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...and it assumes that 'millions' of slaves perceptions of the war were according to the Yankee propaganda version.
No, it doesn't do that. It just assumes those 4 million or so slaves weren't thirsting to charge out into the fields and get shot at for Old Master. That's a much simpler proposition, one very likely to be accurate. Also backed by a lot of evidence from slaves who were glad to be free, and showed every evidence that they would run away at the first opportunity, in real life.
But what does any of that have to do with the photo being a fake?
Tim
__________________ "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.
No, it doesn't do that. It just assumes those 4 million or so slaves weren't thirsting to charge out into the fields and get shot at for Old Master. That's a much simpler proposition, one very likely to be accurate.
That's not what U-blue wrote.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
Also backed by a lot of evidence from slaves who were glad to be free, and showed every evidence that they would run away at the first opportunity, in real life.
Actually there is plenty of evidence for the opposite.
As I posted...their perceptions of the war were not 100% in line with the Yankee propaganda version.
__________________ 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."
Actually there is plenty of evidence for the opposite.
As I posted...their perceptions of the war were not 100% in line with the Yankee propaganda version.
You do them no more than justice...
4 women left to watch 100 negroes at Avenel. NONE ESCAPED. DOC, in the library and JORDAN, camped out under Mrs. B's bedroom window, and DARED any yankee to cross the thresh hold into the house...
From "No Word of Them: First Battalion New York Sharpshooters, 1862 - 1865", p177.
[This is the section transcribing the diary of Private John T. Farnham]
Monday [ May] 4th [1863] - A fine day. Shower about 1 P.M. Very warm. Just after sunrise we went to camp as usual but then went back after blanket & overcoat & back to camp. Ordered to have [haver]sack & 3 days rations, ready to march, as the rebs had retreated to the (Blackwater) rear in the night. All ready to march. Wrote home. Our forces go out reconnoitering & the rebs, a good quantity, give themselves
up as prisoners & are bro[ugh]t in, dirty & lean. Gen[erals] Corcoran & Getty both went out & the loss was 60 killed & wounded, & the rebs skedaddled. Saw some of the gray backs pass & have a buckshot & ball from one of their cartridges. Some negroes bro[ugh]t in who had been fighting against us. Will not go off on march today. Read book, Harpers. Fixed for a good rest tonight. Everything pleasant & seems like being near the woods at home.
Thanks for the post.
Where was this fight at?
__________________ 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."
And you would do so for myth, not historical fact, for fiction over truth. For the idea that millions of black slaves would willingly fight to enforce slavery upon themselves, their families, their children.
Your choice.
Unionblue
Neil,
I have a book titled "The Price of Freedom: Slavery and the Civil War." I've had it so long I don't remember just where I got it, but I'm rather thinking it was a garage sale "find." It's a compilation of essays by various authors, and the last three in the book deal with the issue of slaves, former slaves and freedmen in the Confederate forces.
One, by Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., starts out with:
A number of writers have studied the use of blacks as soldiers by the Union and Confederate governments during the American Civil War. Most of these workers have focused on the Union Army since it employed large numbers of black soldiers during the conflict. When the authors do cover the Confederate side, they usually limit their coverage to the free blacks of New Orleans who formed a regiment of "Native Guards" for the Louisiana militia and to efforts late in the war to employ free blacks as laborers or in other non-combat roles, but until early 1865 the official policy of the Confederate government prohibited blacks from serving as armed soldiers.
Scholars who have investigated the role of blacks in the Confederate armies usually have described only the body servants who occasionally picked up a weapon during a battle, though several writers have discussed the largely unsubstantiated cases of slaves serving in other combat situations. Two studies which look closely at blacks who aided the Confederate war effort fail to document satisfactorily the enlistment of free blacks as combat soldiers. One of these books exhibits a strong Confederate bias but cannot substantiate its assertion that "many of these [free blacks] were in active war participation." In dealing with the "question as to whether or not any Negroes ever fought in the Confederate ranks," Professor Bell I. Wiley found no firm evidence to say that they did. He concluded, "If persons with Negro blood served in Confederate ranks as full-fledged soldiers, the percent of Negro blood was sufficiently low for them to pass as whites."
Contrary to Professor Wiley's contention, a number of Louisiana free blacks did serve as soldiers, and their white comrades in arms did know them to be "free men of color." Some fifteen hundred or more New Orleans free blacks made up the First Regiment Louisiana Native guards. Free blacks in several country parishes of the state organized themselves into military companies. Professor John D. Winters has estimated that nearly three thousand free blacks had volunteered for militia duty by early 1862. With this many men in militia service, it seemed reasonable that a few individuals could have seen combat duty. In researching this theory, I documented fifteen free blacks who volunteered for and served in regular Confederate units as privates. Twelve of these men enlisted in Louisiana volunteer regiments, two in a home guard or reserve unit, and one in a Texas Cavalry unit. Three of the first twelve fought in several battles, and two of the three received wounds.
Most of the rest of Bergeron's essay details the service of the 15 black men mentioned. He finishes up with the following:
Several historians have questioned the sincerity of the free men of color who formed Confederate militia units. They say that those men did so out of fear or under pressure from whites. They also point accurately to the fact that the Native Guards regiment disbanded when New Orleans fell into Union hands and that most of the men later joined the Union army. These historians may indeed be correct in appraising the majority of free blacks involved. Yet fear or coercion does not seem to have motivated the men discussed in this manuscript to join regular Confederate units. As stated, Confederate law prohibited any blacks from serving in combat units. If coercion forced these me[n] to enlist, why didn't many more free blacks face the same pressure?....
I have not read much of this book, primarily because my tolerance for detailed descriptions of deliberate brutality and cruelty against persons who are largely defenseless is low, and the chapter headings are sort of off-putting to me.
My own conclusion, based on what I have read in other publications is that Southerners were not anxious to put guns in the hands of persons whom they had held in bondage most or all of their lives. Probably a wise decision on the part of white Southerners.
__________________ "In leaving this unpretentious record, therefore, I seek to do simply what I would have had my fathers do for me.
KINSMEN OF THE COMING CENTURIES, I BID YOU HAIL AND GODSPEED!"
[From his Introduction to "Memoirs of a Volunteer," by John Beatty - published in 1879
Originally Posted by JohnB From "No Word of Them: First Battalion New York Sharpshooters, 1862 - 1865", p177.
[This is the section transcribing the diary of Private John T. Farnham]
Monday [ May] 4th [1863] - A fine day. Shower about 1 P.M. Very warm. Just after sunrise we went to camp as usual but then went back after blanket & overcoat & back to camp. Ordered to have [haver]sack & 3 days rations, ready to march, as the rebs had retreated to the (Blackwater) rear in the night. All ready to march. Wrote home. Our forces go out reconnoitering & the rebs, a good quantity, give themselves up as prisoners & are bro[ugh]t in, dirty & lean. Gen[erals] Corcoran & Getty both went out & the loss was 60 killed & wounded, & the rebs skedaddled. Saw some of the gray backs pass & have a buckshot & ball from one of their cartridges. Some negroes bro[ugh]t in who had been fighting against us. Will not go off on march today. Read book, Harpers. Fixed for a good rest tonight. Everything pleasant & seems like being near the woods at home.
"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."
"We maintain that this photograph has been deliberately falsified in recent years by an unknown person/s sympathetic to the Confederacy. This falsified or fabricated photo, purporting to be of the 1st Louisiana Native Guards (Confederate), has been taken to promote Neo-Confederate views, to accuse Union propagandists of duplicity, and to show that black soldiers were involved in the armed defense of the Confederacy. As of the date of this website this photograph is being sold on the web by an on-line retailer, www.rebelstore.com, which promotes itself as 'The Internet’s Original Rebel Store,' and advertises this photograph as a legitimate photo of 'Members of the first all Black Confederate Unit organized in New Orleans in 1861.'"
Regards,
Cash
Cash
The quote seems rather odd to me. I'm not sure how a faked photo of African-Americans in Confederate uniforms would promote Neo-Confederate views.
I remember going through my Grandmother's photos after she died. She probably knew everyone in her photos - I didn't and they were not all marked on the reverse. I could only trust in her notations as to what was what. Where they were none, I had no idea.
I submit a photo is normally only as good as it's documentation.
__________________ Don
******************* "We Can, We Will" Website:http://www.myspace.com/dhpatrick Member of: American Legion, VFW, SCV Served with: 1st Sqdn, 9th US Cav Regt * 4th Sqdn, 9th US Cav Regt * V US Corps Ancestors with:
2d Miss Inf Regt * 2d Miss Inf State Regt * 26th Miss Inf Regt
32d Miss Inf Regt * 50th Ala Inf Regt * 58th Ala Inf Regt
8th Ga Inf Regt * 40th Ga Inf Regt * 4th Ark Inf Regt
3d Regt Arizona Bde (Tx State)
The quote seems rather odd to me. I'm not sure how a faked photo of African-Americans in Confederate uniforms would promote Neo-Confederate views.
It was being used to support the view that many "Black Confederates" fought for the South.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DHPatrick
I remember going through my Grandmother's photos after she died. She probably knew everyone in her photos - I didn't and they were not all marked on the reverse. I could only trust in her notations as to what was what. Where they were none, I had no idea.
I submit a photo is normally only as good as it's documentation.
Worse than that. In this case, the original photograph taken in the 1860s included what is clearly a white Union officer in a Union unit. He was cropped out of the photo. The claim was then made that the photo was of a "Black Confederate" unit. It is a clear case of forged information.
Tim
__________________ "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.
The quote seems rather odd to me. I'm not sure how a faked photo of African-Americans in Confederate uniforms would promote Neo-Confederate views.
Cash has not been around for a while. We can only hope he is touring the Aegean or on a project from which he cannot be diverted. We can only assume that the photo was shopped to fit someone's idea that proof of black Confederates had to be provided.
Here is a place where you need to go back through the archives. There is a photo with which you may be familiar. It is labelled the First Louisiana Native Guards. However, there is another picture predating that which is of a USCT unit taken in late 1864. It was modified and turned into a recruiting poster. Sometime, after the war, the picture was cropped and the background changed and captioned, "First Louisiana Native Guards." It was presented as "proof that blacks were enlisted in Confederate service." Unfortunately, the original surfaced and the steps were traced. What might have been an attempt at proof that there were black Confederates became a sham to sell photos to the gullible.
First clue. First Louisiana. These guys were dressed in great coats. Perhaps you can come up with a reason why a Louisiana State Militia would be dressed in greatcoats. Second clue. Sky blue shows up as what color in a black & white photo? Exactly. How many Confederates actually saw a gray greatcoat, let alone had access to one? And here's about two dozen black men in greatcoats. If the photo wasn't passed off as proof of sorts, someone went to great expense to put up a scam to get someone's money.
I can only assume that someone thought that showing blacks in grey greatcoats would somehow prove that there were black Confederate soldiers. But they cropped out the officer whose uniform was black in the original. The unit was photographed in the winter of 1864. In Pennsylvania. Where greatcoats make a great deal more sense than they do in N'awleans.
Do explore the files for that series and photos of the deception.
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
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