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Robert Spatches ("Cold"), Pilot, Steamer Huntress Captured off Charleston, 18 Jan 1863. Violating blockade. Released 23 May 1863 by order Secy. of Navy
Huntress
(Sidewheel Steamer: t. 500; l. 230'; b. 24'6"; dr. 6'6"; s. 16-20 k. (flat calm); a. 1 to 3 guns)
CSS Huntress was purchased in New York City in March 1861 for the State of Georgia which later relinquished her to the Confederate States Navy. Her first commanding officer was Lt. Wilburn B. Hall, CSN, in that he went North to buy and bring her South; Hall was then detached and reported to Savannah, being succeeded by Lt. C. Manigault Morris, CSN.
Huntress had been a crack Boston-Portland mail packet, "very narrow beam, low in the water, immense side-wheels, painted black"; she had been built at New York City in 1838.
Huntress—first ship to raise the Confederate flag on the high seas, it is claimed—served on the Charleston station during 1861-62, taking part in the battle of Port Royal, S.C., 7 November 1861. During the summer of 1862 she served as a transport in Charleston harbor, taking the duty of Planter (q.v.) which fell into Federal hands. Huntress had been advertised for sale in May but was not sold until 29 October, when she finally went for $133,650 to A. J. White & Son, Charleston merchants. Converting to a blockade runner, she was renamed Tropic.
Attempting to escape to sea with turpentine and cotton on 18 January 1863, she was accidentally burned off Charleston; USS Quaker City rescued passengers and crew. http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/cfa5/huntress.htm
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"Register of Deaths of Prisoners From Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee 1862-65."
Littleton Coleman ("Col'd"), 2nd Miss.Inf. Prisoner of war. Died 2 March 1862 at Indianapolis, Ind. (typhoid).
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"Names of Prisoners that have Died at Camp Chase Post Hospital since Feby 6th 1862" [page 73-]
"Haywood (Black)" d. 6 March 1862 (typhoid).
"Freeman (Black & Free)" 32nd Tenn d. 13 March 1862 (pneumonia).
"Walter (Black & Free)" d. 19 March 1862 (typhoid).
"George (Black)" 32nd Tenn. d. 13 March 1862 (typhoid).
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Morris ("Cold Boy"), Officers Servant Captured Sailors Creek, Va., 6 April 1865. Transferred to Elmira, N.Y., 11 May 1865.
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Black Berry, "Negro"/"Servt."/"Pvt." (various POW rolls; enlistment record shows "private") 15th Tenn. Captured Buffington Isl., Ohio (Morgan's Raiders), 19 July 1863. Died Camp Douglas, 5 Nov 1863 (inflamation of lungs). Buried at Confederate Mound, Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago, IL.
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Elisha Harmon ("Colored"), Private, Co. B, 26th S.C. Prisoner of war. Died Douglas Hospital, Washington, D.C., 6 March 1865 (acute bronchitis).
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Selected Records of the War Department Relating to Confederate Prisoners of War, 1861-1865; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M598, 145 rolls); War Department Collection of Confederate Records, Record Group 109; National Archives, Washington, D.C.
Register of Confederate Soldiers, Sailors, and Citizens who Died in Federal Prisons and Military Hospitals in the North, 1861-1865; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M918, 1 roll); Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Record Group 92; National Archives, Washington, D.C.
__________________ 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."
At issue is slaves fighting for the Confederacy. For neo-Confederates, to prove that point would be supportive of their position that the war was not fought to free the slaves. Examples like the ones cited by Battalion (and myself in other posts) may be used to further this argument. Interpretative analysis of the examples is crucial in determining what the example means.
While there are numerous examples of blacks fighting, there is little to show that it was Confederate policy to allow them to serve as "soldiers" within the definition of the period. Thus, many blacks who did fight did so as slaves and not as enlisted soldiers (and yes, I independently found an example of a black man who was enlisted as a private - it was published by the Company of Military Historians).
I've concluded that history is filled with anomalies and that there is no black or white answer. While we can accept some blacks (slaves) fought for the Confederacy, the vast majority of (freed) slaves fought for the Union. Confederate acceptance of blacks as soldiers came too little, too late to save the Confederacy.
"Confederate acceptence of blacks as soldiers came to little, too late to save the Confederacy."
As has been shown repeatedly, time and time again, beyond a shadow of a historical doubt, on other threads of this forum.
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
I'll accept Battalion's list as good evidence, but I'd pare it down to a list with a rank -- pilot, private, etc. -- and a unit.
It would be quite impossible to accept that a servant, teamster, farrier, pioneer, etc., was necessarily a volunteer. A ranked soldier in a named unit, however, can easily be accepted as a volunteer. (I'll accept a conscript as a volunteer -- but he must have a rank for me to consider him as "fighting for the Confederacy.")
There are three such in the proffered list. Only 9,997 to go.
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
Apparently the Union army considered these black men to be Confederate soldiers, since they were held as POWs.
Legally, the Confederate government only allowed blacks to serve in the Confederate army in two ways before 1865: as cooks and as musicians.
Even when the Confederate government allowed the Army to use a large number of blacks as laborers in 1864 (Congress voted it in early in the year, but Jefferson Davis did not use the authority until months later), they were specifically not to be soldiers.
This is extremely clear in the way in which they organized the laborers (they were generally used to dig fortifications, etc.) They were slaves; payment went to their masters, but a system of rewards was established/suggested for good performance (Lee suggested this because it was what they were used to in their life as slaves on the plantations). They were not organized into military units, such as regiments and companies; they were in "gangs" of 100; 8 "gangs" made a "section"; 3 "sections" made a "force". They did not have military officers with ranks; instead they had white men over them as "overseers", "managers", "superintendants" and "directors". "overseers", "managers", "superintendants" and "directors" were recruited out of the general populace and reserves -- and could be returned to the reserves if they proved incompetent. If they misbehaved, they could be sent to the active Army instead. They did not count as soldiers while serving with the "gangs", "sections", and "forces".
They may easily have been black men serving as musicians or cooks from 1861 on; Confederate law specifically allowed for it, but no one knows how many, and many black slaves who accompanied their masters fullfilled those functions without ever being enlisted as soldiers. It was illegal for any black to serve in any other capacity called a soldier until 1865. As shown above, the Confederates themselves jumped through hoops to avoid calling them soldiers, and also to avoid using military terms for them, their organizations, and the white men in charge of them.
So if the question is whether or not there were black men accompanying Confederate armies and performing tasks, the answer is yes, absolutely. If the question is whether or not those same black men were "soldiers" under the Confederate law, the answer is almost universally no.
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.
I saw this post yesterday but wasn't sure of its purpose, since it wsa just a bunch of names and such. Now that others have commented first I might understand what Batallion was getting at. Neo Confederates are always trying to put forth that since slaves and blacks did serve for the confederacy the war couldn't possibly have been fought over the slavery question... "Look how this black man loved us and fought for us!" Well.. maybe HE did.. but maybe he wasn't working day in day out in a cotton field in 100 degree weather harvesting a crop that he will never get any returns on.
The other popular tactic I have seen is showing that since the north had slaves also, that they weren't entirely pure and just as culpable as the southerners for keeping slaves. The north had slaves for a time, true. But they owned up to it. You don't see them hiding behind a couple black guys that were free at the time. Maybe the south just needs to man up to it instead of trying to justify what was done by hiding behind testimonies of a VERY small percentage of southern blacks of the time. There were 3.9 million slaves at the outbreak of the war. You gave testimonies from about 10.... now lets hear from the other 3, 999, 990.
This was more an act of desperation than any feelings of equality between the southerners and the blacks. They needed an army and they needed it fast. Obviously even this last act of desperation wasn't enough to save the glorious south in the end.
__________________ "In mortal combat, a man may and will become so infuriated by the din and dangers of a bloody fight that his heart will turn to stone and his every de sire [be] for blood."
John Hadley, 7th Indiana after the battle at Port Republic
Why would the Confederate Secretary of State write such a letter, so late in the war, if it were already so?
CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, WAR DEPARTMENT,
Richmond, Va., December 30, 1864.
Maj. Gen. HOWELL COBB:
"...Soldiers are our greatest necessity. What is your opinion as to the practicability and policy of employing negroes as soldiers;...
James Seddon, [Confederate] Secretary of War
HDQRS. GEORGIA RESERVES AND MIL. DIST. OF GEORGIA,
Macon, Ga., January 8, 1865.
Hon. JAMES A. SEDDON,
Secretary of War, Richmond, Va.:
"...I think that the proposition to make soldiers of our
slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the
war began..."
"...You cannot make soldiers of slaves, nor slaves of soldiers. The moment you resort to negro soldiers your white soldiers will be lost to you;...
"...The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong—but they won’t make soldiers."
Yes. The list was of POWs. But does that make them soldiers? Perhaps, but consider you're a Yankee (choke it down and pretend) Captain ... at the end of a battle, you've surrounded and received the surrender of a clutch of Confederates with a few intermingled blacks. What do you do? Question them intensively as to their involvement and motivations for being there? Or do you just pool them with all the rest to be entrained for prison camps?
Why didn't the camps turn them loose? They were run (badly, I might add) by the Army, is any more explanation required?
The majority of Battalion's list is unfortunate souls probably snapped up under such circumstances. Then, again, they might well have been carrying muskets when they were captured -- servant, musician or bystander, they were certainly caught up in the chaos of clashing armies.
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
You see similar examples in many conflicts of individuals who you would think should be fighting for the other side are fighting for the 'wrong' side. WWI and WWII are great examples, Germans fighting for France in the French Foreign Legion; French soldiers fighting for the Waffen SS in WWII. From my readings, its still pretty clear that an overwhelming majority of African Americans support the Union.
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