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What battles of the Civil War had large numbers of black Confederate soldiers who participated as fighting troops? Units, names, dates, figures please.
What OR's contain descriptions or reports of large numbers of black Confederate soldiers being observed in military operations against Union forces?
What diaries, letters, documents, official government sources (from either side) that detail, describe or report significant/large numbers of blacks, armed as soldiers, fighting in organized military units, commanded by Confederate officers involved in battles with Union forces?
You present dribbles and drabs as if they were the flood of Noah's time and frankly, I cannot detect a cloud in the sky that will give any credence to the idea that black slaves or freedmen served in ANY significant numbers with Confederate/Southern forces during the war.
No matter how many times you throw this rock into the air, it always comes back to earth. It won't fly, no matter how hard or how high you throw it.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
While I did say that the existence of black troops fighting for the South is highly debated. However, I never said that it was controversial. I haven't seen any controversy over it, and the only controversy I can imagine is among those who do not know a great deal about the era. And it is a topic that it is just now coming to a peak, with more books being written about it.
I myself am not of the school that thinks that there were "thousands" of blacks who fought for the South. Do I think that there were any that did? It could have been possible, but highly unlikely, seeing as the Southern people did not want to to see armed blacks. The idea of 65,000 black troops is, I must say, ludicrous. 65,000 blacks who were in supporting roles, such as cook, teamster, musician, body servant is a much more acceptable assumption. But not as combat troops. Again, its all up to dispute, because there isn't a great deal of evidence to support it. But its not controversial. I made a point not to say that, because it just isn't there.
__________________ "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
On November 23, 1861 there was a "grand review" of troops in New Orleans; about 26,000 men supposedly marched past in a much-ballyhooed affair. The Native Guards showed up with 33 black officers and 731 black enlisted men. A further 3 officers and 139 men on the rolls but absent that day. That gives you a total strength of 36 officers and 870 men (possibly not including the white Lt. Col. in command) as of that date, maximum. There was another "grand review" on January 7, 1862 with the Native Guard in attendance, but I don't have a number available for that event.
There were 1,022 rank and file by that time.
The unit began in May 1861 with some 400 men.
__________________ 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."
Battalion and Trice, your "debate" has been interesting and very informative to me, at least. I doubt any of us will be able to formulate a wall hanging with depictions of thousands of armed black Confederate soldiers. They just weren't there an any significant numbers. A few existed to be sure. Black folks, the free ones, had pride in their homes and rose to their defense as the rare opportunities came. Free men. The service of a laborer, driver, guard, groomsman or whatever all contributed to the war effort on both sides. Even in World War II, the Tuskegee airmen, for example, were in a class by themselves. Forming a unified army in the United States took a while. May God grant that such has now been achieved.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
True...but all units (black and white) were disbanded.
Nope. All units that were not wanted were disbanded. Some existing units were retained, and some new units that formed from the remants of the disbanded ones were accepted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by battalion
Do you still believe the new militia law was made expressly to get rid of the Native Guard?
No, I never did, that is merely your thought; I believe the state reorganized the Militia -- and then made sure the new units included no blacks. Just as the secessionists in Missouri did the same thing to get rid of the Republicans in the state Militia the year before, rejecting the Unionists and accepting the secessionists.
It is fairly normal for a legislative act to have more than one purpose, many of them not openly stated in the wording, and to have various parties to use it to get what they want.
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.
J Man,
You're absolutely right. You were refering to the controversy around using black men as soldiers in the 1860s, in the Confederacy. Sorry, that was carelessness on my part.
However, you then go on to state that more research should be done. I think while more research can be done on nearly any topic, I suppose, this particular issue swings between a distortion and a distraction.
Back to the latest episode of "the first native guards."
Nope. All units that were not wanted were disbanded. Some existing units were retained, and some new units that formed from the remants of the disbanded ones were accepted.
As far as I know...all State units were disbanded on 15 February 1862.
At this point they still existed as organizations but were in a temporary legal limbo.
Most of them were re-instated with the former officers receiving new commissions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
Quote:
Originally Posted by battalion
Do you still believe the new militia law was made expressly to get rid of the Native Guard?
No, I never did, that is merely your thought;
You certainly implied it with this statement-
"They were officially disbanded by Louisiana legislature in early 1862 when they passed the new 'white males only' militia act."
The "whites only" was also in the 1861 law.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
I believe the state reorganized the Militia -- and then made sure the new units included no blacks...
It is fairly normal for a legislative act to have more than one purpose, many of them not openly stated in the wording, and to have various parties to use it to get what they want.
Governor Moore was the one who initiated the re-organization of the militia and the new militia law.
Please explain why Governor Moore -the one who accepted the Native Guards and then later re-instated them- would be the driving force behind getting rid of them?
__________________ 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."
Battalion and Trice, your "debate" has been interesting and very informative to me, at least. I doubt any of us will be able to formulate a wall hanging with depictions of thousands of armed black Confederate soldiers. They just weren't there an any significant numbers. A few existed to be sure. Black folks, the free ones, had pride in their homes and rose to their defense as the rare opportunities came. Free men. The service of a laborer, driver, guard, groomsman or whatever all contributed to the war effort on both sides. Even in World War II, the Tuskegee airmen, for example, were in a class by themselves. Forming a unified army in the United States took a while. May God grant that such has now been achieved.
Free blacks were generally exempt from conscription for military service. Slaves had no choice in the matter, and their masters were compensated when their labor was conscripted. Teamsters in the Civil War are not "soldiers" unless they happen to have been enlisted into the Army, no matter which side, just as "contractors" in Iraq are not "soldiers" today. In a legal sense, Confederate slaves in most of the roles people are claiming as "black Confederates" had all the same chocie that a horse or a mule had: they were "property" under Confederate law, not "soldiers".
Now if you want to say that some slaves saw themselves as playing a part for the Confederacy, you'd be right. This would be particularly true of body servants who accompanied their young masters to war, as is often commented on. But as time went on, black people voted with their feet throughout the South any time a Union Army came through, and with their lives when they had the chance. Where we can find a few hundred black men, maybe a thousand or a bit more, who actually volunteered to fight for the Confederacy, we can pile them up by the tens of thousands on the Northern side. Where we can find regiments, batteries, brigades and divisions of black men in the Union Army over a period of almost three years, we find only two companies in the Confederate Army over a period of less than a month.
None of this counts black civilians who worked for the Union army as servants, teamsters, laborers, etc. because the rest of the world does not consider those people to be "soldiers". White people doing the same jobs were not considered "soldiers" either, unless they were actually enlisted in the Army. It is only the people who are determined to find "black Confederates" who want to see civilians doing these jobs as "soldiers".
As one of my friends in Virginia tells me, Confederate privates made something like $13/month; teamsters made $2/day; and free blacks had a choice about which one they would be for most of the war. He says they weren't stupid, so they didn't join the Army.
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.
None of this counts black civilians who worked for the Union army as servants, teamsters, laborers, etc. because the rest of the world does not consider those people to be "soldiers". White people doing the same jobs were not considered "soldiers" either, unless they were actually enlisted in the Army. It is only the people who are determined to find "black Confederates" who want to see civilians doing these jobs as "soldiers".
Its probably best referred to as paramilitary then?
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