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Don't forget editing those photos w/ Paint or photoshop to add "evidence" to their cause. More evidence of the honesty & integrity of the Lost Cause.
Honesty?
Integrity?
ONE on-line novelty store selling a cropped photo?
....
What's it compared to this?:
140 year old, race-baiting propaganda still revered as truth on a government funded and supposedly educational website-
PBS- "In what proved the ugliest racial incident of the war, Confederate forces under General Nathan B. Forrest captured Fort Pillow on April 12, 1864, and proceeded to kill all the black troops within; some were burned or buried alive. A Federal congressional investigating committee subsequently verified that more than 300 blacks, including women and children, had been slain after the fort surrendered. After the incident, black soldiers going into battle used the cry "Remember Fort Pillow!" http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/reference/articles/fort_pillow.htm
Many other "scholars" still hold to this story in varying degrees.
ONE on-line novelty store selling a cropped photo?
Cropped and mislabelled -- apparently intentionally. Completely agree that one is hardly evidence of widespread tampering, but it does make one wonder about the authenticity of other photographic "evidence."
Checked out your link. Thank you, but I'd not expect much historical honesty from it. I do wonder, aside from the obvious sensationalism in your excerpt, what exactly is the misstatement?
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
Honesty? Integrity? ONE on-line novelty store selling a cropped photo? .... What's it compared to this?: 140 year old, race-baiting propaganda still revered as truth on a government funded and supposedly educational website-
PBS- "In what proved the ugliest racial incident of the war, Confederate forces under General Nathan B. Forrest captured Fort Pillow on April 12, 1864, and proceeded to kill all the black troops within; some were burned or buried alive. A Federal congressional investigating committee subsequently verified that more than 300 blacks, including women and children, had been slain after the fort surrendered. After the incident, black soldiers going into battle used the cry "Remember Fort Pillow!" http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/reference/articles/fort_pillow.htm
Many other "scholars" still hold to this story in varying degrees. ~ Take your "outrage" and smoke it.
Battalion,
I certainly agree that the above is lousy journalism.
But if you look at it:
"...proceeded to kill all the black troops within;" Not all died, but an awful lot did. More than half of the USCT died, but 75 or so survived. In a garrison that was probably at least 557 men and may have been a little over 600, there were 231 known Union dead and another 100 or so wounded. If 557, that is 295 white and 262 USCT troops total. Forrest turned at least 14 USCT wounded over to the Union truce parties, and took another group back with him as POWs.
"... some were burned or buried alive."
Lots of stories about this. Only 1 confirmed as burned alive (four affadavits describe finding *one* body with the clothes and accoutrements nailed to the floor in a burned-out cabin). According to one Confederate soldier's account in a paper, USCT were trying to "play dead" on the battlefield and were rolled into a mass grave along with the actually dead. Seems like there was something going on, but it was blown up as all attrocity stories are in all wars. Sad, but fairly average in history.
"A Federal congressional investigating committee subsequently verified that more than 300 blacks, including women and children, had been slain after the fort surrendered."
Well, yes, they did "verify" that, but the investigating committee was doing it in a rush, was highly biased, and saw this as a perfect propaganda opportunity. Just about any claim that made the Confederates look like savages was accepted. The number is on the high side. The women and children had been evacuated to an island in the river early in the day, but there are indications a few may have still been in the fort when the assault came in at 4 PM. As noted, the total number of dead, including white soldiers, appears to have been below 300, but above 200. Probably fewer than 200 black people perished overall.
Allowing for the normal inaccuracies and scare stories, it was still a pretty gruesome business. Many of the dead are normal casualties of war, and some of them had been killed as early as 9 AM, while the assault didn't come over the walls before 4 PM and the firing was supposedly over before 5 PM. But a fair number were shot down relentlessly by the Confederates until Forrest and Chalmers got the shooting stopped. Much of it was the normal fury of a close-action assault; some was the wickedness of whiskey and hate. The large number of USCT dead compared to the white Union troops is also unusual and noteworthy.
"After the incident, black soldiers going into battle used the cry "Remember Fort Pillow!""
Dramatic, but asolutely true. The USCT that Forrest fought at Brice's Crossroads had taken an oath to avenge Ft. Pillow and show no quarter to Forrest's troops before leaving Memphis. As Union General Washburn told Forrest in a letter.
In essence, Ft. Pillow was a situation that was likely to explode into exactly this sort of bloodbath if it proceeded to an assault. That was exacerbated by the early death of Major Booth on the Union side (9 AM) which allowed the command to descend upon Major Bradford, who seems to have done many foolish things. In military terms, Bradford was in a hopeless position and should have surrendered when Forrest sent in his demand. That shifts most of the burden for the disaster that follows to Bradford in military usage. With all that said, it seems evident that the stroming Confederates did take out their fury on their white and black opponents. It is only the number and size of the attrocity that is debated, and the responsibility. No one can deny that some, at least, of the things described happened.
Gentlemen:
We seem to be drifting around a little. Is this post about Fort Pillow? There is an existing thread with a lot of great info, in the Southern and Western Theatre forum. Maybe a new thread on an aspect of that event.
Is it about the case for or against black Confederates? That has been discussed at length in another threads as well.
If it is about faked photos, we seem to have established the photo of the Ist Native is a forgery beyond any doubt.
Instead of bickering, we could start an interesting thread on civil war fakery in general, the hows and whys. Or we could have talk about ways the war has been remembered, and the hows and whys of that, although that discussion tends to slide downhill very quickly.
The article seems to imply that the Native Guards (Confederate) were not armed.
This is false.
They were armed.
You have, of course, proof of that factoid. Seems we've gone through this before. The native guard in question was nothing at all in the scheme of things. Kinda like "let's give the ******* something to do that would look good on paper."
__________________ 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
"The actual 1st Louisiana Native Guards, consisting of Afro-Creoles, was formed of about 1,500 men in April 1861 and was formally accepted as part of the Louisiana militia in May 1862. The Native Guards unit (one of three all-black companies) never saw combat while in Confederate service, and was largely kept at arm’s length by city and state officials; in fact, it often lacked proper uniforms and equipment. “The Confederate authorities,” James Hollandsworth has written, “never intended to use black troops for any mission of real importance. If the Native Guards were good for anything, it was for public display; free blacks fighting for Southern rights made good copy for the newspapers.” The unit apparently was never committed to the Confederate cause, and appears to have disobeyed orders to evacuate New Orleans with other Confederate forces; instead it surrendered to Union troops in April 1862."
Much of this is also false.
Last edited by Battalion : 04-04-2007 at 03:25 PM.
The article seems to imply that the Native Guards (Confederate) were not armed.
It does no such thing. That is a mischaracterization of the article.
It says, "The Native Guards unit (one of three all-black companies) never saw combat while in Confederate service, and was largely kept at arm’s length by city and state officials; in fact, it often lacked proper uniforms and equipment."
That is a completely true statement.
"Enthusiasm among the Native Guards for the Confederate cause did not last long, however. Many of the men were still without uniforms or equipment, and one company had only ten muskets. Absenteeism increased when it became apparent that the Confederate authorities did not intend to provide the Native Guards with either the status or support they afforded white soldiers." [James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., _The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War,_ p. 7]
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