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In the latest issue of North and South this issue is discussed. Robert Krick's unpublished essay is mentioned, in which he studied 100,000 service records and found 20-30 non-white soldiers. If the CS armies totalled (very roughly) one million, this means up to 300 non whites.
Did Krick check these 100,000 records against the U.S. Census?
By law the census takers were required to list the race of each individual...those filling out muster rolls were not.
__________________ 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."
That's an interesting number you're claiming, but I suppose you might have some twisted logic to it.
The Louisiana Native Guard regiment was organized in response to the Governor's proclamation calling for "citizens" to form Militia units for the defense of the state in the Spring of 1861. They were disbanded on February 15, 1862 in accord with the Louisiana state Militia Act passed January 23, 1862 calling for "white males" only. In the emergency caused by the Federal fleet entering the Mississippi, the Governor called on them again to be prepared to serve the state. At some point they were assigned a sector of the city, showed up as the Federal fleet arrived, did not leave the city when Lovell evacuated it, and appear to have disbanded/dissolved for good when the city was occupied by the Federals at the end of April. So they might have heard a few distant shots down on the Chalmette line, but they were never in combat -- and seem to have been on active Militia duty for a few weeks at the most, if that; perhaps just days. Beyond that, they showed up at a couple of parades and probably conducted some drill on their own.
Now I checked the Dyer's Compendium to see which 50 USCT regiments you might be talking about. Here's a few quick points I see:
1) No USCT or other regiment of black soldiers existed before Butler organized the 1st Louisiana Native Guards in August 1862 (one was forming up in Kansas and one in South Carolina about that time, but the 1st LA Native Guard was first organized).
2) the 54th and 55th Massachusetts were never converted to USCT, but both saw heavy combat.
3) All 6 of the USCT cavalry regiments were involved in some sort of expedition or action against the rebels during the war, the 5th USCT Cavalry probably seeing the most (35 enlisted men killed or mortally wounded in action).
4) Since many of the USCT regiments were serving as garrisons in places like KY and TN late in the war, they only saw action if the Confederates were active where they were. So troops garrisoning Memphis for the best part of a year were never attacked by Confederates, making one of the examples you are referring to, I suppose. However, these were men under military discipline, living in barracks, manning forts, under arms, paid by the Federal government to be soldiers. That is not equivalent to the Native Guards under the Confederacy.
5) I suspect in your 50 regiment claim you include the following: the 72nd, 94th, 104th, 105th, 126th, 128th, 135th, 136th, 137th, 138th USCT Infantry. Those all either a) never completed organization or b) organized from March 28, 1865 on. The reason they never saw action is that the war ended.
So please give us a list of these 50 regiments you are talking about. I suspect it is the usual quick one-liner we see from you, trying to divert attention from what you want to claim about "black Confederates" by a digression into something unrelated.
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.
Tim recently wrote: "There were fairly large numbers of slaves with the armies performing menial duties: cooks, teamsters, laborers, servants, etc. Many were the body servants of soldiers, which often implied a close relationship different than the average between master and slave."
That's probably a reasonable description of the relationship of the several men in Forrest's Escort. I would submit, though, that the teamsters in Forrest's command were far beyond menial duty. Try hauling field artillery and ammunition 25-30 miles in a day over some of Tennessee's muddy 1860s roads.
When Forrest formed his cavalry regiment at the Governor of Tennessee's request (I always get a kick out of the image of Nathan Bedford, millionaire, serving as a private and taking a visit from the Governor), he brought more than 50 slaves from his plantation with him to serve as teamsters and general labor. I have no doubt they worked hard. Forrest didn't spare himself, his slaves, his soldiers, or anyone else when there was work to be done.
Forrest also ran those slaves through a black man, a slave, who reported to Forrest himself. You didn't mess with them without catching the General's ire; at the same time, those slaves would have caught Forrest's anger if they got out of line with his command.
Forrest promised to free them if the Confederacy won; he told them they'd be free anyway if the Yankees won. He did free them late in the war, those still with him, and most of them were. There is some debate about exactly when that happened, with the earliest date apparently in the Fall of 1863 and the latest in Spring of 1865.
Menial generally means the sort of work you give to a servant, drudge work. It can be physically demanding and exhausting. It can be boring and routine. For some slaves, humping artillery and wagons about might actually be easier than their daily lot on a plantation -- such as the rice plantations of South Carolina and Louisiana, where the slave death rate was often higher than the birth rate in some counties/parishes.
Regards,
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.
Did Krick check these 100,000 records against the U.S. Census?
By law the census takers were required to list the race of each individual...those filling out muster rolls were not.
Never having seen the article, I have no idea. The very idea sems incongruous and absurd. Since you want to ask, let's hear from you: Have *you* checked *your* findings against the US Census of 1860, and if not, why not, and why should *you* expect something of Krick *you* haven't done for *yourself*? Do *you* hold *yourself* to this same standard? If not, why not?
If you can't answer that clearly, we have to assume your complaint against Krick here is merely another red herring tossed out by you to confuse the issue and avoid accepting data you don't like.
__________________ "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.
That's an interesting number you're claiming, but I suppose you might have some twisted logic to it.
The Louisiana Native Guard regiment was organized in response to the Governor's proclamation calling for "citizens" to form Militia units for the defense of the state in the Spring of 1861. They were disbanded on February 15, 1862 in accord with the Louisiana state Militia Act passed January 23, 1862 calling for "white males" only. In the emergency caused by the Federal fleet entering the Mississippi, the Governor called on them again to be prepared to serve the state. At some point they were assigned a sector of the city, showed up as the Federal fleet arrived, did not leave the city when Lovell evacuated it, and appear to have disbanded/dissolved for good when the city was occupied by the Federals at the end of April. So they might have heard a few distant shots down on the Chalmette line, but they were never in combat -- and seem to have been on active Militia duty for a few weeks at the most, if that; perhaps just days. Beyond that, they showed up at a couple of parades and probably conducted some drill on their own.
Now I checked the Dyer's Compendium to see which 50 USCT regiments you might be talking about. Here's a few quick points I see:
1) No USCT or other regiment of black soldiers existed before Butler organized the 1st Louisiana Native Guards in August 1862 (one was forming up in Kansas and one in South Carolina about that time, but the 1st LA Native Guard was first organized).
2) the 54th and 55th Massachusetts were never converted to USCT, but both saw heavy combat.
3) All 6 of the USCT cavalry regiments were involved in some sort of expedition or action against the rebels during the war, the 5th USCT Cavalry probably seeing the most (35 enlisted men killed or mortally wounded in action).
4) Since many of the USCT regiments were serving as garrisons in places like KY and TN late in the war, they only saw action if the Confederates were active where they were. So troops garrisoning Memphis for the best part of a year were never attacked by Confederates, making one of the examples you are referring to, I suppose. However, these were men under military discipline, living in barracks, manning forts, under arms, paid by the Federal government to be soldiers. That is not equivalent to the Native Guards under the Confederacy.
5) I suspect in your 50 regiment claim you include the following: the 72nd, 94th, 104th, 105th, 126th, 128th, 135th, 136th, 137th, 138th USCT Infantry. Those all either a) never completed organization or b) organized from March 28, 1865 on. The reason they never saw action is that the war ended.
So please give us a list of these 50 regiments you are talking about. I suspect it is the usual quick one-liner we see from you, trying to divert attention from what you want to claim about "black Confederates" by a digression into something unrelated.
Tim
First we need to find out if JS wants to use this as a reason for exclusion.
This is what he indicated in previous posts.
He brought it up...not I.
__________________ 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."
Never having seen the article, I have no idea. The very idea sems incongruous and absurd. Since you want to ask, let's hear from you: Have *you* checked *your* findings against the US Census of 1860, and if not, why not, and why should *you* expect something of Krick *you* haven't done for *yourself*? Do *you* hold *yourself* to this same standard? If not, why not?
If you can't answer that clearly, we have to assume your complaint against Krick here is merely another red herring tossed out by you to confuse the issue and avoid accepting data you don't like.
Nope.
Muster rolls may or may not have information about race (I have already listed some in this thread).
If Krick assumes that a person is white because "colored" etc, is not listed with the name...
...then that's exactly what it is- an assumption.
__________________ 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."
Did Krick check these 100,000 records against the U.S. Census?
By law the census takers were required to list the race of each individual...those filling out muster rolls were not.
I would not be too quick to disparage or contradict Robert Krick. He probably has more knowledge and experience in this field than many of us on this forum. Thats most likely the reason that he is the chief historian for the National Park Service at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP. Krick has gone through the service records of approximately 200,000 Confederate service men, which is quite a few and a very time consuming task. In an interview, Krick said that in all of the records he has gone through, he has seen evidence of, at the most, 12 who might be termed as black Rebels. Now if he found twelve out of 200,000, then that seems to show that there were not many black Confederate soldiers.
If there is evidence that the use of blacks as soldiers, not as musicians, cooks, teamsters or laborers, in the Confederate Army, was widespread and quite common, then show it to us. But so far, all that has been shown is what most here have already thought: that it was not common and those that may have been there had no real impact on the outcome of the war.
__________________ "The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize." George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
Wishful thinking, JMan. But we must admit that Battalion is no quitter.
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
I would not be too quick to disparage or contradict Robert Krick. He probably has more knowledge and experience in this field than many of us on this forum.
There's no law against questioning the findings of Mr. Krick. Questioning the formula he uses is not an attack on his credibility...just the process...but as of yet no one has informed us of his formula.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JM
Thats most likely the reason that he is the chief historian for the National Park Service at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP. Krick has gone through the service records of approximately 200,000 Confederate service men, which is quite a few and a very time consuming task. In an interview, Krick said that in all of the records he has gone through, he has seen evidence of, at the most, 12 who might be termed as black Rebels. Now if he found twelve out of 200,000, then that seems to show that there were not many black Confederate soldiers.
Which is it?-
20-30 in 100,000 or 12 in 200,000?
__________________ 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."
First we need to find out if JS wants to use this as a reason for exclusion.
This is what he indicated in previous posts.
He brought it up...not I.
Why would we need to find that out? You say "50 regiments of the USCT were never in a battle." I'd like to see your list of them. Do you have such a list or not?
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.
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