Civil War anniversary: Cleburne's proposal to arm, free slaves (for the Confederacy)

Dalton Daily Citizen ^ | July 10, 2011 | Robert Jenkins

[Colonel Kangaroo]

On Thursday, July 14, at 10 a.m.. the Georgia Historical Society will be conducting a dedication service to unveil a marker commemorating Confederate Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne’s proposal to arm slaves in exchange for their freedom.

Cleburne’s plan was to provide manpower for the South to face the ever-increasing Federal Army which was beginning to recruit black soldiers and which continued to swell its ranks with immigrants, particularly from Germany and other parts of Europe.

It was becoming increasingly clear to Southern officers during the winter of 1863-64 that the South was fast running out of men to continue the war. After much thought and discussion among several like-minded junior officers, Cleburne wrote out his proposal while the Confederate Army of Tennessee remained in camps in and around Dalton. On Jan. 2, 1864, Cleburne presented it to Commanding Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and the Division and Corps Commanders of the Army of Tennessee during a meeting at Johnston’s headquarters, the Cook-Huff House at 314 N. Selvidge St.

This marker, along with Dalton’s key role in African-American Civil War history, provides tremendous irony. While the Confederate High Command in Richmond and in Dalton dismissed the proposal as outrageous, in 1864 U.S. armies were beginning to recruit and deploy black troops in mass. By the spring of 1864, Dalton had fallen into federal hands and, during the summer of 1864, many runaway slaves from Northwest Georgia found their way into Chattanooga to join the ranks of the 14th and 44th United States Colored Infantry.

Had Cleburne’s proposal been taken seriously and adopted in January 1864, it is possible that some of these men could have served for the South in exchange for their freedom. Instead, they fought for liberty on the side of the North for the liberation of all people, not solely for their personal freedom.

In August and October 1864, these two black regiments saw action in Dalton in two separate events, the only fighting in Georgia during the Civil War in which African-American troops were engaged. By war’s end, more than 200,000 African-Americans enlisted for the North.

Before the year was out, Gen. Johnston, who had commanded the Confederate forces in Dalton and who had dismissed the proposal, would be dismissed from command; Gen. Cleburne along with many of the persons who signed it, would be killed in combat; Gen. William Henry Talbot (W.H.T.) “Shot Pouch” Walker, who was the chief opponent of the proposal, along with many others who opposed it, would also be killed in combat, and a year later, and President Jefferson Davis, who was ultimately responsible for dismissing the proposal to free those in captivity in exchange for their Confederate service, was himself made captive (jailed) for two years for his Confederate service.

Ironically, the South eventually passed a bill to arm the slaves. In February 1865, Davis appointed Robert E. Lee as Commander of all Confederate Armies, not just those in Virginia, and Lee’s first act was to recommend Cleburne’s proposal to arm slaves in exchange for their freedom.

In March 1865, just weeks before the end of the War, the Confederate Congress passed legislation approving the use of slaves in the armies, but the bill did not promise freedom in exchange for service as had been recommended by Cleburne and Lee. While some have estimated the number of blacks who served in the Confederacy at 32,000, (a figure derived from post-war pension applications which likely included applications for servants and laborers as very few black Confederates were used in combat roles), it is clear that the decision to arm the slaves for the South came too little and too late and it failed to yield any measurable results for the Confederacy.

This article is part of a series of stories about Dalton and life in Dalton during the Civil War. The stories run on Sunday and are provided by the Dalton-Whitfield Civil War 150th Anniversary Committee. To find out more about the committee go to www.dalton 150th.com. If you have material that you would like to contribute for a future article contact Robert Jenkins at 706-259-4626 or robert.jenkins@robertdjenkins.com

[GJones2]

> “The famous family of Captain Brown family made much money, and then had a severe family squabble over slavery.”

In general, persons are a lot more willing to sacrifice financial gain to morality when it’s not they themselves who will have to make the sacrifice but somebody in another region. People are individuals, though, and will react in different ways. Some Northern slave traders turned against the practice when they were still making money from it. The same goes for some slaveholders in the South.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Of course in the south 40 regiments joined voluntarily and served the union.

Fans of the Confederacy never have much to say about that. It destroys the solid south myth. What makes the total of southern volunteers to Union more impressive is the obstacles many had to overcome just to reach Union forces.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

What’s evident, though, and easy to determine is that draft riots took place in the North and not in the South.

Riots are urban phenomena and the Civil War South was a very rural land. Resistance to the Confederate draft was usually an individual activity.

[infowarrior]

I think that is unfair. The famous family of Captain Brown family made much money, and then had a severe family squabble over slavery.

Truth is rarely "fair". It is, what it is.

While that one family you speak of, had the squabble you speak of, there are a dozen, nay a hundred others who didn't get on the abolitionist bandwagon until after the institution of chattel slavery no longer profited them personally. The abolitionist movement itself got little traction in the north until the British Navy closed the slave ship routes. Only afterwards, when it didn't upset the profits of highly placed New England families did it become the potent social and political force it became.

Like it, or not, it's the truth. Likewise so-called 'free states', such as Illinois, and neighboring Indiana didn't want 'free men of color' hanging around their states, and passed legislation prohibiting their settlement there, by law. Many Southerners, perhaps justifiably so, saw these things as hypocrisies.

The whole matter of the antebellum south, its 'peculiar institution', and the attitudes on *both* sides is not as cut and dried as many people wish to believe...

the infowarrior (in the interest of *full* disclosure, let it be known that I was born in Boston, of Midwestern parentage, Indiana and Iowa, to be exact, and am not a native southerner...)

[GJones2]

> Fans of the Confederacy never have much to say about that. It destroys the solid south myth...

I don’t know if you’re including me among the “fans” but I previously referred to the counties of West Virginia, a whole section of Virginia that didn’t remain solid, and mentioned that some southerners didn’t support secession. Also, the Civil War is often presented as a war of brother against brother, as was sometimes — though rarely — the case, especially with families not in the deep South. On the whole, though, I believe morale and unity in the South was better than in the North, despite the greater hardships that southerners had to endure.

[infowarrior]

A grandson of Captain Brown won fame with his effective defense of free soil communities in Kansas (after his son wrote him about proslavery raids), and was later executed by Virgina for treason, though he had never sworn allegiance to that state.

So, you don't count mounting an armed attack, in which people were killed, on a *FEDERAL* arsenal as "waging war on the United States"? Interesting...

Whether John Brown ever 'swore allegiance' to the Commonwealth of Virginia, or not is irrelevant. He was, legally, guilty of treason, as set forth by no less than the Constitution, in its own words...

the infowarrior

[GJones2]

> Riots are urban phenomena and the Civil War South was a very rural land.

More rural, I agree, but some Southern cities were plenty large enough to get together a mob, and if need be, riot. Actually mobs can form in small towns too, especially on market days when people come in from the surrounding countryside.

[GJones2]

> So, you [donmeaker] don’t count mounting an armed attack, in which people were killed, on a *FEDERAL* arsenal as “waging war on the United States”?

Yes, if that wasn’t waging war on the United States, then why all the furor about the attack on Fort Sumter? :-)

[x]

In that context it’s not a southern fiction that slavery still existed in the “North” (in the Union, north of the Confederacy), and continued to exist after the Emancipation Proclamation. Not in most states north of the Confederacy, of course, but in some.

Just so long as you keep putting quotes around the “North” and maybe adding something in parenthesis. When you stop, you're wrong.

The point is that the Northern side in the Civil War did not not completely abolish slavery in all the territory that it controlled, even with the Emancipation Proclamation.

Certainly by 1863 most people recognized that Union victory would mean emancipation. Surrounded by free states, there's no way that Kentucky or Maryland-Delaware, surrounded by free states, could retain slavery. Many Southerners assumed that Union victory meant an end to slavery even earlier -- some from the beginning of the war, others from Lincoln's nomination or election.

If the Confederacy wanted to avoid being thought the pro-slavery side, they'd have to free the slaves or at least give some indication that emancipation would be forthcoming in an independent Confederacy. The Confederate government wasn't willing to do so -- except perhaps until it was far too late and that government itself was in its last days.

[GloriaJane]

"The next thing you’ll do is try to tell us Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves."

Yes! That's exactly what I would say, because that's what happened.

[GJones2]

> “Just so long as you keep putting quotes around the “North” and maybe adding something in parenthesis. When you stop, you’re wrong.

Well, I have no problem with enclosing the word in quotation marks and adding something in parentheses to show exactly what I mean. I don’t think that using ‘North’ to mean what I meant would be wrong, though, if I didn’t do that. The word ‘North’ isn’t limited to a single meaning. Its meaning depends on context. In the context of the Civil War, I think the usual meaning of ‘the North’ is the Union north of the Confederacy.

[Stonewall Jackson]

In the book Dixie Victorious there is a short story that deals with General Cleburne's proposal and shows what might have happened if the South had gone ahead with it.

The end result was almost half a million fresh troops for the Confederacy at the time when they needed them the most. Bolstered by these new troops, the Confederacy went on the offensive, driving Sherman out of Georgia and Eastern Tennessee and hammering Grant out of Virginia.

[donmeaker]

I thought that his acts were indeed treason, but against the federal government, not against a state. The first man killed by Brown’s group was a free black man. Fredrick Douglass had tried to discourage Brown, and failed. His plan was amateurish at best, but tried to use what he had learned in Kansas, that the defense was powerful, and modern rifles could shoot to pieces nearly any attacking force. A few years later that knowledge would be more widely disseminated, at the cost of much blood.

[donmeaker]

And just as much a fairy tale as ‘the guns of the south’.

[Stonewall Jackson]

You have to admit that The Guns of the South was hilarious. The Army of Northern Virginia armed with AK-47's?!? Just the cover cracks me up.

The book Dixie Victorious had a number of various scenarios that could have changed the outcome of the war; from the successful capture of the Norfolk Navy Yard (before the Federal garrison had a chance to destroy it, the ships laid up in drydock, the arsenal, and the hundreds of stored cannon) to General Albert Sidney Johnston surviving his wound at Shiloh and later destroying Grant's Army of the Mississippi as it crossed the Mississippi River south of Vicksburg (where his force had to cross the river one brigade at a time and the Confederates actually had superior numbers on both sides of the river, but lacked a competent commander). Any of these scenarios could have altered the course of the war; whether or not they would have resulted in a Confederate victory is anyone's guess.

I love alternate histories, and just finished reading one where the Revolutionary War never happened and the North American Colonies were still under British control during the Crimean War. As a result, Brigadier General Sir Robert E. Lee leads his North American Brigade in the famous charge against the Russian positions, but he does so in a flanking maneuver instead of the frontal assault that cost the Light Brigade so many casualties. The story was titled "The Charge of Lee's Brigade" and is found in the book Alternate Generals.

[SunkenCiv]

additional:

Historical marker can ‘make a difference’ (Civil War)
The (Dalton, Georgia) Daily Citizen | 07/15/2011 | Charles Oliver
Posted on 07/15/2011 9:27:19 AM PDT by GrootheWanderer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2749061/posts
http://daltondailycitizen.com/local/x1475585914/Historical-marker-can-make-a-difference

[SunkenCiv]

· GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach · · join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
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[GJones2]

> “...almost all the generals who opposed it said, ‘If we can arm black men and make them free in return for arming them, what was this war for?’” [Words put into the mouths of the Confederate generals in the linked article]

That is not a real quotation from the time of the Confederacy itself. That’s the way Charlie Crawford, president of the Georgia Battlefields Association, expresses what in his opinion was the attitude of other generals to Cleburne’s proposal. Yet Wikipedia states that “This proposal was met with polite silence at the meeting, and while word of it leaked out, it went unremarked...” (footnote: Autumn of Glory: The Army of Tennessee 1862–1865 by Thomas L. Connelly, p. 318-19 — I haven’t checked it myself).

Apparently what happened was that Cleburne outlined his proposal to the army that he was commanding (the Army of Tennessee), to which also belonged “D. C. Govan, brigadier general” (the only other general I see mentioned), and it was met with polite silence. I don’t see how that translates into what Crawford claims “...almost all the generals who opposed it said “If we can arm black men and make them free in return for arming them, what was this war for?”

It appears that because of the lack of a favorable response within the Army of Tennessee, though, Cleburne decided not to push the proposal further. Here’s a written copy, which he addressed to several of his subordinates within the Army of Tennessee (and in which he himself specifically denied that slavery is all they were “fighting for”). http://www.civilwarhome.com/cleburneproposal.htm

[GJones2]

So it’s true that Cleburne’s proposal wasn’t adopted (or even heard by most of the people in the Confederacy). I doubt that he would have made it, though, if he didn’t think it had at least a chance of being accepted. Knowing what he did about the climate of opinion in the Confederacy, he didn’t consider it out of the question.

As for why people were fighting the Civil War, people don’t do complex things for a single simple reason. What that war was “for” obviously varied from individual to individual.

Georgia labor commissioner Michael Thurmond, who gave the keynote speech at the monument, sets up a false alternative: “Was the war about independence? Or was the war being fought primarily to preserve slavery?” It could be both about independence (states’ rights) — and defending one’s homeland and loved ones, which he doesn’t mention — and also be fought to preserve slavery (even primarily, though “primarily” isn’t proven by evidence such as that from the speech by Stephens).

Crawford too makes the true but misleading statement, “So I say to those who say the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, you’re wrong.” That, of course, is an attempt to discredit the claim that it was about states’ rights. In fact it was about both, and other things as well. He could also have said accurately (but again misleadingly). “So I say to those who say the Civil War wasn’t about states’ rights, you’re wrong.”

[GJones2]

As Vice President, Stephens was a prominent person, but he was just one man, and didn’t speak for everyone who supported the Confederacy. He didn’t speak for Robert E. Lee, for instance. Though hostile to the abolitionists and not one himself (except in the broad sense of favoring an end to slavery — in the long term through a change of heart within persons in the slaveholding states themselves), Lee had referred to slavery in less flattering terms than Stephens, “There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.” [Letter, December 27, 1856] http://www.2ndflorida.com/Robert_E._Lee_on_Slavery.html

Also, even in labeling slavery the cornerstone of the Confederacy, Stephens listed it as just one among several reasons why he supported the Confederacy (”last, but not least” as your quotation shows). He begins this way, with a reference to tariffs, a major cause of regional division, because the South was having in effect to subsidize northern manufacturing, “Allow me briefly to allude to some of these improvements [in the Constitution of the Confederacy]. The question of building up class interests, or fostering one branch of industry to the prejudice of another under the exercise of the revenue power, which gave us so much trouble under the old constitution, is put at rest forever under the new.” He goes on, referring to “This old thorn of the tariff, which was the cause of so much irritation in the old body politic...”

Besides tariffs other things he mentions are stopping the imposition of taxes on states for federal internal construction in other states and limiting the term of office of the President to one term. Even an ardently pro-slavery speaker like Stephens didn’t fail to recognize the importance of other issues, and this was before the fighting itself actually began. Here’s a copy of the whole speech. http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=76

Once the war began, the importance of defending what most Southerners considered to be their homeland would obviously come to the fore. I believe that’s what most Southerners were fighting for, whatever their opinions about slavery.