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Check the date on the proposed legislation. 28 February 1865.
The very idea that slaves are being considered as soldiers is because the Confederacy is at near end of its political and social life and everyone knows it. Generals in the field, to include Lee, are desperate, and want to employ slaves as soldiers, do they not?
And yet, even in this most desperate hour, with the life of the Confederacy in the balance, there were still men in high office who wanted to make sure blacks/slaves did not carry arms or serve as soldiers. They want previous customs and laws upheld, (Those denying blacks service in the army or carrying weapons) even in the face of the Confederacy's total destruction and defeat.
This was the custom and the practice, so why are you in such denial over this? Why is this such a problem for you to grasp? What are you trying to prove by saying slaves served as soldiers when clearly the great majority of the South did not want them to?
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
S.129......Approved 28 February 1865 ...
... Questions:
1. If it is already "against the law"...to use blacks as soldiers... ...then why is it necessary for Leach and Ramsay to propose these amendments?
2. Why do the amendments fail?
Come on, now. This bill IS an attempt to allow blacks to serve under arms, passed in March of 1865. The amendments you cite are the attempts to prevent the change. Before this time, it was illegal to use blacks as soldiers because all other bills back to the days before Ft. Sumter specified "free white men" as the only ones eligible for military service of that type.
This bill is at the end of February 1865, a full year after Pat Cleburne's career was put on hold because he dared suggest the Confederacy arm the slaves. The Confederacy is collapsing. Lincoln has been re-elected. Lee is telling Davis he can't hold Richmond once the Spring thaw comes, Sherman is marching through the Carolinas. Atlanta has fallen. Mobile Bay is sealed. The Shenandoah lies in ashes. The remants of Hood's Army of the Tennessee are being sent East to try to stop Sherman after the disasters of Franklin and Nashville. Desertion is reaching frightening proportions. Wilmington has fallen.
President Davis had finally started towards permission from Congress to arm blacks in about November of 1864. General Lee has come out in favor of it to push it over the top in 1865. Even here, with the Devil knocking on the door, the Confederate die-hards don't want to arm slaves as you have just shown. About 1/3rd of the votes are *still* against allowing it, but the desperation of the Confederacy finally gets the law passed -- much too late to make any difference.
From the March 9, 1865 Richmond Dispatch:
THE NEGRO SOLDIER BILL.
House bill to increase the military force of the Confederate States by putting negroes into the army was passed by the Senate yesterday by a majority of one, with an amendment providing that not more than 25 per cent. of the male slaves, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, in any State shall be called for.
It was actually the Senate version that passed eveentually. In mid-March, there are still speeches in the Confederate Congress about who is to blame for the delay on the "negro soldier bill".
Just how far do you intend to push your denial of events here?
Here is what one major secession leader, Howell Cobb of Georgia, had to say on the subject of using negroes as armed soldiers. This is in January of 1865, after Sherman's March through Georgia (Cobb's home state), with the Confederacy on the verge of collapse. He still protests any attempt to arm slaves. It is suicide, he says. "If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong--but they won't make soldiers."
HDQRS. GEORGIA RESERVES AND MIL. DIST. OF GEORGIA,
Macon, Ga., January 8, 1865.
Hon. JAMES A. SEDDON,
Secretary of War, Richmond, Va.:
SIR: Your letter of the 30th of December received by yesterday's mail. I beg to assure you that I have spared no efforts or pains to prosecute vigorously the recruiting of our Army through the conscript camp. It is true, as you say, there are many liable to conscription who have not been reached, and for reasons I have heretofore given I fear never will be reached. Rest assured, however, that I will not cease my efforts in that regard. In response to your inquiries, how our Army is to be recruited, I refer with strength and confidence to the policy of opening the door for volunteers. I have so long and so urgently pressed this matter that I feel reluctant even to allude to it, and yet I should not be true to my strong convictions of duty if I permitted any opportunity to pass without urging and pressing it upon the proper authorities. It is in my opinion not only the best but the only mode of saving the Army, and every day it is postponed weakens its strength and diminishes the number that could be had by it. The freest, broadest, and most unrestricted system of volunteering is the true policy, and cannot be too soon resorted to. I think that the proposition to make soldiers of our slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began. It is to me a source of deep mortification and regret to see the name of that good and great man and soldier, General R. E. Lee, given as authority for such a policy. My first hour of despondency will be the one in which that policy shall be adopted. You cannot make soldiers of slaves, nor slaves of soldiers. The moment you resort to negro soldiers your white soldiers will be lost to you; and one secret of the favor with which the proposition is received in portions of the Army is the hope that when negroes go into the Army they will be permitted to retire. It is simply a proposition to fight the balance of the war with negro troops. You can't keep white and black troops together, and you can't trust negroes by themselves. It is difficult to get negroes enough for the purpose indicated in the President's message, much less enough for an Army. Use all the negroes you can get, for all the purposes for which you need them, but don't arm them. The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong--but they won't make soldiers. As a class they are wanting in every qualification of a soldier. Better by far to yield to the demands of England and France and abolish slavery, and thereby purchase their aid, than to resort to this policy, which leads as certainly to ruin and subjugation as it is adopted; you want more soldiers, and hence the proposition to take negroes into the Army. Before resorting to it, at least try every reasonable mode of getting white soldiers. I do not entertain a doubt that you can by the volunteering policy get more men into the service than you can arm. I have more fears about arms than about men. For heaven's sake try it before you fill with gloom and despondency the hearts of many of our truest and most devoted men by resorting to the suicidal policy of arming our slaves.
Having answered the inquiries of your letter, let me volunteer in a few words a suggestion. Popularize your administration by some just concessions to the strong convictions of public opinion. Mark you, I do not say yield to popular clamor, but concede something to the earnest convictions of an overwhelming, and, I will say, an enlightened public opinion. First, yield your opposition to volunteering in the form and manner which I have heretofore urged; second, restore General Johnston to the command of the Army of Tennessee, and return General Beauregard to South Carolina.
With Lee in Virginia, Johnston here, and Beauregard in South Carolina you restore confidence and at once revive the hopes of the people. At present I regret to say that gloom and despondency rule the hour, and bitter opposition to the Administration, mingled with disaffection and disloyalty, is manifesting itself. With a dash of the pen the President can revolutionize this state of things, and I earnestly beseech him to do it.
Here is what one major secession leader, Howell Cobb of Georgia, had to say on the subject of using negroes as armed soldiers. This is in January of 1865, after Sherman's March through Georgia (Cobb's home state), with the Confederacy on the verge of collapse. He still protests any attempt to arm slaves. It is suicide, he says. "If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong--but they won't make soldiers."
"HDQRS. GEORGIA RESERVES AND MIL. DIST. OF GEORGIA,
Macon, Ga., January 8, 1865.
....
Sincerely, yours,
HOWELL COBB,
Major-general."
Howell Cobb...in charge of-
"GEORGIA RESERVES AND MIL. DIST. OF GEORGIA"
...not exactly a post of great influence within the Confederacy.
What did the President, Secretary of State, and General-In-Chief of the Confederate Armies have to say?
GENERAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, No. 69.
Richmond, September 19, 1862.
I. The adjutants of the regiments throughout the Army will inquire into and report all cases of slaves serving with their respective regiments without written authority from their masters. The names of such slaves and their masters will be forwarded to the office of the Adjutant and Inspector General, to be published in the newspapers.
***
By order:
S. COOPER, Adjutant and Inspector General. http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-b...3DANU4519-0128
~~~
GENERAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, No. 59.
Richmond, May 12, 1863.
I. The attention of regimental commanders throughout the Army is called to the requirements of paragraph I, General Orders, No. 69, of 1862, which makes it the duty of adjutants to inquire into and report to this office all cases of slaves serving with their respective regiments without written authority from their masters. It is especially required of all regimental commanders to enforce a due observance of said order, which is hereby extended to include commanders of posts and senior surgeons of hospitals, who will make similar reports, so far as they relate to their respective commands, to those required from adjutants of regiments.
***
By order:
S. COOPER, Adjutant and Inspector General. http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-b...3DANU4519-0128
This is the only law ("resolution") I have found which specifically prohibits blacks from serving as soldiers.
...and it only concerns slaves.
It was dropped a month after it was introduced.-
Mr. Henry submitted the following resolution for consideration:
Resolved, That it is a sound policy on the part of the Government of the Confederate States to impress, or hire with the consent of the owner, as many negro slaves as the public necessity may require, for any number of years, or during the war to be employed in all positions in the Army, except as soldiers in the field, upon paying the owners thereof a just compensation; and that it has the constitutional power to do so.
The Senate proceeded to consider the said resolution; and
On motion by Mr. Henry,
Ordered, That it be referred to the Committee on Military Affairs.
Ordered, That the Committee on Military Affairs be discharged from the further consideration of the resolution submitted by Mr. Henry on the 9th of November, declaring
That it is a sound policy on the part of the Government of the Confederate States to impress, or hire with the consent of the owner, as many negro slaves as the public necessity may require, for any number of years, or during the war, to be employed in all positions in the Army, except as soldiers in the field, upon paying the owners thereof a just compensation; and that it has the constitutional power to do so.
SIR: I think you said in your speech in Macon, Ga., that you read all letters from your friends, though you could not undertake to respond to them; so, though a stranger, I hope you will pardon me for these few lines. I will premise by saying that I was a Democrat and secessionist in '60 and '61, and all that has transpired since has but served to convince me that I was right-to confirm me in the faith. I am an agriculturist by profession, well stricken in years, and have lost two noble sons in this bloody war. Sir, I think the matter of the highest moment now is to take measures to recruit our armies for next spring's campaign. How can this be done is the great overshadowing question. Congress and the State Legislatures have put in service all white men between the ages of sixteen and sixty years. We can't get them from the Old World or from any other country. We are thrown upon our own resources. The recruits must come from our negroes, nowhere else. We should...promptly take hold of all the means that God has placed within our reach to help us through this struggle- a bloody war for the right of self-government. Some people say negroes will not fight. I say they will fight. They fought at Ocean Pond, Honey Hill, and other places. The enemy fights us with the negroes, and they will do very well to fight the Yankees....
What we have here are statements that some secessionists favored arming slaves and some did not. In the end, it remains that the arguments were made far too late to make any difference at all.
I suspect that armed slaves, like most soldiers, would have fought well because that was what was expected of them. Some would have shot their commander and disappeared; some would have disappeared before shooting their commander; some would have fought. It was not put to the test. Distrust of the armed slave was likely not misplaced. I'm still trying to figure out how that distrust was overcome -- unless desperation outweighed it.
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
GENERAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, No. 69.
Richmond, September 19, 1862.
I. The adjutants of the regiments throughout the Army will inquire into and report all cases of slaves serving with their respective regiments without written authority from their masters. The names of such slaves and their masters will be forwarded to the office of the Adjutant and Inspector General, to be published in the newspapers.
By order: S. COOPER, Adjutant and Inspector General.
~~~
GENERAL ORDERS,
ADJT. AND INSP. GENERAL'S OFFICE, No. 59.
Richmond, May 12, 1863.
I. The attention of regimental commanders throughout the Army is called to the requirements of paragraph I, General Orders, No. 69, of 1862, which makes it the duty of adjutants to inquire into and report to this office all cases of slaves serving with their respective regiments without written authority from their masters. .................
By order: S. COOPER, Adjutant and Inspector General.
I do agree, Slaves, not Soldiers.
your previous comment about Blacks serving as soldiers is not prohibited by the Confederate Constitution isn't an Implied Right. Congress recognized this by the mere fact of going to the trouble of Passing a Law to allow them to be armed to serve, as soldiers, of the Confederacy, in 1865.
Chuck in IL.
In #217, the reference to blacks fighting effectively at Honey Hill is a reference, I believe to the 54th Massachusetts, a regiment on the Northern side in that battle.
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