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.
I sense some confusion here besides my own. Black, white and pink soldiers who were soldiers, should be honored for their service, nothing more or less. Politics to an 18 year old kid in 1861 was an alien being. GG Grandpa Cockerham was a farrier for the 10th TN Cav US. Tell his ghost he wasn't a soldier, but be ready to duck.
Battalion,
While my father, who served in the Korean War, compared his draftboard to the Mafia hitmen("no what matter what, they were going to get you"), I don't think he was a slave during his time in the service. I don't think you think that either.
Dang it, Neil has already posted on this topic. Sorry for the pile on.
Dear RebProf,
Let's look at the categories of men you might find in an military camp.
1. Soldiers. Armed, uniformed, paid, swore into service, enrolled in parent units. These might include those men, like Engineers who seldom fought by shooting at the enemy, but often were in posts of danger. They might include infantrymen detailed to other duties.
2. Civilians, like teamsters, hired by the army, generally not armed, and only accidently exposed to enemy fire. A modern equivalent would be the workers for Haliburton in Iraq today, performing services like laundry and food preparation for the military.
In the Union Army, fugitive slaves or other freedmen would be employed as manual laborers for a set rate of 10 dollars a month.
3. Slaves. Unpaid, not armed, not swore into service. Present involuntarily. Performing not combat tasks like personal servants to officers, or manual labor.
The North employed black men in all three of those categories. Category three(slaves) was always going to be a small one, given the relatively small number of slaves available from the loyal slave states. After the EP, various state emancipation laws and the 13th Amendment, this category disappeared from the Union Army.
Since the EP did not apply to slaves in "loyal" states- Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, Tennessee, parts of Virginia and Louisiana...
...-the slaves...were still slaves.
What documentation (law, proclamation, etc) do you have that they were not used by the Federal or state governments or military after the EP?
Quote:
Originally Posted by mm
In the South, black men were employed in category 2 and 3. While extraordinary circumstances would find a few black men with weapons,
this service was not paid or recognized by the CSA.
Cooks, white or black, free or slave, were enlisted and on the muster rolls in the Confederate army. How do you categorize them?
Quote:
Originally Posted by mm
On Boston Common, across from the State House, there is a wonderful monument to Col. Shaw and the 54th, constructed in the 19th century. Where is the monument, before the present generation to the phantom legion of black soldiers serving the CSA?
Blacks served within Confederate regiments. There were no sizable number of all-black units in the South.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mm
Confedeate Howell Cobb achieved dubious fame by blustering that if black men made good soldiers, that the whole system of slavery was wrong.
Why is the statement of Howell Cobb so important?
What station of importance did Cobb have when he said this?
(organizing Georgia reserves...if you didn't know)
Does Cobb represent the entire South?
What opinion did Davis (President), Lee (CIC), and Benjamin (Sec.State) have on the subject?
I have posted earlier documentation, complete with official referrence ID, to the United States Provost Marshal records showing that the United States government forced black men and women to do labor without pay until the end of the war. Those same records show that many black Union soldiers were slaves enlisted by their pro-Union masters who received the enlistment bounty for bringing in their slaves. I have cited the official report of Gen. Alpheus Williams, AoP, saying "forced enlistments (of black men) was ruining the army.
The devil is in the details and it is often the trivial details that expose the truth of matters.--Steele
Indeed, the devil is in the details. Such a detail is your misleading statement that the C.S. only used slaves for military labor and did not have pioneer units. That deserves equal outrage.
Equally misleading and false is the contention that no black men willingly bore arms or did service for the South. There were easily enough black combat soldiers to carry all those muskets you have listed.
Attention to details and moral outrage should cut in all ways.
The devil is in the details and it is often the trivial details that expose the truth of matters.--Steele
Indeed, the devil is in the details. Such a detail is your misleading statement that the C.S. only used slaves for military labor and did not have pioneer units. That deserves equal outrage. It would deserve outrage if it were true. Slaves were used for far more than military labor. CS had Pioneers interspaced among their regiments, there was no CS equivelant to the AoC Pioneer Brigade. Slave labor by and far did most of the duty for the CS that was accomplished by Pioneers and engineer troops in the Union Army.
Equally misleading and false is the contention that no black men willingly bore arms or did service for the South. There were easily enough black combat soldiers to carry all those muskets you have listed. It would be misleading if I had ever said that. 1300 is my number and I'm willing to accept 13,000 though I consider that extremely high. How many regiments did I list? Do the math, I don't believe the CS ever armed that many black men.
Attention to details and moral outrage should cut in all ways.
All to true; it does. I am morally outraged by several things; the bogus idea that tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Black men fought to remain in slavery being one... especially when the "proof" of such numbers I have seen is nothing short of contrived. Did small numbrs of freemen in the South fight for the CS? Absolutely; I have never said otherwise. Are their number grossly inflated by the Lost Cause? Absolutely.
Is it your contention that 180,000 USCT troops were forcibly conscripted into the Union Army? That seems to be your implication. Well, if so they gave superb service and were paid by the US Govt. Did some slaveowners get bounties that should have gone to the man they enlisted? Probably, and yet another nail in the coffin of the idea that slavery was a noble institution.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
Dear Battalion,
I read your response to my post with interest. A few thoughts.
"The Emancipation Proclaimation didn't apply to "loyal" states..."
Which is why I continued the sentence to include the various state emancipation efforts and the 13th Amendment. This comment about the EP is often made by those trying to minimize the Union's commitment to end slavery. The EP was obviously a mortal wound to American slavery, despite its limitations. And in fact it was the beginning of the end for slavery in this country.
Cooks I would categorize as cooks. If slaves, they were slaves, if free they were noncombatants. If black they were in the role the Confederacy was most comfortable with: blacks serving whites.
My point about the 54th Monument is that it celebrates black men fighting for their freedom. Society, and the state, recognize and honor these men, in a public way, during their lifetimes. What the equivalent recognition of the contribution of the supposed hordes of black confederates, in their lifetimes? And what exactly would such a monument celebrate?
Howell Cobb's statement reflects the racism which was the belief basic to slavery: black men were inferior to whites, especially in the primal contest of battle. Variations of this statement, denigrating the courage of blacks and their effectiveness as soldiers were made by those who wished to keep blacks in an inferior position. Unfortunately black troops in the Union army faced a great deal of this nonsense as well.
As far as Confederate generals such as Cleburne, and later Lee who argued that blacks would make "good soldiers." this didn't translate into significant results.
I can't help but think that using the slaves required to help the CS army to burnish the reputation of the CSA is a grave distortion of history. Also a distortion are assertions that black troops who fought for the Union, and the end of slavery, were helpless victims dragooned into service.
On one hand, actual slaves become soldiers, while actual soldiers are turned into slaves
Dear Rebprof,
I am sure there were a myraid of abuses of black people by Northerners, since many white Northerners were very racist. Yet in numbers, and duration, how insignificant they seem next to the millions held in the permanent bondage of slavery.
American slavery lasted for over two centuries, and involved millions of people as slaves, slaveowners and those who served the slave system indirectly. Taking this entrenched institution apart was sometimes as ugly business. But I think everyone here, however much we may disagree on other issues, are glad it was done.
"glad it was done" is one of your better statements. Keep reading about the common Confederate soldier. You aren't there quite yet, at least from my perspective. Give the Southern society, (yes, there was one) a little more credit. Not all was slavery. Still ain't.
I hope to continue to learn about a lot of things, including Southern society and the soldiers and officers of the CSA.
IMO, I think R.E.Lee was one of the most admirable characters of the period: a man able to evoke the best in others.
The fact is......
........they did serve by the thousands.I believe your own estimate is 2500-5000 saw combat... do you happen to know what percentage of CS forces that would have been? In comparison to the USCT...
So how is it a "distortion" of history?......When it actually happened....... When it is exagerated to the point of being ridiculous. And the role of the USCT is purposefully denigrated or downplayed.
No doubt...it's a distortion of the Northern war-time (propaganda) version of history.Both sides were quite adept at the use of propoganda... still are actually.
The Northern version on the subject is basically-
......."slaves flocked to join the Federal army to fight for freedom" 180,000 served honorably... despite what some would like to believe.
Well, if you have this massaged into your brain since you were born.....you'll probably believe it.... Actually, a couple of years ago I would have agreed w/ you; then I started doing my own research and learned to question the Lost Cause and its crusade to corrupt history.
....but the record indicates that many of the "volunteers" were coerced to serve.How many? And does that make their service any less important?
I note how you mention Northern Propaganda; do you think southern propoganda was/is any less biased?
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
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