Why America lost the "Civil War"

http://calltodecision.com/Civil%20War.html ^ | October 30, 2002 | Nat G. Rudulph

[Grand Old Partisan]

The Virginia Ordinance of Secession stated that it would not be legally in effective until ratified by a May 23rd referendum. Lee resigned from the U.S army and joined the rebels weeks earlier, which means that contrary to Democrat propaganda, he did not follow his state out of the Union but in fact helped secession happen.

[Aurelius]

"The United States is my country, your country, and the country of every American then and now."

I can think of only three possible bases of authority for your assertion. 1) (The legitimate one) Majoritarian agreement of all parties concerned. 2) Some form of muddle-headed mysticism such as that which afflicted Abraham Lincoln. 3) (The one which prevailed in 1865) Naked aggressive force.

[Teacher317]

*breaking out the popcorn for this one*

[agrandis]

Zero, repeat ZERO, blacks fought on the Confederate side during the Civil War.

Well, tell that to my friend who just got through compiling a whole reference book on Black soldiers in both armies of the war. Tell that to the many descendents of Black confederates, who still have photos of their ancestors in Confederate uniforms.

Your prtisanship, plus no doubt your indoctrination in a collectivist, governmental indoctrination camp, has blinded your view of history. Washington warned us about that "spirit of party."

For the record, I am, politically above all else, ANTI-Democrat.

PS: The Radical Republicans are praised and adulated in every governmental textbook *I* have seen. They were called 'radicals" because that's what they were, and their aims are being steadily achieved, mostly these days by the modern Democratic Party.

[Aurelius]

"Zero, repeat ZERO, blacks fought on the Confederate side during the Civil War."

That statement is clearly insupportabe, as any intelligent person would recognize. I believe evidence to the contrary is readily available, but even if it isn't, your assertion is beyond the possibility of verification.

[agrandis]

Read post 18 again. The Whigs in VA even wrote a letter to Lincoln pleading with him to use his head, and warning him that they would join their fellow Southerners to defend their homeland against invasion.

GOP, read widely, deeply, and open-mindedly (the hardest part for any of us) about this era in our history, and I think you'll be amazed at the difference in what is popularly taught and believed, and what is true. I think the best history is a wide reading of actual documents and letters.

This topic is very important. Fortunately, many young people today are being taught a less simplistic, more accurate history of this conflict through parents who are taking their childrens' educations into their own hands.

[Non-Sequitur]

I believe Maryland would have seceeded were a vote allowed.

There was as vote of the Maryland legislature on April 29, 1861. They voted secession down.

[Beernoser]

"Zero, repeat ZERO, blacks fought on the Confederate side during the Civil War."

Not to be gratuitously offensive, but be careful when you use a term like zero. Of course it isn't true.

For a generation historians have been trying to figure out the question of how many blacks fought for the Confederacy.

Currently it seems that certain things are agreed by both sides. There were many instances of "personal servants" that went to war with a young soldier, and filled the person's slot during a leave or injury or death. There were many times where teamsters or cooks fought for short times due to emergency situations. Stonewall Jackson, who taught Sunday school for slaves before the war was a bit of a magnet for southern blacks, and Maryland civilians reported seeing some Confederate black soldiers from Stonewall's Second Corps marching in order (or as much order Confederates ever marched in) through the streets of Fredrick. There's a report from the Peninsula campaign of Union soldiers finally killing a sniper in a tree and being surprised that he was a black Confederate. In Burke Davis' book "To Appomattox", he quotes from a diary on page 176 of a soldier watching a group of black Confederates driving off a Union cavalry regiment before being itself scattered by a second charge. This may be the only time an all black Confederate group went into battle just 5 days before Lee's surrender.

Anyway, the fact that some blacks fought for the Confederacy is not disputed. Nor is the fact that many more wanted to fight, and many more donated by buying war bonds and such.

What is under dispute is whether these instances were just a few unusual cases, or if it was a larger scale movement. The best book I've seen on the topic I can't remember the title of but it was something like "Black Yankees and Afro Confederates", but it was the best treatment of blacks in Civil War Virginia, the state that had the most slaves, and the second most freed blacks before the war (Maryland first).

Anyway, in the middle of this years of research and argument, it's not helpful when someone says "zero" blacks ever fought for the Confederacy. It doesn't help either side's argument. It just comes across as unlearned.

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

Bump for later reading.

[Aurelius]

"They voted secession down."

Because, as you very well know, Lincoln had arrested any legislators who might have voted the other way.

[Tokhtamish]

If blacks had fought for the Confederacy, the Confederacy would have won. In fact When General Cleburne suggested creating units of freed blacks in 1864 he paid for his suggestion by being passed over for command of the Army of the Tennessee. And everyone knew he should have gotten the job.

The rapid collapse of the Confederate position in the deep South after the fall of Vicksburg is easily explained by the fact that the Union was able to secure it's lines of communication by garrisons of freed blacks.

[Non-Sequitur]

I know nothing of the sort. The arrest of members of the Maryland legislature who supported the rebellion occured in September.

[agrandis]

If blacks had fought for the Confederacy, the Confederacy would have won.

Wish you were right, because thousands did. It's a fact. Look into it, open-mindedly.

[Grand Old Partisan]

As for blacks fighting on the Confederate side, ZERO was a bit much. Yes, here and there a black person fired at U. S. troops perhaps and slaves were certainly corralled into doing trench-digging and whatnot for the rebels, but the fact remains that under Confederate law it was illegal (strictly enforced) for any black person to be in the Confederate Army or in any rebel state militia until the last week of March 1865, when the CSA Congress authorized black soldiers, though none was ever recruited other than slave labor gangs dubbed "companies" and "regiments" at the very end. None fought.

During the CSA invasions of Maryland in 1862, of Pennsylvania in 1863, and of Maryland again in 1864, the rebels brought with them wagonloads of manacles for capturing blacks and dragging them south, probably accounting for any blacks seen marching with the rebels.

The Whig Party disappeared in 1854, replaced by the GOP. Some former Whigs certainly did vote for Bell, but they drifted into the Democratic Party during the war.

Two prominent southern Democrats who remained loyal to the flag to which you pledged allegiance in elementary school were Andrew Johnson and Sam Houston. Far too many Republicans today do not realize that they are parroting Democrat propaganda drilled into them by Democrat history books.

[agrandis]

Could the author of the book you mentioned be named Trux Mobes?

[StayAt HomeMother]

Zero, repeat ZERO, blacks fought on the Confederate side during the Civil War.

Here is an excerpt from an article "Black Confederate Soldiers" by the black George Mason professor (who sometimes fills in for Rush) Walter Williams (Source: http://www.lizmichael.com/blkconfd.htm )

"DURING OUR WAR OF 1861, ex-slave Frederick Douglass observed, "There are at the present moment, many colored men in the Confederate Army doing duty ... as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down ... and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government." ... Erwin L. Jordan's book "Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia" cites eyewitness accounts of the Antietam campaign of "armed blacks in rebel columns bearing rifles, sabers, and knives and carrying knapsacks and haversacks." ...

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 may be assigned to them" in defense of Virginia. Erwin L. Jordan cites one case where a captured group of white slave owners and blacks were offered freedom if they would take an oath of allegiance to the United States. One free black indignantly replied, "I can't take no such oaf as dat. I'm a secesh nigger." ... A second slave said, "I ain't going out here on no dishonorable terms." One of the slave owners took the oath but his slave, who didn't take the oath, returning to Virginia under a flag of truce, expressed disgust at his master's disloyalty saying, "Massa had no principles."

... These are but a few examples of the important role that blacks served, both as slaves and freemen in the Confederacy during the War Between the States.

The flap over the Confederate flag is not quite as 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, but racists have also used the Bible and the U.S. flag. Should we get rid of the Bible and lower the U.S. flag? Black civil rights activists and their white liberal supporters who're attacking the Confederate flag have committed a deep, despicable dishonor to our patriotic black ancestors who marched, fought and died to protect their homeland from what they saw as Northern aggression.

They don't deserve the dishonor. "

[agrandis]

During the CSA invasions of Maryland in 1862, of Pennsylvania in 1863, and of Maryland again in 1864, the rebels brought with them wagonloads of manacles for capturing blacks and dragging them south, probably accounting for any blacks seen marching with the rebels.

LOL!

But you did spell "parroting" right in your post, and I realized I just misspelled it in another thread. :-\

[docmcb]

You might also mention the big Confederate monument at Arlington cemetary. The carving on one side clearly shows a black soldier marching with a column of Confederate troops. The sculpture was done by a Confederate veteran.

I do agree with those who suggest that black soldiers were scattered and relatively few in number. If Cleburne's plan to intergrate blacks into the Rebel ranks in large numbers had been accepted when it was made instead of a year later, too late to matter, the CSA probably would have won.

The fact that the Confederate government rejected Cleburne's proposal in 63-64 shows that defending slavery was still a war aim. The decision to implement something like Ceburne's proposal in 64-65 equally shows that defending slavery was not their PARAMOUNT objective, as they were willing to abandon it when the alternative, defeat, was very clear and present. Like most of us from time to time, they postponed the decision that might have saved them uintil too late.

[breakem]

It may be possible that ignorancy will prevail and a hamburger will be equated with slavery. I never overestimate our intelligence as we evolve socially.

It is ironic that someone can claim the high ground in a war, while they are protecting their state's right to enslave other humans.

I believe states had a right to break away, but there was enough immorality to go around.

BTW I have no problem attacking civilan centers during war. People are ultimately responsible for their government.

[Grand Old Partisan]

As I mentioned, in April 1861 blacks did indeed volunteer to fight U.S. troops, but none were accepted. Frederick Douglass did say what he did early in the war, but he was misinformed. Anecdotes here and there (and a diary mentioning black rebels fighting off a regiment (1000 or so soldiers, a week before Appomattox -- I don't think so) don not amount to much. Today's neo-Confederates cling to the myth of blacks fighting for the Confederacy because they do not want to admit what the Confederates themselves say they fought for. Just look at the rebel states' declarations of secession and the pro-secession speeches in the secession conventions. It's all about slavery and how they had to fight to keep blacks enchained -- nary a word about the tariff or states rights or anything else.

As for being manacled by rebels and marched south into slavery, you wouldn't be LOL if it happened to you.