The Myth of Black Confederates

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The Myth of Black Confederates
LAS professor rejects myth that blacks fought for rebels in large numbers.

Black laborers mount a cannon for the attack on Ft. Sumter, 1861. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

Patrick R. Cleburne, a prominent general in the Confederate Army of Tennessee, could see what was happening in the South in late 1863. Southern troops were outnumbered, soldiers were demoralized, and the institution of slavery was collapsing. So on January 2, 1864, Cleburne rode through a sleet-driven night in northern Georgia to present an audacious proposal to nearly a dozen Confederate generals.

He proposed that the Confederate States of America offer freedom to military age male slaves who were willing to fight for the South.

“Most of the generals denounced him,” says Bruce Levine, University of Illinois history professor and author of Confederate Emancipation and The Fall of the House of Dixie.

Cleburne’s proposal was overwhelmingly rejected, for secessionist states were not about to undermine the system of slavery that they were fighting to defend. But despite this clear disdain for the idea of arming African Americans, Levine says that over the past 30 years there has arisen a myth that black soldiers did fight for the Confederacy in massive numbers—tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands, according to some accounts propagated online.

More: http://www.las.illinois.edu/news/2013/confederates/#.VHqsbrp7nuw.facebook
 
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