Trivia 11-8-18

[JOHN42768]

65,000 blacks that toiled in the Southern army as cooks, stable hands and servants,
Source: https://militaryhistorynow.com/2012...-african-americans-fight-for-the-confederacy/

 

[TomV71]

Figures vary from as low as 4500 to as high as 10.000. Most of them slaves.

I Corps Chief of Artillery, Col. Edward Porter Alexander wrote that 6000 slaves had accompanied Lee's army into Pennsylvania, so close to or a little over 6000 is probably closest to the correct number.

https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/viewFile/59453/59176
https://www.ourstate.com/gettysburg/

 

[luinrina]

After spending an evening looking for the answer but not having any luck in unearthing concrete numbers, I - hopefully - finally found them on this forum:

Approx. between 3,500 and 4,000 African-Americans, free and enslaved, toiled for the ANV during the Gettysburg campaign.

Sources: @Tom Elmore in https://civilwartalk.com/threads/li...erate-army-at-gettysburg.149419/#post-1884120 - he having researched this for a good 30 years (almost as long as I am old )

Also, during my search I came upon this site: http://www.scv.org/new/contributed-works/black-confederates/ #4 says that during the Maryland Campaign, Dr. Lewis Steiner, Chief Inspector of the United States Sanitary Commission, observed more than 3,000 African-Americans during Stonewall Jackson's occupation of Frederick. It sounds plausible to me that if there are more than 3,000 African-Americans at Frederick in 1862 with the Army of Northern Virginia, then Tom Elmore can't be far off with his estimate of approx. 3,500 to 4,000 African-Americans having been with the ANV during the Gettysburg Campaign.

 

[Copperhead-mi]

I have found sources all over the place that lists 5,000, 10,000 and everything in between up to 30,000 slaves accompanied the Confederate Army to Gettysburg but I believe that I'm going to go with a thread here on CWT discussing Historian Tom Elmore's article in the January 2016 issue of Gettysburg Magazine which states that about 5,000 slaves were brought by the Confederate Army to Gettysburg based on Freemantle's statement that 20 to 3o slaves followed each Confederate Regiment.
Source - CWT - Southern Slaves at Gettysburg

 

[hoosier]

I'm going to take another guess and say 1,318.

 

[lelliott19]

In Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign, (Univ of North Carolina Press, 2005) Kent Masterson Brown estimates 6,000 to 10,000 African-Americans with the Army of Northern Virginia, based on Freemantle's and Smith's accounts. https://books.google.com/books?id=c...000 slaves laboring for Lee's troops"&f=false
https://books.google.com/books?id=c...to 10,000 African Americans attached"&f=false

@Tom Elmore ,in his article, "Revelations of a Confederate Artillery Staff Officer" in Gettysburg Magazine (January 2016), places the number at approximately 5,000, also based in part on Lt. Col. Arthur Freemantle's statement that 20 to 30 slaves accompanied each Confederate regiment. Based on his extensive research indicating that enslaved and free African Americans accompanying the Confederate Army comprised about 4.6% of the total, Tom has recently (Aug 2018), on this Forum, revised his estimate to 3,500-4,000. https://civilwartalk.com/threads/li...th-the-confederate-army-at-gettysburg.149419/

Since the question states that "the source gives a wide range," Ill go with Kent Masterson Brown's 6,000 to 10,000 estimate as my "official answer." However, it should be noted that, being familiar with Tom Elmore's research methods, I believe his estimates are probably more accurate.

 

[Caesar's Ghost]

10,000-20,000 James M. Paradis African Americans and the Gettysburg Campaign

I think one of these is the proper footnote leaning toward Jordan

 

[connecticut yankee]

Great question. There is a ton of focus in books, the web, etc. on the 500 or so African Americans, free and slave, that were "captured" by the ANV and sent back to Richmond that often forgotten are the southern African Americans who made the march to Gettysburg in support roles to the Confederate army.

"Not all African Americans at Gettysburg were northerners, of course. In the wake of the battle, 64 black laborers who had been traveling with rebel forces were captured by the Union. These are believed to have been among some 10,000 to 30,000 enslaved blacks performing contract work for the benefit of their white owners during the Gettysburg campaign. These 64 were taken to Baltimore's Fort McHenry, famous as the birthplace of the National Anthem, and eventually, those who would pledge allegiance to the Union were freed."


Source: http://www.tracingcenter.org/blog/2013/07/what-to-the-slave-was-the-battle-of-gettysburg/

 

[Stony]

In 1863, more than 6,000 accompanied the 71,000 soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania.
source-https://www.virginiahistory.org/col...erican-turning-point-civil-war-virginia-1/how

 

[MaryDee]

I had trouble finding online source that gives numbers. My searches about African-Americans/blacks attached to the ANV at G'burg come up with varying numbers of free Pennsylvania African-Americans seized and sent back to the South to be sold into slavery, but they do not appear to be included in the question, since they weren't used to help the ANV during the Gettysburg campaign.

One quote I found: "Thousands of slaves served in support roles for the Army of Northern Virginia, and as Lee's army marched north into Pennsylvania, they seized as many as 500 African-Americans—some former slaves, some free their entire lives—and brought them back to Virginia to be sold into slavery." So those 500 were not working for the ANV during the invasion, and theres no mention of how many of the "thousands" went north with the ANV. https://www.history.com/news/7-things-you-should-know-about-the-battle-of-gettysburg

I suspected that this book by Eed Bearss and James Paradis might have the answer: https://www.worldcat.org/title/african-americans-and-the-gettysburg-campaign/oclc/56214106, but it is a recent book (2005) so is not available online. However, the amazon.com description says it's about Gettysburg citizens, who of course were not "toiling" for the ANV. This review of the book https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2013/06/gettysburg_african-americans_role_union_confederacy.html mentions "black Confederates" serving the ANV as teamsters during the invasion, but mentions no numbers.

I don't know if this is the source to which the question author referred, but I finally found this post on CWT: https://civilwartalk.com/threads/li...th-the-confederate-army-at-gettysburg.149419/ This is probably as good as we are going to get:

"As of August 2018, from primary sources collected or reviewed over the past 30 years, I have confirmed the presence of 72 slaves who accompanied the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the Gettysburg campaign. I also show four who were probably present, for a grand total of 76. Four others who were present were identified as free-born. All are listed below, with the name of their owner or unit to which they were attached, duties (if described), and fate (if known). I have not included the names of 33 others who were possibly present.

"I estimate slaves and freemen together comprised 4.6 percent of the Confederate army's strength at Gettysburg, although they are not included in the tally of 80,025 in the army (figure from Busey and Busey, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg). It would mean that between 3,500 and 4,000 blacks were brought to the vicinity of Gettysburg with the Confederate army, with about 95 percent of them being slaves." [emphasis mine]

So we have 72 or 76 or 80 or 113 confirmed. Two other posters on that thread added 6 more, so that makes a possible 119 confirmed. However, the original poster in his second paragraph estimates a total "between 3,500 and 4,000," so I'll go with that.

 

[sarladaise]

According to the book by James M. Paradis
"African Americans and the Gettysburg Campaign" - page 23
Ten thousand black teamsters
Ten thousand in other activities

 

[Schwallanscher]

12,000 - 20,000 but that's just a wild guess as the question doesn't specify 'toiling for the anv' - in my book that includes anyone from a personal slave to a supply train - i tried for hours to get into this question but

The source gives a wide range; correct answers will be within that range.

sounds like there is is only one source (and a vague one ant that) and we are expected to guess

 

[ami]

Oops. Sorry, I was in a hurry today to get to my Rituxan infusion.

Answer: 6,000 to 10,000

source: William Chamberlaine, Memoirs of the Civil War

Edit - There are a great many sources giving a wide variety of estimates for the number of African-Americans who may have "toiled" for the Army of Northern Virginia during the Gettysburg Campaign. The Encyclopedia Virginia indicates that William Chamberlaine was an officer in the Confederate Third Corps and that he was engaged at Gettysburg, but I can't find any indication that he was in such a position of authority that his estimate should be considered more reliable than any of the others.

Since I can't identify a good answer for this question, I'm not going to count it in the scoring.

hoosier