The Black Confederate

[unionblue]

To All,

It has been stated that any slave who served in the Confederate Army was to be set free at the end of their service.

NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.

While it is true that Gen. Patrick Cleburne stated in his memo or December 1863 that;

There was therefore no choice but to turn to the able-bodied male slave, place him under arms, and reward him with his freedom. In the meantime, to demonstrate good intentions, "we must immediately make his marriage and parental relations sacred in the eyes of the law and forbid their sale." Surely no true Souther patriot would refuse to make these sacrifices, Cleburne added. For "as between the loss of independence and the loss of slavery, we assume that every patriot will freely give up the later--give up the negro slave rather than be a slave himself."

Cleburne was wrong.

Cleburne's presentation received a mixed reception in northern Georgia. While some officers evidently agreed with it, others responded with shock and fury. Gen. William B. Bate spurned the proposal as "infamous" and "hideous and objectionable," "beneathe which the serpent of Abolitionism coiled." Gen. James Patton Anderson dismissed Cleburne's "monstrous proposition" as "revolting to Southern sentiment, Southern pride, and Southern honor." Gen. William H. T. Walker ****ed Cleburne as a leader of an "abolition party" and a traitor. Gen. Braxton Bragg agreed that the memo's author and his allies were "abolitionist men" who "should be watched." Cleburne and his associates had hoped to win the support of the army's officer corps for the proposal and then, with their hand thus strengthened, to bring up the matter before the Davis administration. But the uproar provoked at Dalton led newly appointed Army of Tennessee commander Joseph E. Johnston to refuse to submit Cleburne's memorandum to the government and to order the discussion closed.

In the event, it was one of Cleburne's bitterest critics who conveyed the Irishman's views to Jefferson Davis. Anxious to war the Confederate presidentof the sedition brewing in Georgia, Gen. Walker ignored Johnston's wishes and proceeded on his own authority to forward Cleburne's memoorandum to Richmond in mid-January via a trusted intermediary, Georgia congressman Herschel V. Johnson. Davis received and read Cleburne's memo and brought it before his cabinet, where the reaction was overwhelmingly negative. The president then quickly sent word to Johnston that Cleburne's views were misguided and that "the dissemination or even promulgation of such opinions under the present circumstances of the Confederacy, whether in the Army or among the people can be productive only of discouragement, distration, and dissension." Johnston was therefore ordered to suppress "not only the memorial itself, but likewise...all discussion and controversy respecting or growing out of it."

So, from the head of the Confederate government to the Generals in the field, the idea of using black slaves as soldiers is still directly opposed by an overwhelming majority of the Southern leadership, even in late 1863, early 1864, with all the Confederate reverses in the field. Not one Confederate congressional sponsor would advocate arming the slaves.

Yet all changed one year later.

On February 6, 1865, Kentucky congressman James W. Moore took the first step. He asked to have the Military Affairs Committee consider and advise the House about whether to endow the president with the power to "call into military service of the Confederate states, all able bodied negro men" in the land "to be used in such manner and for such purposes" as Jefferson Davis judged necessary and "on such terms" as he "may think will render them most effective." The House did, in fact, refer the proposal to the committee named. In the Senate the next day, Mississippi's Albert Gallatin Brown called for legislation placing up to 200,000 slaves in the army "by voluntary enlistment with the consent of their owners, or by conscription, as may be found necessary." Owners of those slaves would be compensated, and the slaves themselves would go free "in all cases where they prove loyal and true to the end of the war."

...As that war effort entered its final, most desperate phase following the fall of Atlanta in Sept. 1864, some key political and military leaders finally acknowledged that arming slaves was necessary. Even now, however, the Davis administration felt constrained to raise the subject only gingerly and hesitantily. That hesitancy was justified; the presient's November 7 message provoked a torrent of protest in Richmon and throughout the South from both slaveowners and non-slaveholders. Those objections spelled out in greater detail the very concerns that had led the Confederacy's military and political leadership to reject the same proposal for so long. In doing so, they illuminated a range of issues central to southern (and especially Confederate) history, including the purpose of secession, the goals of the southern war effort, and the place that African Americans occupied in the lives and outlooks of white Southerners.

From the book, Confederate Emancipation, by Bruce Levine.

More to follow,
Unionblue

[unionblue]

To All,

Some comments on slaves serving as soldiers in the Confederate army.

"Its propositions contravene principles upon which I have heretofore acted...[It proposes] to discard our recieved [sic] theory of government, destroy our legal institutions and social relations." Gen. William B. Bate on reading Cleburne's memo.

"...the use of negro soldiers in the Confederate army would be wrong in principle, disastrous in practice, an infringement upon states rights, an endorsement of the principle contained in President Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, an insult to our brave soldiers and an outrage upon humanity." North Carolina congressman J. T. Leach.

"There is nothing in the present aspect of our military affairs to justify the hazardous experiment of placing slaves in our armies as soldiers." Florida congressman Samuel St. George Rogers, 1864.

"...no exigency now exists, nor is likely to occur in the military affairs of the Confederate states, to justify the placing of negro slaves in the army as soldiers in the field." Tennessee congressman William G. Swan, in a resolution to the Confederate House of Representatives, Nov. 1864.

"...our affairs are in better condition, and our prospects are brighter, than they have ever been since the commencement of the war." Richmond Dispatch, Nov. 1864.

"...that our troops would fight with that constancy which should inspire troops in the hour of battle, when they knew that their flanks were being held by negroes." Virginia's R. M. T. Hunter.

"Do you think that our brave men will consent to be placed upon the same footing with our own slaves or with the slaves of their neighbors who had now been converted into freemen?" North Carolina Standard, jan, 18, 1865.

"If negro soldiers go into the army, freemen and white men will come out of it." Macon Telegraph and Confederate, Nov. 12, 1864.

"The soldiers of South Carolina will not fight beside a ni gger..." Charleston Mercury, Jan. 13, 1865.

"[The entire concept of slave enlistment and emancipation] was contrary to all our hereditary opinions, policy, and traditions." Macon Telegraph and Confederate, Nov. 3, 1864.

"...the negro was unfit by nature for a soldier." Charleston courier, Feb. 7, 1865.

"[W]e happen to know the negro race--it is not a fighting, conquering, military race--it has never been so in any country, in any time, in the faintest, most problemmatical degree. Never did negroes win battles and they never will." Richmond Examiner, Jan. 14, 1865.

"...one white soldieris worth a regiment of blacks." Charley Baughman to Pa, Oct. 23, 1864.

"I never want to see one with a gun in his hand...I never want to fight side by side with one...The Army would not submit to it, half if not more than half would lay down their guns if they were forced to fight with negroes...they were nearly unanimous in saying that they would desert rather than serve with them." Charley Baughmann of the Otey Battery, Virginia Light Artillery, in a letter to his father, Oct. 23, 1864.

"I think the soldiers are opposed to arming them [slaves]...They want them used as wagoners etc but are unwilling to see arms put in their hands." Maj. Jedediah Hotchkiss to Sara Hotchkiss, Nov. 8, 1864.

"Capt. M. E. Sparks of the 9th Georgia Regiment cautioned the public not to believe published reports of soldier support; the latter "do not...reflect or give a true expression of the sentiment of the army." M.E. Sparks to K.J. Warren, Feb. 12, 1865.

"...that the position of soldier is honorable, responsible, and dignified, and should not be degraded by placing the negro by his side." Resolution of troops stationed in Florida, late 1864.

"...we are not willing to fight with them." 'Agreement made by Boys opposed to Negro Equality,' signed by soldiers from Tennessee and Missouri.

There is more of the above, but I take it the point is made. There seems to be plenty of period documentation that there was no great cry from the majority of the citizens of the South, nor on the part of Southern soldiers, to arm slaves and place them within the Confederate army.

More to follow,
Unionblue

[unionblue]

To All,

No slaves were freed by the Confederate government in order to enlist them as soldiers in the Confederate army.

From Confederate Emancipation, by Bruce Levine.

The subject of emancipation proved a major--ultimately, an insurmountable--obstacle with the [Confederate] Congress as well. The resolution that Mississippi's Albert Gallatin Brown had brought into the Senate on Feb. 7, [1865] would have empowered the president to enroll (either voluntarily or by impressment0 and ultimately to free as many as 200,000 slaves ('Proceedings of the Second Confederate Congress', Southern Historical Society Papers 52, p. 309). But only two of Brown's Senate colleagues (Missouri's George G. Vest and Tennessee's Gustavus A. Henry) were prepared to support so strong a measure, and it went down to overwhelming defeat.

Meanwhile on February 10 Jefferson Davis's old friend Ethelbert Barksdale intorduced a bill into the House of Representatives that would become the administration proposal. It did not empower the Confederate government either to conscript or emancipate a single slave. It proposed only to allow Jefferson Davis "to ask for and accept from the owners of slaves, the services of such number of able-bodied negro men as he may deem expedient." It would permit the president, that is, to invite masters to volunteer their slaves to the army. Barksdale's bill also specified that nothing in it "authorized a change in the relation which said slaves shall bear towards their owners as property." Masters who decided to offer their slaves for military duty would retain legal title to them.

The bill's supporters presemed that its "voluntary feature must obviate, in great part, if not indeed, altogether, the principal objections which have been raised." After all, as Barksdale himself put it on the House floor, the measure proposed to accomplish its purpose "not by wholesale conscripition--not by compulsion--not by exercise of unauthorized power to interfere with the relation of the slave to his owner as property, but by leaving this question, where it properly belongs--to the owners of slaves, by the consent of the States and in pursuance of the laws thereof." The House did, however, amend that bill. Concerned that a call for voluntary slaveholder assistance might fail to elicit an adequate response, it added language that would allow Richmond in such a case to call upon each state government to raise its own share of a total of 300,000 black troops, presumably employing whatever means it chose in order to do so.

Ten days later, on Feb. 20, in a close vote (40-37), the House passed this bill, which then went to the Senate. On Feb. 21, the upper house voted to table (and thereby effectively kill) a similar bill that Sen. William S. Oldham of Texas had introduced on Feb. 10, the same day that Barksdale had brought his measure into the House. And the Senate then delayed consideration of the House bill for another two weeks. At that point, only the intervention of Virginia's state government prevented the Confederate Senate from rejecting the Confederate House bill as well.

Virginia's state legislators, like their counterparts in the Confederate congress, had for many months refused to take positive action on this matter. But by late Feb. 1865, a combination of the deteriorating military situation, prodding by Gov. William Smith, and the publicized wishes of Virginian Robert E. Lee had brought about a change of heart. By March 4, both houses of the state legislature had passed resolutions endorsing the key provisions of the Barksdale bill. Like that bill, the Virginia legislature's resolutions made no provision to emancipate any slave recruits. ...and as a result the Confederate Senate was able to pass an only slightly amended version of the Varksdale bill on March 8 by the knife-edge margin of nine to eight. The Confederate House agreed to accept the Confederate Senate's version the next day. Davis signed it into law on March 13.

Just what had been accomplished thereby? It has often been said, mistakenly, that Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation failed to free a single slave. In truth, as the policy declaration of an advancing army, it promised to (and did indeed) free many thousands of slaves once they reached Union lines--or once those lines reached them.

In contrast, the newly enacted Confederate law did not free a single slave, nor did it attempt to do so.

Why did it not do so? Because the majority of the South, along with its leadership, did not wish to do so for fear it would upset the social order and put the slave on an equal footing with whites. The other fear was that as an institution, slavery would die out and leave no labor force to work in the many fields of cotton, rice, tabacco, hemp, sugar and other areas of slave labor.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[unionblue]

Dear Wild_Rose,

In answer to your post#15, a reply to your 'Twelve Reasons We Don't Believe in Black Confederates.'

Many people reject the notion (not evidence, for none has been provided) that thousands (the number usually given by some is 60,000 to 90,000+) of the South's 3,880,000 blacks, both free men and slaves, labored and fought, willingly, for the Southern Confederacy. I must admit, I am one of 'many people' who reject the idea that slaves and free blacks fought for the South in this high of a number, i.e., were actually enrolled as fighting soldiers with the Confederate army.

It is not that we do not believe that there were 'many' accounts in the Official Records, contemporary newspaper reports, photographs, pension application records, and recollections of black Southerners. It is just that we question what 'many' really means in regard to all the catagories that you mention above.

Here are 11 respones to your explanations.

1. Many of the accounts after the Civil War are revisionist history trying desperately to change historical fact. Frankly, most of the armies on both sides were white, just as they were shown in the 1994 film Gettysburg. The brutal fact of the matter for the South was they felt they were winning and did not need the enlistment of black soldiers to help their cause. On January 1, 1863, The Emancipation Proclamation took effect and only then was the recruitment of blacks permitted for the Union army. By the time of the battle of Gettysburg there simply wasn't large numbers of blacks for either side to be present at the battle.

2. Mostly the reason most people not believing in a large number of black Confederate soldiers is a lack of historical evidence that there were large numbers. It is not a matter of what people are doing or what they think so they appear normal. If anything revisionist history tried to make the South look more 'normal' by claiming slavery wasn't a big deal or a major factor in bringing on the war.

3. It is not that it may contradict a prejudice. But it is a worry that it might just distort history by being blown out of proportion. I am certain that history is repleate with many examples of black men willing to face danger and fight bravely, from the Revolutionary War to the present day. Ft. Wagnor and other battles forever removed the detestable idea that 'negroes won't fight.' And I am just as certain there were brave blacks who served in the South. But to what degree they were allowed to serve and to what fighting capacity is what is in question.

4. It complicates 'our simple sterotype of blacks vs whites as separate groups?' You mean something like in my above posts where Southern newspapers and Confederate soldiers said, 'ni ggers won't fight?' As for the idea that rejecting the idea of black Confederate soldiers are expressing a prejudice against blacks, frankly, that's a side-step to avoid the real issue of revisionist history.

5. The great crime of teaching today is that the Civil War is taught in 10 minutes in most high schools of today. Here I agree history is almost treated with contempt and definately short-changes our children and grandchildren. But to make such unsupported claims that 60,000 to 90,000 blacks fought in the ranks of the Confederate army is simply unsupportable. While I have no problem with the idea that local units sometimes played by their own rules and that armed Southern blacks fired on and killed Union soldiers, these incidents come across as clearly the exception, not the rule.

6. The 'simple portrayal of the North as Good' is not one that is accepted by any serious student of history nor by any member of this board who can read. Not once have I seen any of those who take the Northern position on this board ever say that the North went to war with the South over the issue of slavery. History will not permit that statement. But again, as General Grant has maintained, "Never have braver men fought for a worse cause." The South left the Union to protect, expand, and to keep, slavery.

7. I propose to you the push for an enlarged role for Black Confederates is an attempt to minimize the war was about slavery. It is part 'Lost Cause' part embarrasement about being on the wrong side of history and it is about protecting our ancestors by putting them in a more favorable light. All we have to do is sacrifice historical fact to do it.

As for the other contention you list here, I have little quarrel with the following:

You are correct, Lincoln did not emancipate the slaves until January 1, 1863, about half way through the war.

Lincoln did fire two Union generals who tried to free slaves in areas under their control, in 1861 and 1862.

Now you are off track when you state Lincoln didn't emancipate any slaves under his actual control because you cut off the effect it had. Wherever the Union lines were, wherever the Union army went, the Emancipation Proclamation freed hundreds of thousands of slaves. It gets pretty old when the same old dance is done ignoring the results of its full effect.

You are correct that the Underground RR did not stop at the Mason/Dixon line. Illinois and Ohio had Black Laws that you describe. But I wonder when the war began, just how rigidly thes laws were enforced. And surely, you will not deny that those laws were changed during and after the war. (And, yes, I realize that perfection had not been achieved overnight and that it would take about another 100 years before this nation got off its collective butt and began to finally enforce Lincoln's first steps towards equality, but give the man a break, we had to start somewhere!)

There were five slave states in the Union. How many were left after the war and could you please tell me what former slave states abolished slavery during the war?

Slavery was legal in these Northern states because, again side-stepped, the Emancipation was a war powers act, not an amendment by Congress, so therefore not the law of the entire land. I find it amusing that it is always side-stepped that Lincoln had to balance saving the Union (his first and primary concern) with that of emancipation. But I am sure Jeff Davis would have done it all different if his position was reversed.

Lincoln did at one time, for a considerable time, support the idea of voluntary colonization. But why does no one from a Southern viewpoint ever recognize Lincoln did what no Southern leader of the time could do, which was change his views upon gaining experience with the 'negro question?' Because it would shatter all their cherished notions of Lincoln the bad person in Southern, Lost Cause history.

Slavery was legal, for a short time, after the fall of the Confederacy. It's a shame the country could not be stopped on a political dime and stop slavery with that messy process called democracy and passing an amendment abolishing slavery. It wasn't like secession where one could jump on the rebel bandwagon.

The flag of the Confederacy DID fly over at least one slave ship. As I recall the Captain of the vessal was hanged. But you are right, the US flag flew over the ships that went to Africa to transport slaves back to this country. Lincoln, and I agree, that slavery was a national sin, much to this entire country's shame. But he and the Republican party and a majority of this country had set slavery on the path of ultimate extinction by the election of his party. And I am certain, that with powerful Southern leader advocating the reestablishment of the African slave trade, it would not have been for lack of trying to have the South outfit a few ships for that trade. But I will agree that Africans sold Africans into slavery, again, a historical fact. And yes, blacks owned slaves too, some even a hundred or more. Guess it doesn't matter if your black or white, humans can do some pretty cruel things across the color line.

Lincoln did say that if there was an amendment passed that forever protected slavery where it was forever, he would abide by it. Did it pass?

Slavery was not dying out in the South, nor was it dying out in other parts of the New World. The idea that slavery was going to end in 10 or 15 years is just too fantastic to support. Right up until the last day of the war, certain rebel officers were advising their families to buy slaves. And time and time again, the North/Federal government had offered compensated emancipation to slaveholders in the South. They refused.

8. If there is any 'white American' who feels unworthy of his wealth and that somehow this equates to disbelief in Black Confederates, I pray to God I meet this group and get them to transfer some of that unworthy wealth to me. And that's about all I am going to waste on this paragraph.

9. Again, if proof, real historical proof, can be offered that large numbers of black slaves fought for the South, I will consider the 'Victimhood' theory. But I will not endorse a theory that makes little or no sense. And by the way, I am aware that some blacks showed up at a Gettysburg reunion and stated they were southern. They were provided for by the Southern soldiers in that reunion and welcomed with warm and open arms. About a dozen or so as I recall.

10. Why did blacks fight? For love of their masters? By being forced to man guns? By being recruited at the last moment in a desperate cause? Compared to the hundreds of thousands that ran away to the Union lines and the over 180,000 that fought for the Union, just what reason would a black man, free or slave, fight for the privilege to remain a slave? Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

11. Why did anyone fight for the North? 'No one really knows why men go to war to fight?' "We don't want to ask that question?' '1 out of 5 of them fought' because they were immigrants?' Not because of love of country. Not because they wished to uphold the law. Not because they thought the actions at Ft. Sumter and the taking of federal property wrong. No, that would be too simple, too easy an answer and it would afford those dead who fought for the Union too much in the way of honor and bravery and respect. The North must be the evil conquer or the version most desired simply will not apply. Yes, it is indeed a difficult question to answer. If you are deaf, dumb and blind and haven't picked up a history book lately.

12. It is not that we want to believe the war was about slavery. It's just that the paper trail is too big and too long. Try as we might, to disguise, hide and ignore this underlying cause of the war, it comes back to confront us again and again. Mainly because of the South's own words and actions to protect the institution at all costs. To maintain it for profit, for social control and white superemecy. We just cannot bring ourselves to call dead men liars, especially since they considered their honor above all else. To refute their words, their document, papers, diaries, laws, customs and above all, their actions in bringing about the war to protect and defend a cherished insitution, flies in the face of recorded, documented history.

While there is evidence that some blacks fought for the South, it is recorded and documented history it was never an official, recognized effort on the part of the Confederate government, even though their were local exceptions at the state level. No serious attempt was made to make slaves a part of the armed forces of the Confederacy until it was far too late. And even then, the law would have returned any slaves back over to the tender mercies of their former masters.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[larry_cockerham]

As usual, Neil, most of your eloquent dissertation is true and factual. You still have a bit of a northern bias, for which I forgive you. Three of my own ancestors fought for the Union. They and many of their compatriots were not northerners, but men of the mid-south. They were fighting for the south, for their country, (the United States) as well as their homes and families. Very little more. Let's also give the blacks in the South benefit of the doubt. Many of them (How many is many, you ask. I don't know, but you are correct in that they could have been transported on a rather short train by today's standards.) were fighting for their homes and families, same as the whities. If they became free or not was an ongoing consideration in their lives, to say the least, but it was not always at the center of their daily efforts to repel the 'invading' force alongside their neighbors. As you well know, the South was no more tolerant than the north in their acceptance of the black soldier, however it did happen.

[unionblue]

Matt,

To answer your post#30, yes, there were other Confederate leaders who advocated using slaves as soldiers.

General Richard S. Ewell, after the battle of the first Bull Run, as a matter of fact. Turned down cold by Jeff Davis.

Gen. Thomas C. Hindman, using a pen name of 'Culloden' penned an open letter calling for the use of negro slaves as soldiers in December of 1863.

And a few others, but they all were in the distinct minority and not until the passage of the Negro Soldier Bill in early 1865, did the Southern leadership ever seriously consider using slaves as soldiers.

Unionblue

[unionblue]

Larry,

Thank you for your kind and understanding words. And thank you for your forgiveness of my 'northern bias.'

Larry, please understand, I am all for the avowed purpose of this thread, the study of black confederate soldiers and their place in history.

But I cannot abide any attempt at inflation or twisting or ignoring historical fact when it comes to this area of the Civil War.

If we are going to study this concept of black slaves serving in fighting units, then let's do it by conducting real research using documentation and varified historical sources instead of wistful thinking and misstatement of known fact.

I have no problem with the statement of Frederick Douglass when he commented on 'thousands of blacks' serving with Confederate forces. I have no problem with the documented statement of a Sanitary Commission official commenting on 'thousands of blacks soldiers under arms' during the Gettysburg campaign. But what tears at my soul is the unsupported statements and quotes that the Confederate government 'freed' slaves that would fight for the South. Or the inflated numbers of '60,000' or '90,000.'

It was the same thing with statements like '300 newspapers in the North were shut down by Lincoln.' Yet I have never been able to find anything close to that number and I have beat my brains out trying to verify such a number.

I know this is my passion, my pet peeve, but people need to be careful what they say is 'true' and what they put out to the public and our schools as history when it can be proven beyond doubt it is not history nor is it true.

Enough, I'm headed off to bed.

Take care,
Unionblue

[Battalion]

Originally Posted by unionblue

the newly enacted Confederate law did not free a single slave, nor did it attempt to do so.

Why did it not do so? Because the majority of the South, along with its leadership, did not wish to do so for fear it would upset the social order and put the slave on an equal footing with whites. The other fear was that as an institution, slavery would die out and leave no labor force to work in the many fields of cotton, rice, tabacco, hemp, sugar and other areas of slave labor.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

Please read closely-

Lee (CIC of all Confederate Armies) and the Confederate War Dept. issued concurrent orders along with the Act of Congress stipulating that-

No slave would be accepted for military service unless given his freedom.

(I do not have the order in hand at the moment..will post later.)

[ole]

Originally Posted by Battalion

Please read closely-

Lee (CIC of all Confederate Armies) and the Confederate War Dept. issued concurrent orders along with the Act of Congress stipulating that-

No slave would be accepted for military service unless given his freedom.

(I do not have the order in hand at the moment..will post later.)

I don't have the order in hand at the moment either, but it was issued in January, about 3 months before Lee surrendered his army. Better late than never?
Ole

[Battalion]

See "IV"

http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-b...F&pagenum=1161