Posted on 08/31/2006 9:07:31 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
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.
They rewrite history to make themselves look good.
The forces attacking my camp were the First Regiment Texas Rangers, Colonel Wharton, and a battalion of the First Georgia Rangers, Colonel Morrison, and a large number of citizens of Rutherford County, many of whom had recently taken the oath of allegiance to the United States Government. There were also quite a number of negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day. [Source: Official Records, Volume: XVI, Page 805]
But you said there were no black Confederate soldiers.
"Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late...It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision..."
Maj. Gen Patrick R. Cleburne, CSA January, 1864
and the yankees wonder why we say " d'yankees
"The Emancipation Proclamation became effective January 1, 1863."
One minor point, have you read the proclamation and do you know just what it did? It supposedly freed the slaves in the South, not the North.
"The fact of the matter is that neither Grant or his wife or his wife's family owned any slaves after January or February of 1863." Proof?
I do concede the quote by Mrs. Grant. I read in a hurry and posted in a hurry. However you haven't proven the point with hard facts just surmises.
What is in fact unbelievable is the distortions, assumptions and vague insults you are directing at me w/o foundation. To be honest, I am not clear as to what your actual beliefs are, nor have you the vaguest idea of mine.
Instead, because I asked a gentlemen (which was certainly not you) to respond to a Black man who has espoused that Blacks served in the CSA, you have ASSUMED, I believe EVERYTHING he states? On what erroneous assumption is that based?
Earlier I stated my belief and you have chosen to ignore that. Which is your belief:
A) No blacks served in the CSA, except unwilling slaves?
B) Williams is factually incorrect in some regards, so that eliminates ALL of his information from further consideration?
or
C) The Northern soldiers were, magnanimous, good, well intentioned, freedom loving, mostly white men who were willing to lay down their lives for the poor mistreated Blacks, even at great disruption of their lives and a one in 8 chance of not returning alive?
If none of the above fits, so state your actual belief or kindly have the courtesy of not throwing veiled insults at me based on your lack of understanding of what I have said.
Actually history has been kinder to the south then Gen Cleburne would have ever imagined, thanks to the Democrat spin machine for the last 140 years being a southerner or confederate was something to be proud of.
Of course, what the Dems giveth, they taketh away.
Now they are using white southerners as their scrapegoats in the battle for voters especially those they kept under their thumbs during the time when they ran the south.
That none of you confederbuddies can't see how you are being used by the very party that once ran the confederacy in the first place is beyond me.
But I will continue to gladly point it out on everyone of these threads until it starts to sink in.
As a southerner myself I am that stubborn.
I don't know the number of blacks in Confederate service or the number captured, etc. A quick search turned up this Point Lookout web site that lists a few black POWs: Black POWs
My wife is a descendant of one of the white Point Lookout prisoners. He died there in the prison. One of these days we'll drive up that way and get to Point Lookout.
To put Saxton's remarks in context, let's look at an excerpt from the Union conscription order he complained about in my quote.
I. All able-bodied colored men between the ages of eighteen and fifty, within the military lines of the Department of the South, who have had an opportunity to enlist voluntarily and refused to do so, shall be drafted into the military service of the United States, to serve as non-commissioned officers and soldiers in the various regiments and batteries now being organized in the department. [Source: Official Records, Volume IV, page 621]
You had asked if some conscripts could be pointed out. I did just that. I have no doubt that the majority of blacks in Northern units were volunteers. Where did I say they were not? I just pointed out some that were conscripted.
Made your read it twice. You might learn something
Amazing these folks would hammer away at a man's memorial service....his funeral. Is there nothing sacred anymore.
Cindy Sheehan and Fred Phelps use these kind of tactics.
how's my "quasi-daughter" this fine evening???
missed you here, but i suspect you've been BUSY! (chuckle)
free dixie,sw
laughing AT you, "snake".
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
laughing out loud AT you! (you're a HOOT!)
free dixie,sw
DAMNyankees had no shame then & none NOW!
and people wonder why i believe we are destined either to be PERMANENTLY subordinate to or FREE from the DY, northeastern, LEFTIST, elitists???
free dixie,sw
Yes I have read it and yes I know where it freed the slaves. And I also know why.
I do concede the quote by Mrs. Grant. I read in a hurry and posted in a hurry. However you haven't proven the point with hard facts just surmises.
No, it you go back and reread my posts I give a number of hard facts. Fact 1, Missouri emancipated all slaves in the state by constitutional amendment in January 1865, 11 months before you said the Grant slaves were freed. Fact 2, Mrs. Grant herself says the slaves were freed around the time of the Emancipation Proclamation and Missouri records support that. You posted her quote yourself. Fact 3, Grant mentions in a letter written in the late spring of 1863 that all the Dent family slaves had left the plantation. So I'm at a bit of a loss as to what exactly you're looking for. The claim that Dr. Williams quote are wrong in so many ways, and misleading in so many others.
The fact that you posted the link without expressing any reservations whatsoever about the contents would seem to me, at least, that you agree with it. If I'm wrong then exactly what parts do you have doubts about?
A) No blacks served in the CSA, except unwilling slaves?
I never said that was true.
B) Williams is factually incorrect in some regards, so that eliminates ALL of his information from further consideration?
No, but if he willingly repeats some information that is easy to disprove then how can we rely on the rest? Some may be true but most of it is not or is taken out of context.
C) The Northern soldiers were, magnanimous, good, well intentioned, freedom loving, mostly white men who were willing to lay down their lives for the poor mistreated Blacks, even at great disruption of their lives and a one in 8 chance of not returning alive.
Again, never said that. But turn it around. You all would have us believe that Southern soldiers, filled with racial tolerance and a spirit of brotherhood, welcomed blacks with open arms into their ranks as comrades in arms and fought shoulder to shoulder with them on the battle lines. And nothing, but nothing could be further from the truth.
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