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."
Democrats are working on that even as I type this.
Black in the Confederate Army serving as soldiers was a fact of history that I never knew was in dispute or even controversial until I started visiting Free Republic. There are some real revisionist liberals on this site.
Beat me to it; it's already happening now.
It’s a fact which the left and blacks ignore as it does not fit their narrative of the south.
Course they ignore the racism in Boston , NY City Detroit during then and recently.
I’m sure someone , usual suspects will be on to denounce this .
Kaslin,
Why do you insist on posting articles that rely on facts and that have clear logic?
Oldplayer
Anyone got a photo where fairy boy refused to put his hand on his heart and when asked he said the flag stands for intolerance.
Thanks for posting! I am hanging on to my American History textbooks from college (40 years ago) for precisely this reason.
The fact that the Confederate Army was integrated was never controversial or even thought about as significant, it just was. But here on Free Republic you’d think you were a historical heretic to even imply such a thing.
Shermans Army burned down slave cabins too. Everone has got to eat.
Got a great history book from the 50’s which is about the war, but recently I read another book about the war written just a couple of years ago and it’s like reading a different war.
North good, went to war to free blacks.
South bad, hated blacks wanted slavery forever.
No facts, all a fairy tale and this is now what kids read sadly.
Well except mine as I have been telling them history and politics since they were 5.
Oh and my oldest is off to register to vote today after school.
does he think or does he use fact?
guess if you want to ignore fact then so be it.
I have a weird hobby, but I find it fascinating to wander through old cemeteries. Lot of history there. Unfiltered history.
While wandering through the “Odd Fellows” Cemetery in Aberdeen Mississippi (Described as a “Quiet resting place for many Civil War veterans”) I found a grave of a black Confederate soldier. He was identified as Nathan Bedford Forrest’s favorite blacksmith.
Yeah, THAT Nathan Bedford Forrest. The Wizard of the Saddle and a founder of the KKK. (Another interesting history that has been perverted. At least the history pre 1880)
The 1st Lousiana Native Guard was an all black regiment of the Confederate Army. Unlike the Union’s 54th Massachusetts which had white officers, the Confederate units had black officers.
(a side note, there were 2 1st Louisiana Native Guards, one Union and one Rebel.)
If you ever come to St Augustine here you will see many old graveyards as we are the oldest city in the country, but there are also 5 black confederates buried here.
I had family on both sides of the campaign at Vicksburg.
Henry Louis Gates on black owned slaves
440,000 free Negroes in the South
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a8EhhbTs0A
I never this fact was even controversial until I started coming here.
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