Blacks and the Confederacy

Last July, Anthony Hervey, an outspoken black advocate for the Confederate flag, was killed in a car crash. Arlene Barnum, a surviving passenger in the vehicle, told authorities and the media that they had been forced off the road by a carload of "angry young black men" after Hervey, while wearing his Confederate kepi, stopped at a convenience store en route to his home in Oxford, Mississippi. His death was in no small part caused by the gross level of ignorance, organized deceit and anger about the War of 1861. Much of the ignorance stems from the fact that most Americans believe the war was initiated to free slaves, when in truth, freeing slaves was little more than an afterthought. I want to lay out a few quotations and ask what you make of them.

During the "Civil War," ex-slave Frederick Douglass observed, "There are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels" (Douglass' Monthly, September 1861).

"For more than two years, negroes had been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They had been embodied and drilled as Rebel soldiers, and had paraded with White troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union." (Horace Greeley, in his book, "The American Conflict").

"Over 3,000 negroes must be included in this number (of Confederate troops). These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in rebel ranks. Most of the negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabres, bowie-knives, dirks, etc. They were supplied, in many instances, with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, etc., and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde" (report by Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, chief inspector of the U.S. Sanitary Commission).

In April 1861, a Petersburg, Virginia, newspaper proposed "three cheers for the patriotic free Negroes of Lynchburg" after 70 blacks offered "to act in whatever capacity" had been "assigned to them" in defense of Virginia.

Those are but a few examples of the important role that blacks served as soldiers, freemen and slaves on the side of the Confederacy. The flap over the Confederate flag is not quite so simple as the nation's race "experts" make it. They want us to believe the flag is a symbol of racism. Yes, racists have used the Confederate flag as their symbol, but racists have also marched behind the U.S. flag and have used the Bible. Would anyone suggest banning the U.S. flag from state buildings and references to the Bible?

Black civil rights activists, their white liberal supporters and historically ignorant Americans who attack the Confederate flag have committed a deep, despicable dishonor to our patriotic Southern black ancestors who marched, fought and died not to protect slavery but to protect their homeland from Northern aggression. They don't deserve the dishonor. Dr. Leonard Haynes, a black professor at Southern University, stated, "When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you've eliminated the history of the South."

The commissioners were never formally received by the Lincoln administration. Using intermediaries, they communicated indirectly with Lincoln's secretary of state, William H. Seward. On a number of occasions, Seward gave assurances to the commissioners, via intermediaries, that Sumter would be abandoned.

they were acts of military aggression, rebellion and insurrection against property and officials of the United States government

They people were taking back their delegated rights. Apparently you don't believe in government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

people whose very first principle was their rights to their human "property". As for their respecting other people's physical property, well, not so much.

Perhaps you are not aware that the majority of Southerners did not own slaves. And the majority (even among those who did) were in favor of gradual emancipation, like the North did. They just wanted it to remain a state issue, not a fed gov one.

Back to the Forts again. The states delegated powers to the fed gov, including the power to protect the states from invasion (hence the forts and arms). When the states withdrew this delegated power, the Fed gov now longer had a right to be there.

I see you are still trying to make the Baltimore incident into some kind of Confederate Government action. But anyone with brains can tell that it was a spontaineous action of the residents of that city against people who they perceived as coming to subjugate their sister states.

No, the Confederacy provoked, started, declared and prosecuted war against the United States months and weeks before a single Confederate soldier was killed in battle with any Union force, and before any Union Army invaded a single Confederate state.

They were doing a terrible job then, since they managed to not kill anybody.

jmacusa: " The Confederates here always say the slavery was a dying institution, etc.
If the South had won the war would thay have ended slavery or would the coming industrialization ended it de facto?"

First, remember there was no one "South", but at least three quite different "Souths":

Border States: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky & Missouri.
Yes, in all four Border States you could easily argue that slavery was dying out naturally, and might well be abolished entirely within the lifetimes of those living in 1860.
Some reasons for it are obvious, others not so much:
- From Border States it was a relatively short run to freedom in the North, and this forced many slave-holders to promise their slaves eventual lawful freedom in exchange for loyal service.
  So the numbers of freed slaves were growing rapidly.
- Many thousands of Northern anti-slavery settlers moved to Border States because, among other reasons, land was relatively cheap.
- A not so obvious reason: slavery was so amazingly profitable, and slave prices so high in the Deep South that many slave-holders in Border States sold their captives "down the river" to make ends meet.
Upper South: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee & Arkansas.
These states all opposed secession at first in 1861, only changing votes after Fort Sumter.
One reason is all four Upper South states had large anti-slavery and anti-Confederate, pro-Union regions.
Western Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina and Northern Arkansas were all hotbeds of Unionism throughout the Civil War.
But in the Upper South slavery was powerfully entrenched in the majority or regions, and controlled their governments.
The map below will explain much.
Deep South: the original Confederacy -- South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana & Texas.
In these states nearly half their populations were slaves, and nearly half of white families owned slaves.
And because of cotton especially, slavery had been amazingly profitable for the past 20 years, and just a bit less so for many decades before.
So slave high prices and demands for slaves in the Deep South were emptying Border and Upper South states of their black populations.

Absent Civil War, how long might that have continued?
Well, what would have stopped it? Nothing I can think of.

Oh, people say, but mechanization would have eliminated the need for slaves.
No, no, no, FRiends, mechanization would have eliminated the need for poor white trash, not slaves!
Even by 1860 slaves had well demonstrated they could both operate and help build any contraptions that white engineers might devise.
So slaves would always be needed, because slaves worked!
It was useless white people who would have no place in the future's "brave new world".

Of course, historically now things turned out quite different, with huge numbers of all races living off the government dole... but your question was slavery's potential future, and so that's your answer, FRiend.

The Cotton Kingdom in 1860, total production was 4 million bales worth $191 million, a huge sum for the time:

[HandyDandy]: Earlier I had corrected the misinformation that you spread when you said that the puritans "burned" witches.

[DiogenesLamp]: Must have missed it. Yeah, we know they hung them and drowned them and what not, but people generally think of "burning witches" when they think of "witch trials." The main point is that their "Holier than thou" attitude is real, and they used to kill "witches". Your point is trivial.

Re the "Holier than thou" attitude of Puritans. Here is what Texas Senator Wigfall said in Congress on March 2, 1861:

...then Cromwell had to run them [the Puritans] out of England; and then they went over to Holland, and the Dutch let them alone, but would not let them persecute anybody else; and then they got on that ill-fated ship called the Mayflower and landed on Plymouth Rock. And from that time to this, they have been kicking up a dust generally, and making a mess whenever they could put their fingers in the pie.

They confederated with the other states to save themselves from the power of old King George III; and no sooner than they had gotten rid of him than they turned to persecuting their neighbors. Having got rid of the Indians, and witches, and Baptists, and Quakers in their country; after selling us our negroes for the love of gold, they began stealing them back for the love of God.

That is the history as well as I understand it.

Wigfall was quite a character. Let's check some of his charges.

Indians? The Indian reference refers to things like King Philip's War where the Puritan colonists basically wiped out the Indians in much of New England and made slaves of the ones they captured.

Witches? "During the witchcraft hysteria that swept through Massachusetts in 1692, more than 400 persons underwent the horror of being accused of practicing witchcraft. Of these, nineteen were hanged, and one old man who refused to enter a plea at his trial was pressed to death as the sheriff and his men piled weights on him to force him to do so." [Source: "The Witchcraft Hysteria of 1692" by Leo Bonfanti. 1994, New England Historical Series]

Quakers? The Puritans in Massachusetts banned and hung Quakers. See: [Link]. Also "Quakers were whipped, had their ears shaved off, and their tongues bored through with a hot iron." [Link]

Baptists? The Puritans banned people like Roger Williams and excommunicated Obadiah Holmes for Baptist activity. The political/religious correctness in Massachusetts at the time reached Harvard College (big surprise). The Reverend Mr. Charles Chauncey "was invited to become President of Harvard College, on condition that he abandon, publicly at least, his views on baptism by total immersion." He agreed and replaced Harvard's "first president, Henry Dunster, who had been invited to leave for having embraced Baptist ideas on baptism." [Source: "Plymouth Colony: Its History & People 1620-1691" by Eugene Audrey Stratton. 1986, Ancestry Publishing.]. I remember reading somewhere that a Baptist woman had her hair shaved off by Puritans, and she fled Massachusetts as a result. [I can't find the source of that now.]

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "...the South would likely have abolished it around the time that Brazil did. If the South had won the war... "

That was in 1871, only six years after the USA's bloodiest war, fought to the bitter, bitter end by slave-holding leaders who refused earlier surrender if terms included abolition of slavery.

So I think not.

Consider: Since Robert E. Lee died in 1869, he would certainly have no influence over any such debate in 1871.
But Confederate President Davis lived on until a few days short of 1890, and would certainly have a great & continuing influence.
Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, who delivered the notorious Cornerstone Speech on March 21, 1861 -- he lived on until 1883.

And let's look at the great Southern Fire Eaters:

The dean, Robert Rhett lived until 1876
Louis Wigfall lived until 1874.
Yes, Yancy, Debow, Ruffin, Hindman, Keitt, Barkesdale and Pettis did not live to see 1870.
But Joseph E. Brown lived until 1894.
And William Miles died just a few months short of 1900,
While Virginian Roger Prior lived until 1919 (albeit in New York)

Add to those hundreds of thousands of Confederates veterans who fought & suffered to the end, and had that end been victory, would certainly not wish to give up the very cause -- slavery -- so many others died for.

Finally, it's important to remember that slavery's defeat in the United States had a profound effect on other countries, especially Southern America, such a Brazil.
Had slavery and the Confederacy proved victorious in the 1860s, there's no reason to suppose others would be in any hurry to abolish it.

DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "Mechanization: You totally dissed this one, saying that blacks would be needed to operate the machinery.
Perhaps, but a plantation that once required 100 slaves would now only need 10.
Mechanization on its own would at least cause slavery to shrink."

Possibly, but remember that, for the most part, slaves could fully take care of themselves.
When they were allowed (which was not always) to grow their own crops & livestock, the cost of their upkeep was nearly zero.
So, if it took, for example, 100 slaves to run a small plantation, why ever would the owners invest in expensive machines which would only do the same thing their already paid-for slaves were doing for virtually free?

In a slightly different form, we see this exact thing today -- in places where migrant farm workers are available and cheap, they are used.
Where migrants are not available, farmers sometimes invest in machinery to do the work.

So I'm saying slavery would have delayed the introduction & success of labor-saving machinery.

And one other key term to remember: "filibustering", which in 1860 did not mean speechifying in Congress, but rather referred to adventures young men put together to conquer & rule over Central American countries.
They were generally unsuccessful, but their idea was to make new lands available for white settlers and their black slaves.
They hoped a new Confederacy would provide for, in effect, state-sponsored filibustering.
Such conquests would lead to slavery spreading anew throughout the Americas.

Botton line, my point is: had the Confederacy proved victorious in Civil War, the world afterwards would become a very different place than it, in fact, became.

One pro-Confederate wet-dream on the Confederacy's future "history" conquests:

jmacusa: "You're not a Civil War history professor by chance, are you?"

Thanks, but no, I consider myself a "history buff", meaning I buy & read a lot of history books, but don't write or teach it... except here, of course.
My occupation is "retired" and "self employed" in which I travel a lot -- last week to South Carolina, this week to New York, next week to Kentucky & Indiana, assuming, that is, the fellow I hired to snow-plow my driveway shows up in time... ;-)

jmacusa: "...it should be obvious that preserving slavery, even if it meant war was what the South intended.
Anything less than victory over the North and the preservation of slavery would have been a great betrayal of the thousands who gave their lives..."

An interesting study on this matter is The Hampton Roads Conference in February, 1865.
If you saw the 2012 movie "Lincoln", Hampton Roads is featured there and shows Confederate emissaries refusing to accept freedom for slaves.

But when you look up further historical details, things were not quite so simple.
In actual fact, it was only Confederate President Davis who totally rejected Lincoln's peace terms, and the key item was not so much slavery as reunion with the United States.

But slavery was discussed, to the point where Lincoln offered $400,000,000 to help pay for emancipation.
That too went nowhere.

Bottom line: even very near war's end, when Confederates still could negotiate a much better deal than they got, they utterly refused and fought on a few more months before surrendering unconditionally.

jmacusa: "...and sheer lunacy besides."

Right.

Actually, Brazil abolished slavery in 1888.

Also, you are making the assumption that folks fought to defend slavery. They didn't, because the majority didn't own any slaves. Most were fighting to protect their homes from invasion. And for those who did own slaves, the tension between them and the North over slavery was never regarding the perpetual preservation of slavery. It was always regarding whether the Fed gov or the states (or territories) should have the right to decide the issue of emancipation.

There were also other issues at stake, such as the high tariffs the north was pushing, and the fact that for the first time in history a purely sectional party had been elected, whose interests lay primarily in benefitting their section.

You are definitely right however about Jefferson Davis (among others) being a voice for the gradual abolition of slavery. He once said that once the Confederacy gained its independence, it would mean the end of slavery. The Confederate Cabinet agreed to abolish slavery within five years after the cessation of hostilities in exchange for recognition by Britain and France. Southerners were much more open to the abolition of slavery that one might think. They just wanted to be the ones to do it themselves, and not have it forced on them. This was the way the North had done it years before, but unlike the North, when the time came the South would actually have to free all their slaves, instead of cheating and selling them Southward, like a number of Northerners did.

The idea you propound that mechanization wouldn't have made much of a difference because "why buy a machine when you already have slaves to do your work" is interesting. However, there are several reasons why this is not logical. First of all, it would be a big money saver in the long run because you don't have to feed, clothe, and house machines. They don't get sick and die on you either. Also, they can do more work in a much quicker time, thus giving a farmer an edge and making him more competitive.

DeoVindicesSicSemperTyrannis: "Actually, Brazil abolished slavery in 1888."

Brazil gradually abolished, first the slave trade (1831) then all new slavery (1871), then all remaining slaves over 60, including a Manumissions Fund (1885), then finally any few remaining slaves (1888), with no compensation for owners, but intended financial aid for freed slaves.

If you consider: US secessionists declared separation not over plans to abolish slavery in the South, but rather over Republican promises to prevent slavery's expansion into any western territories which didn't want it, then you can see that slavery in the US was significantly different and more deeply entrenched, especially in the Deep South.

Remember, in 1860 cotton growing had never been more profitable, the Deep South never more prosperous and slave prices never higher.
Certainly so long as that remained, there was no possibility those slave-holders would accept restrictions on their "peculiar institution".

DeoVindicesSicSemperTyrannis: "Also, you are making the assumption that folks fought to defend slavery.
They didn't, because the majority didn't own any slaves.
Most were fighting to protect their homes from invasion."

Remember, no pro-Union poster on these threads has ever said a disparaging word about the courage, resourcefulness, tenacity and, yes, good behavior of the vast majority of Confederate solders, who as you say, cared far less for slavery than they did for defending their homeland.
But Confederate leadership is a very different story.

Consider first, how many slave holding families there were: in seven Deep South original Confederate states, nearly half of families owned slaves, and most of those who didn't aspired to.
But in the four Upper South states it was a different story.
There only 25% (roughly) of families owned slaves, and every Upper South state had large regions of anti-slavery Unionists -- western Virginia, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, northern Arkansas.
That's why those states refused to join the Confederacy before Fort Sumter, and why they all supplied significant numbers of troops to the Union Army.

Moving north -- in the four Border States, slave ownership was still less (typically 15% of families) and there majorities were anti-slavery & pro-Union, which is why they never voted to secede.

Point is: regardless, Confederate leadership was virtually 100% slave-holders, and were primarily motivated by their desires to preserve, protect and defend their "peculiar institution" of slavery, see, for example, this link.
That is the reason they refused, even months before the bitter, bitter end, to make a peace deal with Lincoln which would have freed slaves, even with Lincoln's offer of $400,000,000 in compensation!

DeoVindicesSicSemperTyrannis: "...the tension between them and the North over slavery was never regarding the perpetual preservation of slavery.
It was always regarding whether the Fed gov or the states (or territories) should have the right to decide the issue of emancipation."

Rubbish & propaganda, because 1860 Republicans never threatened slavery in the South.
Instead, the Republican 1860 platform called for free-choice for settlers in western territories, and for citizens in Northern states.
You may remember, the 1857 Dred Scott decision made it virtually impossible for Northern states to outlaw slavery within their own borders.
And pro-Confederate posters on this thread defend Dred Scott as necessarily Constitutional!
So that's what gave rise to the great Republican revolution.

DeoVindicesSicSemperTyrannis: "There were also other issues at stake, such as the high tariffs the north was pushing, and the fact that for the first time in history a purely sectional party had been elected, whose interests lay primarily in benefitting their section."

Tariffs: In 1860 US tariffs were near all-time lows of 15% overall, well below the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations" @35%.
Throughout US history, tariffs had gone up and down, depending on political winds, had sometimes been a major issue, but were clearly "politics as usual".
So there's no reason to suppose a modest tariff increase would lead to declarations of secession.
The 1860 Proposal for a modest increase in tariffs (Morrill) could not pass Congress so long as Democrats remained in power there.
So Morrill only passed after Southern Democrats walked out, in 1861.
That 1860 "sectional party": was mostly just the old Whigs, minus their previous Southern allies.
Former Whig Southerners who favored Union voted for John Bell's Constitutional Union party, which carried Virginia, Kentucky & Tennessee.
It also did well in other regions throughout the South.
So, while Republicans were mostly Northern, Unionist voters could be found in every Southern state
Note here Constitutional Union Party shows up as yellow-orange counties in the South:

DeoVindicesSicSemperTyrannis: "You are definitely right however about Jefferson Davis (among others) being a voice for the gradual abolition of slavery.
He once said that once the Confederacy gained its independence, it would mean the end of slavery."

Sure, after the war, Davis called for peace and reconciliation between South & North, and who knows (?), may even have admitted that abolishing slavery was necessary.
But there are no such statements I know of from before or during the Civil War.
At the time of secession, in early 1861, Deep South secessionists were not in the least bashful about saying slavery was their prime motivation for leaving the Union.

DeoVindicesSicSemperTyrannis: "Southerners were much more open to the abolition of slavery that one might think.
They just wanted to be the ones to do it themselves, and not have it forced on them.
This was the way the North had done it years before, but unlike the North, when the time came the South would actually have to free all their slaves, instead of cheating and selling them Southward, like a number of Northerners did."

From the time of our Founders until the Civil War, there had been many different proposals, ideas, suggestions, etc. to abolish slavery.
Without exception, those pre-war proposals included shipping freed slaves back to Africa, or someplace else, like Cuba.
So one can well imagine that would be the fate of any freed Confederate slaves.

As for any likelihood of the Confederacy freeing its own slaves, that falls into the same category as the North's 1861 desperate attempt to save the Union by making legal slavery a matter of constitutional amendment.
It shows that under duress, some people will say & do anything.

DeoVindicesSicSemperTyrannis: "...it would be a big money saver in the long run because you don't have to feed, clothe, and house machines.
They don't get sick and die on you either."

To repeat: when slave families were allowed to care for themselves, grow their own produce & livestock, etc., then they became virtually cost free.
No machine could be cheaper.
And slave families began working at, say, age 10 until maybe age 50 -- no machine can run that long, certainly not without major repair costs.

And to repeat: the proof of this idea is that even today, when low-cost migrant workers are available, farmers hire them, but when not available, then farmers consider investing in high-cost machinery.
So we can well expect that continued slavery would have delayed & reduced the success of labor-saving farm machinery.

Finally, we should note that unlike machinery, slaves could easily "multi-task", meaning that whenever one opportunity for productive work dried up, they could move as needed and quickly learn another, for example: building machines in factories.

Thanks for pulling that together.

You're welcome. I suspect that we both love history.

I think your one paragraph about quote/unquote Indians is a bit skimpy.

I'm happy to provide some more details. I've been posting about that war off and on for years. The book I cited above, "Plymouth Colony," provides some details of the war that I hadn't see before. (My son just gave me that book for Christmas a month ago.) The book provides the following information that I largely paraphrase or in some cases quote directly:

Three Indians apparently killed another Indian named Sassamon on June 1, 1675. Shortly before this, Sassamon had warned authorities "of a Wampanoag conspiracy to wage a general war." A jury that included colonists and Indians convicted the three, two of whom were then hung. Reports of Indian unrest then followed. Indians looted a colonist's house on June 18 and 19 and on the following day, looted and burned houses near Swansea. "On June 23, a dozen more houses were set on fire."

Also on June 23, an Indian who had been looting houses ran from a house and was shot and killed by a colonist. The next day the Indians retaliated and killed anywhere from 2, 3, or 7 colonists depending on which report is believed. On June 25 a colonist at Fall River was killed by Indians and a number more were killed at Swansea on June 25. On June 30, English troops "found eight more at Mattapoiset, upon whose bodies they [the Indians] exercised more than brutish barbarities, beheading, dismembering, and mangling them..." The English troops took down the heads of eight colonists that had been mounted on poles.

I quote all of the above to offset possible claims that the colonists had started King Philip's War by shooting the Indian that had fled the house above.

The War escalated from there and finally ended with the defeat of the Indians. Not that the colonists were all angels and the Indians all devils. The colonists sold a number of their Indian captives into slavery in the West Indies or placement as servants in colonist homes. Peaceful Indians continued to live in Massachusetts after that. The colonists were particularly brutal to Indians in the Pequot War of 1637 when the colonists surrounded a Pequote village, set it on fire and killed perhaps 400 to 700 Pequots inside the village.

The story of your Scottish ancestor's kidnapping by Indians and later recovery sounded similar to the kidnapping of one of my Texas cousins by Indians in the 1830s or 40s. The Indians later sold my cousin back to his family. By the way, I claim Scottish roots too. My last name is Scottish, and my parental DNA traces back to Scotland. I was also surprised to learn that a very small of my DNA was American Indian. Well, many of the branches of my family moved with the American frontier.

Did this Wigfall fella happen to mention anything about the actual, real live burned-alive "burning of Francis McIntosh? Francis' last words were, "shoot me, please! somebody shoot me, shoot me......"

Not that I know of. Here from Senator Wigfall's speech to the Senate on March 2, 1861 is what he said relating to secession:

"That the people of the North shall consider themselves as more blessed than we, more civilized, and happier, is not a matter at which we would complain at all, if they would only content themselves with believing that to be the fact; but when they come and attempt to propagandize, and insist that we shall be as perfect as they imagine themselves to be, then it is that their good opinion of themselves becomes offensive to us. Let my neighbor believe that his wife is an angel and his children cherubs, I care not, though I may know he is mistaken; but when he comes impertinently poking his nose into my door every morning, and telling me that my wife is a shrew and my children brats, then the neighborhood becomes uncomfortable, and if I cannot remove him, I will remove myself; and if he says to me, "you shall not move, but you shall stay here, and you shall, day after day, hear the demerits of your wife and children discussed," then I begin to feel a little restive, and possibly might assert that great original right of pursuing whatever may conduce to my happiness, though it might be kicking him out of my door. If New England would only be content with the blessings which she imagines she has, we would not disturb her in her happiness."

Wigfall was actually the person who took a small boat over to Fort Sumter during the 1861 bombardment by Confederates and accepted Major Anderson's surrender of the fort. That ended the bombardment.

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