UDC marks another black Confederate grave

On Sunday afternoon at Old Union Cemetery in southern White County, over 180 people gathered to pay a debt owed nearly 80 years. The group included members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Sons of Confederate Veterans, family and friends, all there to memorialize the service of Pvt. Henry Henderson, a black Confederate soldier.

Henderson was born in 1849 in Davidson County, NC. He was 11 years old when he entered service with the Confederate States of America as a cook and servant to Colonel William F. Henderson, a medical doctor. Records show Henry was wounded during his service, but he continued to serve until the war's end in 1865. He was discharged in Salem, NC, age 16.

After the war, Henry married Miranda Shockley, of White County, TN. The couple raised five children.

"We're here to honor him," said his great-grandson, Oscar Fingers, of Evansville, IN. "I think he would be proud his family has come this far and to know all we have done." Several other family members made the trip with Fingers from Indiana for Sunday's ceremony.

Sons Dalton and Lee received Henderson's first and last Tennessee Colored Confederate pension check upon their father's death in September 1926. The check provided enough funds to bury their father, but not enough to buy a headstone for his grave.

The 60,000-90,000 black Confederate soldiers are often called "the forgotten Confederates," but through the concerted efforts of the Capt. Sally Tompkins Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy along with the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, several graves have been found in the Upper Cumberland and have been or will be marked.

Pvt. Henry Henderson's service was finally recognized and his grave officially marked on Sunday, all to the snap of salutes from the grandsons of fellow Confederates, volleys of gunfire and cannons shot toward the distant hillsides of his final resting place.

Official U.S. government grave markers are available to all Confederate veterans. For additional information, contact Barbara Parsons, 484-5501.

Most of the comments which I have made were based on my memories from my early college days, which was over 30 years ago, when I started out as a History Major with an emphasis on US History. 30 years is a long time and memories can fade.

After these discussions, I spent a few hours over the weekend reading the above book, which is a college level textbook written in 1997. I believe the author is British, as the book was originally published in England. Reading the sections on the Civil War, I learned a few things and also confirmed a few others, such as:

** Vermont was the first state to seriously consider secession, but nothing came of it (this was long before the CW)
** South Carolina seriously considered seceding, but this was avoided by the intervention of John C. Calhoun (again long before the CW)
** The majority of Southern plantations were not profitable annually, and often required financial assistance, which was provided by the North (at a substantial profit).
** Most of the slave ships were operated by Northern Captains and again at a substantial profit.
** The North had passed high tariff laws primarily because of their adverse affect on the southern states.
** Northern factories refused to open up in the south, due in part for the desire to keep the south from improving its over all lot.
** Lincoln felt it was his duty to uphold the Constitution, above all other questions. Since slavery was Constitutional, he was willing to allow it to stand.
** Early in the CW it was common for Union officers to grant emancipation to local slaves, after the CSA had been driven out. Lincoln overruled these orders and wrote orders that this practice be stopped.
** Jefferson Davis owned 75 (this was in the 1850's) slaves but forbade corporal punishment of them and declared that punishment of the slaves would be decided upon by the slaves themselves.
** When Davis was gone for long periods (as he often was) the man in charge of the plantation was a slave who was his most trusted assistant.
** For the record, I found no specific mention of Blacks serving in the CSA.

Based on the above, I stand behind what I have said from the very beginning:

1) The Emancipation of the slaves was a result of the war and not Lincoln's primary cause for going to War.

2) Lincoln would have settled peacefully with the South, if given the opportunity, even if it meant that slavery was to continue.

3) The economic policies of the North (1810-1860) were in no small part designed to take financial advantage of the South. It was these policies that ultimately led to the Southern states desire to secede

4) Some Blacks did participate in the war for the CSA, although the extent and reasons for such participation are subject to dispute (the above book is not a source for that comment).

Last comment, Amazon.com has 65 copies of the book available at $9.95 each. Some of you might benefit by reading it.

Show me the quote or apologize for stating a blatant lie.

Oh there's a blatant liar around here all right, but it isn't me. For the benefit of your highly selective memory let me recap. When one poster pointed out that Davis abused power far more than Lincoln did you replied with the following:

"That tends to happen when you are fighting a war for your very survival. The 'tyranny' of Lincoln had been previously unmatched by any previous President (the draft, his actions in Maryland, suspension of Habeas Corpus)."

No comment on Davis other than a feeble attempt to justify is actions and immediately criticizing Lincoln. So apparently in your world when Davis declares martial law, that's good. When Lincoln suspends habeas corpus, that's bad. When Davis enacts conscription, that's good. When Lincoln does it, that's tyranny. When Davis ignores his constitution and tramples on property rights, that's justified because he's "fighting a war for his very survival." When Lincoln does that...wait a minute...Lincoln didn't do that.

"A free black descended from one of George Washington's slaves, now the owner of a small farm near Mt. Vernon, offered twenty-eight acres, one-sixth of his property to be sold at auction to raise money for Virginia's defense.

"More active efforts in Virginia came form other quarters, like the fifty free blacks in Amelia County, and two-hundred more in Petersburg who offered themselves to the government to perform labor or even to fight under white officers. Slaves like a Tennessee barber named Jim donated money from their small savings to help raise companies; a Montgomery slave subscribed $150 of his own to the first call for loans from Secretary of the Treasury Christopher Memminger; not far from Mobile sixty slaves on one plantation practiced drilling every night after a full days' work, expressing their hope to fight the "damned buckram abolitionists" who had caused the crisis that now led to the fear of slave uprisings and the consequent curtailment of their few little freedoms."

-Look Away! William C. Davis

Davis goes on to say their motives and support varied. Some freedmen were in it for the business, using their skills as blacksmiths and masons, to earn money. Others were caught up in the excitement of the times, looking for adventure. Still others realized that although the might be near the bottom of the social order, it was still their state and they ought to defend it. Others had hopes of freedom if their patriotism was displayed during this time of crisis.

There are many good accounts of blacks in the Confederacy - lots of research is being done.

** Vermont was the first state to seriously consider secession, but nothing came of it (this was long before the CW),

Talking about it and rejecting it is a far different matter from unilaterially declaring it, then starting shooting.

** South Carolina seriously considered seceding, but this was avoided by the intervention of John C. Calhoun (again long before the CW)

Given that Calhoun was the driving force behind the Nullification Crisis, that's an odd reading of the story. Henry Clay (Lincoln's political idol) generally gets credit for engineering the compromise that ended the crisis. But if you want to call Calhoun blinking when Andrew Jackson threatened to come down there and hang him "intervention," fine by me.

** The majority of Southern plantations were not profitable annually, and often required financial assistance, which was provided by the North (at a substantial profit).

I'd like to see how that worked. The fact is that some plantation owners, like farmers today, sometimes had to borrow money. Northern banks land brokers loaned it to them in return for futures on their crops. You're basically pointing to a modern commodities market and saying it's exploiting the south.

* Most of the slave ships were operated by Northern Captains and again at a substantial profit.

Actually American ships were a minor part of the big picture of the slave trade. The Brits and the Portugese comprised something like 90% of the trade. Further, the slave trade into the US after the Revolution was only a minor contribution to the overall number of slaves in the country. So blame the Brits again. But, yes, many slave ships sailed from northern ports and it was a profitable business. So profitable that smuggling continued to feed the demand in the south (and the Caribbean and South America) even after the trade had been outlawed.

** The North had passed high tariff laws primarily because of their adverse affect on the southern states.

Bull. They passed them to protect American industry against the Europeans, who were ahead of us industrially. Call them crazy, but the Republicans believed that promoting industry was important.

** Northern factories refused to open up in the south, due in part for the desire to keep the south from improving its over all lot.

Northern factories refused to open in the south because they were in the north. This wasn't the days of GM opening a new plant in Smyrna. Factories were built by individual entrepreneurs and they were one-offs. Why didn't southern capital open their own factories? The answer is because they were getting rich already off cotton growing.

** Lincoln felt it was his duty to uphold the Constitution, above all other questions. Since slavery was Constitutional, he was willing to allow it to stand.

Where it existed. The south insisted on being able to take slavery into the territories. There was even talk that Dred Scott meant that no state had the power to prevent slavery within their own borders. One slavery advocate boasted that they'd be having slave auctions on Boston Common again.

** Early in the CW it was common for Union officers to grant emancipation to local slaves, after the CSA had been driven out. Lincoln overruled these orders and wrote orders that this practice be stopped.

Because it wasn't legal, the way he saw it, and , yes, at that early point in the war he was still hoping to end things peacefully if the southern states would return to the union.

** Jefferson Davis owned 75 (this was in the 1850's) slaves but forbade corporal punishment of them and declared that punishment of the slaves would be decided upon by the slaves themselves.

What a guy. He didn't beat his 75 slaves.

** When Davis was gone for long periods (as he often was) the man in charge of the plantation was a slave who was his most trusted assistant.

And if the man had failed him, Davis had the power to sell his wife and kids and make sure he never saw them again.

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