More Black Confederates...

[Dred]

It is a prime example as to how easily the numbers game can be played. By estimating 25,000 they make it sound reasonable to anybody that does not care to do the research themselves. What I find most funny is that all this seems to be based off the article of one man from a reenactment group.

http://www.37thtexas.org/html/BlkHist.html

as usual... he claims thousands of black confederates and backs it up with testimony... of only a few. The largest number he states is 180,000 but then goes on to admit it was logistic support, ditch diggers, bridge builders, manual labor of all sorts. And no indication on if they were volunteers or not.

Oh yea.. about that first picture... that's not even military attire. That coat is plainly a civilian coat and his shirt looks like it too. L:like I said.. it's more like they just picked up whatever wsa lying around and put it on.

[ole]

You'll find out, if you haven't already, that the 37th Texas is a good deal more than a re-acting group. They take the SCV assignment about "correcting history" to an extreme I don't believe S. D. Lee intended.

At the time Lee made his charge to the organization, CW history was running rampant off in several different directions: the northern versions of history were markedly written by the winners, and the southern versions were blaming everybody but Lee and the south for the failure of the noble, but lost, cause.

To be sure, actual history as we understand it -- facts, evidence, records -- was lost for a while, and Lee an Gordon and Rutherford and others were quite justified in attempting to get some balance back into what was being taught. The Lost Cause pendulum swung to extremes and stuck there. Although many adherents have since bailed and assumed a position looking to make history correct rather than as they wish it to be; others have stuck with the pendulum -- hanging on for dear life to whatever factoid that will make the Confederacy look better and the Union worse.

Thus we have black Confederates, Yankee blame for selling nasty slaves to the innocent planters, Sherman's total war, black camps behind Union lines, Grant's slaves long after the war, Lee's benevolence, overwhelming numbers, black slave-owners, turning unprepared slaves free -- the Lost Cause.

That felt good!

Ole

[larry_cockerham]

Originally Posted by ole

No quarrel at all with that statement, Larry. Contention emerges when the number of volunteers is inflated to put a prettier face on the pig. I have no objection to adjusting interpretations to fit facts. I do object when facts are adjusted to fit interpretations.

Ole

I reject and deplore your inference here that a pig ain't pretty. If you've never seen a pretty pig, you simply haven't seen them all.

[larry_cockerham]

Neil {Unionblue} wrote:

"What I do deny is that there was any concentrated effort by the Confederate government or any of the Southern States to put black slaves into combat as soldiers under any condition until late 1864, early 1865. The South simply did not want to see black slaves with weapons in their hands with the potential to turn those arms upon themselves. The papers of the time show this attitude time and time again. The papers and source documents of the time show the determined resistance to the idea of arming slaves over and over again."

None can refute your sincerity and accurateness in reporting the facts as you found them in evidence concerning this war.

Please add to your thoughts that the soldier whether brown, blue or cross-eyed didn't need or necessarily look for an invitation from the Confederate government to join the fight. That a few black men did just that, I have little doubt. Big numbers?, obviously not. The men in the trenches beside the brown-eyed holder of a gun wasn't likely as worried about his nearby occupant as the men on the horizon or accross the peach orchard.

Slaves were so far down the totem pole in terms of esteem placed by middle of the road whites, that little thought could have been given to arming them for a long list of reasons, that we all know all too well.

Shane even mentioned earlier the 40 plus black members of Forrest's Escort. While these men had respect and were an essential part of the little group of 250 men, the good General still held their papers over their heads. Yes, he granted their freedom, but only when the war was drawing to an end and he realized his earlier investment was about to have no value. The same could be said of R.E. Lee or U.S. Grant. My own ancestors from the colonial period, even after living most of their lives with their slaves still passed them on to another owner rather than simply freeing the family. We're a selfish lot if you look at the facts.

Like Shane, I've never seen evidence of more than one or two black soldiers at a time. Though there is a modern claim that one man can make an army, I doubt it was true in 1862.

[gary]

Please add to your thoughts that the soldier whether brown, blue or cross-eyed didn't need or necessarily look for an invitation from the Confederate government to join the fight. That a few black men did just that, I have little doubt. Big numbers?, obviously not.

On those points, Larry, I agree with you. That a slave would pick up a gun and fight was a private matter. It was between master and slave and the Confederacy had no say in the matter. However, applying the standards of the Confederacy, that didn't make the slave a soldier even if that same slave was on the muster roll as a cook, teamster or musician. As we know, the acceptance of slaves as soldiers was very late and according to one Confederate, they were not well received by Confederate civilians when seen drilling in Richmond.

[larry_cockerham]

Let's assume for a moment you're a blue-clad soldier in Uncle Sam's army and you crest a hill where you can peer down at a black man with a gun staring back at you. I'll bet he would certainly be taken as a "soldier". That's when the voting ends and the action, alas, starts. Did that happen very often? Perhaps not too many times. A lot of strong arms would have been mighty welcome lifting cannon balls, dragging cannons, moving wagons, ammunition, digging trenches and laying up stone walls and the like. Much like a basketball team, without a little support, not much scoring going on.

[gary]

Larry, fighting as a soldier like some slaves did and being enlisted as a soldier is two different things. I acknowledge that some slaves fought and even wrote an article. Join the Company of Military Historians or find someone you know who belongs and you'll get to read it.

It boils down to definition. By your modern definition, yes, that gun wielding slave would be a soldier. By Confederate defintion, no, he's a slave with a gun. How one defines things resolves the issues - that's what lawyers do.

[Dred]

Originally Posted by larry_cockerham

Let's assume for a moment you're a blue-clad soldier in Uncle Sam's army and you crest a hill where you can peer down at a black man with a gun staring back at you. I'll bet he would certainly be taken as a "soldier".

Good point.. I doubt that the boy in blue started thinking, "Now whats that guy doin with a gun, I bet he's not even on the roll, and technically not a soldier." I'm pretty sure it was more along the lines of "Oh crap that guys got a gun I better shoot him!"

[trice]

Originally Posted by Battalion

Why are 4 enlisted and on the rolls as private?

Why is one listed as private on all rolls (incuding the last existing roll- Dec.'63)?

Battalion,

Plaease note that they are listed as cooks in your own post. Blacks were allowed to serve in the Confederate Army as cooks, as I have told you time after time. "cook" is not a rank, it is a specialty. Cooks are not, generally, armed soldiers.

Blacks were also allowed to serve as musicians in the Confederate Army. "Musician" wasa rank in the Confederate Army, it seems. Musicians are not, generally, armed soldiers. They were usually assigned to stretcher duty and as hospital orderlies in times of fighting.

If the blacks were soldiers, they had a rank. Private is as low as it gets in the Army, so that is what they were. Do you think the word "private" somehow converts them into something other than a musician or a cook?

Tim

[trice]

Neil,

Just to show what the Confederate government thought about the issue of "black Confederates", here is a paragraph from an official report of Secretary of War Seddon to President Davis, dated November 3, 1864. I have added the blue italics to point out the clear position of Seddon:

"With a view to the increase of our armies in the field, the policy has been suggested, and has attracted some public attention, of enlisting our negro slaves as soldiers. No compunction could be felt in so using them, for deeply as the whites of the South are interested in repelling the invasion, and forever liberating themselves from the association or thraldom of our enemies, the negroes of the South are even more vitally concerned. With the whites it is a question of nationality, of honor, and property. With the negroes, in its dread issues in no distant future, it is a question of their existence as a race. The friendship of a people so selfish, cruel, and remorseless as our foes would be to the unhappy negro more fatal than to us their enmity. In contact with them, under their pretended freedom before the law, which in operation on an inferior race is but a license to greed and oppression, exposed to all the vices, without the providence of the civilized man, they must soon, in the language of a leader among their professed friends, "be trampled out as a sickly exotic" or wither away amid the blighting influences of debauchery, pauperism, crime, and disease. They have, besides, the homes they value, the families they love, and the masters they respect and depend on to <ar129_762> defend and protect against the savagery and devastation of the enemy. No fear is entertained of their fidelity, for the feelings, as the interests of the great mass of the negroes have been conclusively manifested to be with their protectors and masters. Neither is it doubted that, under the leadership of those whites to whom they have been habituated and in whom they have confidence, they would exhibit more steadfastness and courage than they will ever attain as soldiers of the enemy. If any added incentive were required, from the supposed love of freedom natural to man, it might readily be afforded by the assurance of emancipation to all who conducted themselves with fidelity and courage during the war. For any such action it would, of course, require the concurring legislation of each State from the slave population of which the negro soldiers had been drawn, because to the States belong exclusively the determination of the relations which their colored population, or any part of them, shall hold. It is not doubted, however, should it be deemed expedient so to employ and reward slaves enlisted as soldiers, that the necessary legislation would be accorded, for there is no sacrifice of property or minor interests which would not be made by either our States or people to insure final separation from our hateful foes and the achievement of our liberty and independence. While it is encouraging to know this resource for further and future efforts is at our command, my own judgment does not yet either perceive the necessity or approve the policy of employing slaves in the higher duties of soldiers. They are confessedly inferior in all respects to our white citizens in the qualifications of the soldier, and I have thought we have within the military age as large a proportion of our whole population as will be required or can be advantageously employed in active military operations. If, then, the negro be employed in the war, the inferior is preferred to the superior agent for the work. In such a war as this, waged against foes bent with malignant persistence on our destruction, and for all that man holds priceless, the most vital work is that of the soldier, and for it wisdom and duty require the most fitting workmen. The superior instrumentalities should be preferred. It will not do, in my opinion, to risk our liberties and safety on the negro, while the white man may be called to the sacred duty of defense. For the present, it seems best to leave the subordinate labors of society to the negro, and to impose the highest, as now existing, on the superior class."

Now this is in November 1864. Atlanta has fallen, the Shenandoah lies smouldering, Sheridan has smashed Early time and again, Farragut has won the battle at Mobile Bay. Yet the Secretary of War of the Confederacy still thinks that baclks should not be made into soldiers -- which is pretty clear indication that there are no official "black Confederates" in his eyes.

Regards,
Tim