankees for six long months--that they had 'dockered' him all the time, and had never paid him one cent!" This is the sad history of them all. The negro has only changed masters, and very much for the worse! And now, without present reward or hope for the future, he is dying in misery and want. Look at this picture ye negro worshippers, and weep, if you have tears to shed over the poor down-trodden murdered children of Africa.”
Message of Governor Henry Watkins Allen to the Legislature of the State of Louisiana, January 1865
I like seeing the whole document from which a segment is lifted. Kind of puts things in perspective to me.
Sincerely,
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
Although Mr. Lincoln's emancipation proclamation has been powerless for good within the rebel lines--as idle as "the Pope's bull against the comet"--failing in its weakness to strike the shackles from the limbs of a single slave that could aid the rebellion; yet as our lines have advanced, it has nominally liberated thousands; and as the armies of the Union march on, "conquering and to conquer," it may liberate thousands more. The effect of this proclamation has simply been to free the slaves from their masters, and while it provides no remedy for the evils of slavery, leaves them in filthy camps to die of starvation and disease. Deadened as the sensibilities of the whole nation have become to scenes of suffering and distress, the tales of horror which come up to us from the camps of freed negroes along the Mississippi cannot fail to enlist our sympathies. The poor blacks, left to the tender mercies of their pretended friends, are dying daily by fifties and hundreds; and unless something be done to better their condition, the whole race must soon be blotted out, and this war, which has been perverted from its orignal [sic] purpose to aid in their enfranchisement, may result in their total extinction. A recent report made by Mr. Yeatman, president of the Western Sanitary Commission, portrays the horrors of the contraband camps along the Mississippi in such fitting terms that we will transfer a few paragraphs to our columns. He says:
"At Young's Point, D. L. Jones, of the 9th Louisiana Regiment, African descent, is in charge of the camp. There are now some 2,100 in this camp, in miserable huts, tents and hovels. There appears to be more squalid misery and destitution here than in any place I have visited. The sickness and deaths were most frightful. During the summer, from thirty to fifty died in a day, and some days as many as seventy-five during the latter part of June, July and August.
"At DeSoto, immediately opposite Vicksburg, there are about 275 old men, women and children, to whom the Government furnishes rations, but from some cause or other none had been received for more than two weeks preceding my visit, and great destitution and dissatisfaction existed.
"At Natchez is a camp of 2,100 freedmen, all in cabins, which are without proper light and ventilation, overcrowded, and most prolific sources of disease. Seventy-five had died in one day. I was informed that some had returned to their masters on account of suffering. Physicians are greatly needed.
"This camp had numbered four thousand at one time, now it is reduced to 2,100--a sad tale to tell, but nevertheless true. The same I doubt not can be said of other camps.Whoever will ride along the levee from Milliken's Bend to De Soto, as I did, and see the numerous graves along the way, for the distance of twenty-five miles, cannot doubt it."
Your point, for this entire exercise, is again to show us that slavery was not the main point of the war, that the South did not secede over slavery and the North did not wage war to free the slave.
Again, selective quotes on a war that lasted four terrible years and took over 620,000 lives cannot be summed up with a few, carefully selected lines from documents you find and pour over to support your position.
For example, the selection you chose from Gov. Henry Watkins Allen doe not take into consideration the fact that this man was trying to rally his state. Did you read the section of the speech where he complained about slaves being captured by residents and other white men off their plantations and selling them to others for profit? Did you read the section where he complained about the Confederate Army (not the Union Army) had occupied sections of the state and were arresting civilians without benefit of charge or use of habeaus corpus?
I could take selected parts of this speech and use it exactly as you have, to support my view that the South left the Union almost 100% exclusively to protect and maintain the institution of slavery. Or I could select parts that show the South violated individual rights as often and as much as those who claim Lincoln the dictator did (by-the-way, thanks for drawing my attention to the speech as I was much surprised to see the section where the Gov. complained of such).
So don't be surprised that the tactic of simply posting a part of a statement, document or speech with no ryme or reason as to why it is posted arouses very little support or interest. Taking a stand upfront would be much more desirable and then supporting it would make much more sense then trying to force the entire war through such a narrow, personal prisim.
Unionblue
PS just how many slave ships did the Confederate Navy stop/sink again?
__________________ "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
Last edited by unionblue : 03-14-2007 at 11:06 PM.
Your point, for this entire exercise, is again to show us that slavery was not the main point of the war, that the South did not secede over slavery and the North did not wage war to free the slave.
Disagree Unionblue. I think Battalion's point is to show how evil the North was -- and that the slaves were better off with their masters -- part of his campaign to prove that history is wrong and that the South was Right.
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
"By March 1863--barely into the fourth month of its existence--the Corinth camp population numbered 3,657: 658 men, 1440 women, and 1559 children. The camp had experienced 900 cases of illness, 189 deaths, and 45 births--on the whole, a very respectable health record."
The Army and the Genesis of Free Labor in the South, 1861-1865,
by Mark Grimsley
189 dead in 3+ months operation...that's about 60 per month/720 a year...which means in a years time 20% of the camp population would be dead.
Just wanted to note that the statements of the Confederate Governor of Louisiana (post #32) are pretty much backed up by those of Yeatman (post #35), President of the U.S. Western Sanitary Commission.
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