Posted on 01/20/2016 5:03:47 AM PST by Kaslin
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."
Black in the Confederate Army serving as soldiers was a fact of history that I never knew was in dispute
The truth of the matter is that Jeff Davis was utterly opposed to usage of blacks in any military capacity...one of many unfortunate notions that contributed to the Confederacy missing out on opportunities to field stronger armies...
Blacks worked in civilian occupations such as foundry and arms manufacturing too.
“This is a pretty decent thread but wait until the Army of Lincoln gets here.....”
Lincoln himself can be credited with many derogatory statements about blacks. He used them as a political tool, much as the Democratic Party has been using them for centuries, much to the Dem’s advantage and to the detriment of blacks. If blacks want to protest something or someone; it should be that.
LOL. It's not an army. It's a cult.
The lion share of blacks were in engineering, medical, supply and cavalry support (blacksmiths etc.). They were a force multiplier.
Force multipliers become exxtraneous the instant the force becomes insufficient to do battle...
Failure to employ musket bearing blacks in the field was but one of several missed opportunities by the Davis adminstration to populate his military...agrarian workers, numbering in the thousands, were virtually exempted from conscription, due to the short-sighted insistence on continuing cash crop production (cotton) so as not to lose the European market...and if you have some documentation stating that blacks took over civil production jobs from whites in any significant numbers I’d like to see it, because this was a manpower drain as well...
True and Davis was ignored especially in the West. Davis helped micromanage the South into defeat.
Davis helped micromanage the South into defeat.
He had his good points, but was often at odds with several key governors regarding such things as conscription, that impaired his ability to run the Confederacy as a functional wartime operation...on the plus side, the ability of the South to ramp up production so as to provide for a force in the field was nothing short of astonishing, given its agrarian culture...eventually, as was inevitable, attrition took its toll on the will to continue the fight, but to the end, few Confederate soldiers lacked for arms or ammunition...
Ol' Bedford was hard but fair. The Yankees would have considered him a hero if he had donned a blue uniform instead of gray and butternut.
Nothing is more discriminatory and racist than the “Great Society” legislation and its evil spawn that have been destroying Black America for almost 50 years.
It occurs to me that they have precious little to work with in the article from which this thread emanates. It gives little support for their position, so I can fully understand why they would not want to participate in a discussion in which the high ground has already been seized from them prior to the start of the battle.
A prominent "Black" conservative flatly stating that the war was not started to free the slaves is a very hard piece of information for them to do anything with.
It does not provide any support for what they wish to believe, so it is just easier to avoid confronting it.
They cannot attack him as a "Confederate sympathizer" or a "Lost Causer" or any of the things they say about others who point out the same fact. Walter Williams is above reproach in his honesty and integrity, and would not have said such a thing unless he believed it to be correct.
Again, what can they do with that? How can they argue the point?
The radical republicans were the party of Lincoln; the very same Lincoln that invaded CSA.
Is that New Market, VA?
the very same Lincoln that invaded CSA...
..after Federal property was seized by force in South Carolina, by hothead radical secessionists; a stupid action under the existing circumstances...
Timelines do count in history...
the war was not started to free the slaves
That is a true statement, however, in case anyone is of the opinion that slavery played no part in the manner in which the Civil War played out, one should take the time to read each seceding states Ordinance of Secession; one would thus be educated on the topic...
Forrest,ooh, but he killed hundreds of negroes at Fort Pillow, he started the klan,he, he, he...grew a beard so he was a muslim, Glen Beck mentions the massacre in his books I know it’s true;)
Oops, sarcasm lock was on...
Tupelo, do you ever haunt the Confederate cemetaries in Marion, Quitman and Enterprise?
From everything I’ve read about Anthony Hervey he was a decent and honorable guy. I was hoping that williams was going to do more than simply use Hervey as a stage prop. He deserves better.
The Choctaw Indians owned slaves, some indian, some blacks. You don’t see the blacks boycotting the casinos though. And yes free blacks owned slaves also. Other Blacks sold them at the king of Dahomey’s ‘Slave Superstore’* in West Africa. Of course they sold captive women of all races also.
* not sure of all the facts on this as I wasn’t there. Neither were the comedians who write current US History books.
Hey General, you’re arguing a non-sequitur here. No one disputes this. If it’s possible to any dumber you’ve just done it.
The so called “n” word is simply the Southern pronunciation of N-E-G-R-O. When it came to be an evil vile unPC word as defined by northerners who have a different accent many southerners forced their mouths to form knee-grow but then that, too, became ldefinitively un-PC and racist and we had to say African-American, then Black. Each word becomes derogatory by northern definition because southerners speak it. Anything a southerner says is, by the fact of him saying it, derogatory and racist. And that applies to anything spoken by Christians, also, or more and more by white men who are not certified as PC.
re: Tupelo, do you ever haunt the Confederate cemetaries in Marion, Quitman and Enterprise?
Simce I live in Arizona now, I only hit th ones I happen to see on my travels.
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