The Problems With "Black Confederates"

Joined
Nov 26, 2010
Location
Arlington, Virginia
Several problems confront us whenever the discussion turns to "black Confederates."

First, the designation "black Confederates." I can understand why today's rebel romanticizers want to avoid "black rebels" because then we'd automatically think of men like Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, which seems a direction they'd rather not go in. But since the ratio of enslaved to free African Americans in rebel states ran about 14 to 1, the odds of any black in gray truly volunteering to be there would seem fairly slim. You might call them "Confederates" only if you consider Sally Hemmings a "mistress" and ignore the entire issue of consent.

Second, advocates of the phenomenon employ a range of variously sloppy or disingenuous takes on the historical method, e.g.,
  • Cite Frederick Douglass's statement that the CS army at Bull Run had two regiments of African Americans but shy from going to the order of battle and telling us which of those two PACS regiments consisted of black men.

  • Conversely, argue that the Confederate ranks were integrated. This ignores the absence of rebel officers or men mentioning African Americans fighting side by side with them in any contemporary letters or journal entries. It also shows ignorance of the existence of the column for "complexion" on Descriptive Lists, where USCT records show such descriptors as "black," "brown," "copper," "yellow," light and dark "grief" (i.e., griffe), etc. When you find a "copper" Confederate, by all means let us know.

  • Similarly, cite U.S. officers' reports of "negro sharpshooters" and the famous Harper's illustration without considering the absence of any corroboration from the side on which these apocryphal soldiers supposedly served, or the obvious, pro-US recruitment theme (see Douglass above).

  • Further, ignore Fremantle's description of the ANV in 1863, his explicit description of the African Americans he saw there as slave cooks and servants, and his explicit statement that southern whites would only consider arming slaves as a last resort.

  • Also ignore Cleburne's plea to arm slaves, as well as Lee's appeal to Davis in September '64 for more slaves to take the place of all the white men in noncombatant roles in the ANV (roles by then almost exclusively filled by "contrabands" in the AOP), as well as the entire discussion of enlisting African Americans in early 1865 -- perhaps because none of that would make sense if blacks already filled combat roles in the Confederate army.

  • Seriously -- they want us to believe that Lee, Cleburne, and Fremantle knew less about the composition of the Confederate army than they do.

  • Another favorite "black Confederate" myth involves Forrest's "body guard," composed of personal slaves he brought along to war. Sometimes people even quote his testimony to Congress after the war about them making good "Confederates" -- but they leave out the part where he says "they drove my teams."

One could go on, but the point seems pretty clear. Some people may indeed reject the idea of "black Confederates" for ideological or emotional reasons, but most historians, professional and amateur alike, reject it based on the sloppiness, illogic, and absurdity of the arguments made on its behalf.

Why should people care?

Because all the time we spend arguing about whether "black Confederates" constitute a complete myth or simply represent some trace smattering of color in an army otherwise entirely white and dedicated to the preservation and extension of slavery, we overlook the real story of African Americans in the civil war: hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children who left their homes for the United States flag, filled the army's noncombatant ranks to the tune of 150-200,000 men and boys, put 200,000 men in arms, and as civilians worked for its victory in every job they could get.

For a people almost wholly held in one of the worst forms of chattel slavery on the planet at the beginning of the war, that work of agency, self-emancipation, hard labor, and courage stands as one of the great accomplishments of any people in world history. We should all take pride in it, instead of trying to bury it in specious arguments over how many of those who remained in chains showed some flicker of "loyalty" to their enslavers.
 
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