Civil War History - The South & Western TheatersCheck this forum for all South and Western Theater Questions. Included are the Western, Pacific, Trans-Mississippi, & Lower Seaboard and Gulf Approach Theaters.
Yes I have, and zero info on the subject there as well. I have yet to see a single piece of legislation to that effect in any southern state or the confederacy.
And there is no logic to make one suspect such ever existed. The wealthy slaves owners, who had political clout, would never have let that one slip by the boards. Remember also that the Confederate legislature was a short-lived rascal at best. Too many yankee bullets. The Confederates who fought, black and white, were fighting for their own reasons. Nothing more.
I think the overall idea of arming the black residents of the South, free or slave, was one mainly on the negative side, in fact both by custom and law, not only in the social and legal areas, but in the mind of most Southerners.
This was shown at the national level, as evidenced in the first site and the actions of the Confederate government, but also at the State and local level in the Southern States, as shown by the idea that gun ownership was denied, or at the very least, not an automatic given.
Sincerely,
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
Strange how that site only focuses on Southern states...
...as the site itself is not about the Civil War, Black Confederates, etc...
...but about race-based gun control.
Somehow they managed to miss this one- Article V. Sec. 1. of the Constitution of the State of Illinois said that all free male able bodied persons except Negroes, Mulattoes and Indians, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five were allowed to fight in the militia.
Battalion: initial gun control laws in the New World was race based. It was designed to prevent the slaves from arming themselves and rising against their masters.
Strange how one can keep missing the point and wander off the main theme.
Again, no one denies that free blacks and former slaves in the North, were not the subject of discrimination, segregation, unfair acts, racial hatred, etc. Historical, documented, fact. Undeniable.
But to claim it was somehow normal for the South to freely arm slaves, encourage free blacks and former slaves to join the ranks of the Confederate army and serve with no consequences, social or moral, and get their freedom at the end of such service is a denial of that same history. It not only flies in the face of history, it also asks the viewer of history to abandon common sense in the face of 200 years of social behavior that the South had practiced faithfully up until things got so desperate in early 1865.
Of course the denial of the right to bear arms was race-based. That was the entire point of the post.
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
It is clearly missing the point to ignore the irrefutable historical evidence that black men did enlist in the Confederate forces, no matter what legislation had or had not been passed. These men have service records and they are available in the public depositories. As I have noted before, the issue was discussed in a scholarly fashion, and should have been settled for those who will read the sources, ten years ago. Read "Black Confederates" or "Afro-Confederates" or watch the Black Confederate video by Stan Armstrong.
The point that these men enlisted for their own reasons is compelling, just as is the fact that some slaves chose to remain with their owners until the war was over. The new book on the retreat from Gettysburg (see the book review section of this forum) points out that free black people volunteered to serve in hospitals established to receive the Confederate wounded as they came back to Virginia.
There is a strong desire to make the CW one of America's "good wars" but the facts are always more complicated than simple interpretations wish them to be.
Again, I respectfully submit, no one can deny, nor should they miss the point, that there were free blacks and slaves that served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. As you have stated, the historical evidence is irrefutable.
Nor can anyone deny that blacks have served in every war in American history. Again the historical evidence is irrefutable and the service records you mention are part of that proof. As far as I can tell from previous posts, no one is denying this proven point.
I myself have enjoyed this thread as it has facilitated an interesting debate on the subject of black Confederate soldiers, their service and their impact on the Civil War and provided a context in the history of that service. The sources you mention in your post are not unfamiliar to me but I question the view that the subject was 'settled' ten years ago. From what my reading and research have shown me, the subject of blacks serving in the Confederate army was not even 'settled' by the South during those desperate days of late 1864 and early 1865, in spite of the proven fact that there already were blacks serving in the ranks of some Confederate combat units. So I myself do not find it surprising that the subject is not fully settled 140 years after it first came up to those Southerners of long ago.
I agree that the reasons that the slaves and free men joined the Confederate army are compelling, just as the fact that slaves stayed in the South during and after the war. It is also admirable that slaves served in the hospitals treating Confederate wounded after the battle of Gettysburg.
All of these points are conceded by myself, and to a degree, by others on this board. These facts and incidents are not the source of my discontent when I debate with you and others on this board on this subject. My discontent comes with the conclusions you draw from the same established, historical, irrefutable facts concerning the overall context in which blacks serving in the Confederate army came into being. My discontent comes from even with historical, irrefutable facts concerning the conditions of service free blacks and slaves were for their joining the Confederacy in her struggle or what the actual feelings of the majority of the Confederate government and citizens were of the time, this can be swept away or ignored.
In effect, it is my own opinion, the narrow historical range of the black Confederate soldier's service, can be spotlighted in a harsh glare of modern-day political agenda, and the rest of the unpleasant, annoying historical context and background can fade into the unlighted darkness.
I'm sorry, RebProf, that I can walk with you down this section of irrefutable, historical, documented history, even fully agree with the facts as you and others have presented here, but then I have to part ways. And indeed, it has been an informative journey, one that I have appreciated and enjoyed.
But I want all the lights turned on and nothing left unexposed or left out. It would be too easy to stumble or lose one's historical way if we didn't examine all the historical facts in their proper context.
And there is no such thing as a 'good war.' War is a failure of human beings foregoing kindness, understanding, compassion, and humanity itself, in order to exchange those things for murder, hatred, death and destruction. The Civil War was a tragedy, nothing more.
Sincerely,
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 posted a version of this in another area but the same is true here.
There is a book out that is from South Carolina which discribes pensions issued to Blacks in service to the Confederacy. Interesting point is that among the hundreds of blacks listed, there were several listed as soldiers. Privates to be exact.
1925-1928 time period, many applied for pensions and whether laborer or soldier, they were granted pensions of approx $25. Per month.
__________________ A cat can have kittens in the oven...but dat don't make-um biskets
On 3/15 UnionBlue (#144) spoke of a "modern political agenda" which informs the discussion of Black men and women who supported the Confederacy. I must confess amazement that UnionBlue, and others, have discerned such an agenda--I think they have invented the agenda. I have discussed historical facts with no agenda other than a pursuit of the truth that the past is much more complex and messy than often presented. Black men and women did, on occasion, willingly serve the Confederacy; they were, on occasion, forced to serve the Union. That is not an agenda, it is a fact.
There is an agenda which some on this list need to confront, and admit to furthering. The War produced a civic religion as the North interpreted its cause and actions in the post-war years. That muddled thinking has produced a sacralization of the modern American state and has created a class of secular saints to be the icons of this civic religion. That civic religion includes a belief in America's messianic destiny as enunciated in Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.
In a NeoAbolitionist effort to make the Civil War one of America's "good wars" a state of denial has been reached which claims that no person of virtue, especially no black person, could possibly have supported the Confederacy. This both demonizes those of all races who did support the South and ignores the facts of history. This also allows one to ignore the fact thatthe conduct of the war was a remorseless, deliberate, purposeful destruction of the South, which rose to the level of war crimes at times, and the adoption of policies to make permanent the condition of an "internal colony" for the ex-Confederate states. Such acts and purposes place the Union actions outside the limits of a "just war."
To suggest that those who present other points of view are "twisting facts" (a charge which has been leveled more than once on this list against those who argue from a Southern perspective) or that they are pursuing some political agenda is to adopt one's own agenda and to ignore the complexity of the past. The Civil War cannot be understood if one desires to stand on a self-congratulatory hill and point fingers at those in a valley of misrepresentations. An understanding of the War can be pursued only by abandoning the baggage of one's own agenda and confronting the reality of a complex, often contridictory, past.
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