Confederate Senators - where were they in March 1865?

hoosier

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We had a question on the trivia game asking for the results of the Confederate Senate vote, taken on March 8, 1865, which approved the use of Negroes as soldiers in the Confederate Army.

The result of the vote was 9 in favor and 8 against. One of those who voted against the measure was Senator Johnson of Missouri.

Considering that there were 11 states in the Confederacy and each state was entitled to two senators, it seems as though the total number of votes should have been at least 22. If border states such as Missouri were represented in the Senate, then it seems as though the total should have been even higher.

Does anyone know why so few votes were cast on this issue? Were a number of senators absent from Richmond? Did a number of them, even though present for the vote, choose to abstain? Or is there some other explanation?
 
Here was the composition of the CSA Senate on March 8, 1865:

Richard Wilde Walker (AL)
Albert Galatin Brown (MS)
John William Clark Watson (MS)
Augustus Emmet Maxwell (FL)
Waldo Porter Johnson (MO)
George Graham Vest (MO)
William Alexander Graham (NC)
Herschel Vespasian Johnson (GA)
Robert Woodward Barnwell (SC)
James Lawrence Orr (SC)
Henry Cornelius Burnett (KY)
William Emmett Simms (KY)
Gustavus Adolphus Henry (TN)
Thomas Jenkins Semmes (LA)
Williamson Simpson Oldham (TX)
Louis Trezevant Wigfall (TX)
Allen Taylor Caperton (VA)
Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter (VA)

Some senators terms ended either late in 1864 or earlier in 1865 and they just did not bother to have elections to replace them...
 
Considering that there were 11 states in the Confederacy and each state was entitled to two senators, it seems as though the total number of votes should have been at least 22. If border states such as Missouri were represented in the Senate, then it seems as though the total should have been even higher.

Kentucky and Missouri were represented in the Confederate Senate, meaning that there should have been 26 senators.
 
We had a question on the trivia game asking for the results of the Confederate Senate vote, taken on March 8, 1865, which approved the use of Negroes as soldiers in the Confederate Army.

The result of the vote was 9 in favor and 8 against. One of those who voted against the measure was Senator Johnson of Missouri.

Considering that there were 11 states in the Confederacy and each state was entitled to two senators, it seems as though the total number of votes should have been at least 22. If border states such as Missouri were represented in the Senate, then it seems as though the total should have been even higher.

Does anyone know why so few votes were cast on this issue? Were a number of senators absent from Richmond? Did a number of them, even though present for the vote, choose to abstain? Or is there some other explanation?

This Tennessee Senator was from east Tennessee and probably trying to stay one step ahead of the Union Army.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/f...st=45&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=109559603&df=all&
 
This is long, but it gets into the question about enlistment of African Americans and the opposition it face in the Confederate Congress. Alvy L. King, Louis T. Wigfall, Southern Fire-Eater (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1970):

______

Wigfall was also perturbed at the "desertion" of senators during February, 1865. He opposed granting a request for a leave of absence for Senator Haynes, who had left to find a home for his wife and daughters in a safer part of the state. A week later when Wigfall was temporarily absent along with five other senators, they were declared "absent without leave" and the sergeant-atarms was sent to require their attendance. Later that same day Wigfall was the only one of the six present.

One obvious solution to the shortage of soldiers in the army but one the Confederacy avoided facing for some time-was the military use of Negroes. A fascinating document in the papers of South Carolina's Governor Francis W. Pickens indicates that some Negroes not only faced the issue before the whites, but that they volunteered to fight for the Confederacy! A "Memorial of Free Negroes" dated January 10, 1861, was an eloquent avowal by twenty-three Negroes of their loyalty to their native state: "We are by birth citizens of South Carolina ... in her defense we are willing to offer up our lives and all that is dear to us.... We are willing to be assigned to any service where we can be made usefu1." But in 1863, due to opposition from Wigfall and others, they were still not being used for fighting. In June of that year, a British army officer visiting in the South expressed his belief that Negroes would make good soldiers for the Confederacy
and that they should be used.

Generally the South was not willing to bestow that honor upon a black man. The army almost from the outset used free and slave Negroes for nonmilitary, menial tasks, sometimes hiring them and in emergencies impressing them. But the planters were reluctant. Wigfall and Mary Chesnut both noted that the South Carolina planters cheerfully sent their sons off to war, but that when the slaves were impressed to construct coastal defenses, a howl arose from the owners. Wigfall concluded that the...planter thought a great deal more of his Negroes than of his sons. A great change had come over the planters in two years, he lamented; they had lost their patriotism.

Many Confederate leaders, arguing military necessity, were anxious to resort to a levee en masse of slaves, but they were afraid of the planters. Wigfall favored the use of Negroes for nonmilitary labor but was unequivocally opposed to arming or emancipating them. Among those who agreed with him were General Howell Cobb, Senator R. M. T. Hunter, Congresstmen H. S. Foote and H. C. Chambers, and Governor Brown of Georgia. The crux of their argument was sitpilar to that of Wigfall's: Admission that the Negro was fit to be a soldier was tantamount to admission that he should not be a slave, that he'was not radically inferior as the southern whites had been arguing for almost 250 years. To Wigfall, the Negro was unfit for the army or for freedom, and that was that.

Not even persistent pleading by his friend [General Joseoh] Johnston could persuade Wigfall to change his mind. Johnston, greatly outnumbered by Sherman in Georgia, could see vast merit in promising freedom for long-term Negro conscripts who would perform menial tasks, freeing soldiers for the front. He devised a plan which he said would give him the pluivalent of ten thousand more troops. Pleaded the general,"'Is it not worth trying?" Repeatedly
he as-~Wigfill to attend to the "Negro Scheme." Wigfall remained unalterably opposed. Nevertheless, in February, 1864, a law was enacted which provided for the impressment of twenty thousand slaves [in non-combatant roles].

Encouraged by the results, the generals asked for more. Davis responded, urging Congress to provide forty thousand slaves for long-term service, encouraging their loyalty by promising them emancipation at the end of the war. Although the President stated that the Negroes would not be armed, Wigfall and several other leaders felt that he favored this step. The Texan was adamant, but the tide began to turn in 1865. General Lee, whose opinions by then were virtually omnipotent, announced that he favored enlistment and eventual emancipation of slaves. Most southerners had come to the conclusion that it was their only hope and that it was worth a try.

Wigfall frantically declared that the time had come when it was to be settled "whether this was to be a free negro country, or a free white man's coup:try." For himself, he had "no choice between subjugation and universal emancipation." He would never consent to make a "Santo Domingo of his country." In some of the states, Wigfall pointed out, the slave population was greater than the white -- "What was to become of the whites if the negroes should be emancipated?" It would be better to get the deserted troops back in the army than put Negroes in it, said Wigfall. That could be done, he said, if they had leaders who inspired confidence.

As if in reply, Johnston wrote the next day that he had learned of "no efforts by the administration to bring back soldiers to the ranks, and again he implored Wigfall to pass the Negro bill. The senator remained obdurate, but other legislators were finally persuaded. In the House, Barksdale of Mississippi, and in the Senate, Oldham of Texas, submitted virtually identical bills on February 10. Oldham would provide for 200,000 Negroes to be impressed, while Barksdale would leave the number to the discretion of the President. Both provided for emancipation with the consent of the respective states. Possibly because it was an unpopular subject and possibly because of national interest, most senators preferred to discuss the bill in secret session which Wigfall opposed. He said he believed that if discussion on the subject' were made known to the public, they could arrive at a decision satisfactory to the people. Again Wigfall was convinced that public opinion was with him when it was not. This time, however, he evidently reflected the opinion of most of the Texas delegation in Congress. They and a majority of representatives from North Carolina, Arkansas, and Missouri opposed the Oldham-Barksdale bills. Nevertheless, a compromise version of the two bills passed the house on February 20. All Wigfall and the other opposing senators could do was to slow the process. On February 17, the same day that the Senate Military Committee reported favorably on Oldham's bill, Wigfall secured passage of his own bill authorizing the Secretary of War to negotiate with the governors of each state for slaves for use in nonmilitary labor. But by March 13, the Senate and House had worked out their differences and passed the "200,000 Negro Bill."

It was impossible, it seems, for Wigfall to reconcile himself to emancipation of slaves for any reason, even for the salvation of the Confederacy. He came up with the amazing assertion that "the whole thing was gotten up to divert attention from the movement to bring about a change in the cabinet." The change Wigfall referred to was his attempt to force Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin out of the cabinet. If there was any connection between Benjamin and the Negro Bill, it was probably that the secretary's plan to arm and emancipate the slaves had prompted Wigfall to attempt his removal. It was reputedly at Benjamin's -- suggestion that Davis had made the recommendation in the fall of 1864 which ultimately led to passage of the 200,000 Negro Bill. Evidently it was the plan to emancipate the slaves that led Wigfall to call for the "cabinet reorganization."
 
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