The Myth of Black Confederates Persists (pls consider source)

Henry Louis Gates' "The Root" ^ | 2 May | Holloway

[flowerplough]

"This is a fiction," Fergus M. Bordewich, renowned historian and author of five nonfiction books, told The Root about the latest rancorous debate about black Confederates that comes as the nation's commemoration of the Civil War's 150th anniversary continues.

"It's a myth," continued Bordewich, author of Washington: The Making of the American Capital and Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America. "It is nonsense. I could be blunter than that, but you get the drift. It's a meaningless term, 'black Confederates.' There is no evidence whatsoever from any responsible source that there was more than the occasional slave who was forced to serve in the war."

Bordewich is not alone in his position. Top-ranking scholars have repeatedly torpedoed the myth, including Bruce Levine, the renowned professor of African-American studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Edwin Bearss, historian emeritus at the National Park Service; and Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, editor-in-chief of The Root and chair of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute. Yet it persists.

Gates weighed in on the issue in a quote that appeared in a column by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a senior editor and blogger at Atlantic Magazine, several weeks ago. " 'I would worry if anything I wrote lent credence to the notion that tens of thousands of black men served as soldiers in the Confederate Army,' " Gates said of the bloody four-year battle, fought from 1861 to 1865. "No black rebel units ever fought Union forces, although many slaves fought alongside their owners, and thousands more were compelled to labor for the Confederacy, rebuilding rail lines or construction fortifications."

[riverdawg]

There have been many books written about how the Civil War divided families, North and South, and pitted brother against brother (and sister). Stonewall Jackson was from the part of Virginia that separated to form West Virginia in 1861. Jackson, of course, remained with his native state but his sister remained loyal to the Union, not the “original” state of Virginia. Similar stories were played out by the tens of thousands within lesser known families.

There were entire communities in the South that remained loyal to the North and, similarly, there were entire communities in the North (especially in Pennsylvania but even as far north as Vermont) that were loyal to the South. This is all well-known to historians, and interested non-historians like myself.

[phi11yguy19]

for those who claim secession had "nothing" to do with slavery or racism

More mischaracterization, but your last tidbit explains the moral superiority of the unionist spin...

First issue: The common government was to take no preference between states but treat them equally. The territories were owned by all the states and the common government could not pass laws in preference to some states at the expense of others with respect to those territories.

Second issue: The common government on behalf of the States could not usurp rights not specifically delegated to it by the states. Secession, abolition of slavery, etc. found in the declarations were among those rights.

Final tidbit: "racism" - and therein lies the myth that lincoln, abolitionists, unionists, et al, somehow viewed the black race at that time as equals to white.

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races (yada, yada) and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

"free soil, free speech, free labor, and free (white) men."

Nothing racist there. "Apparently somebody forgot to tell the" Lincolnites!

Racism per today's standards was nearly uniform in both northern and southern whites, and both claimed superiority over the black race. Racism was uniform, slavery was legal, the common government could not prefer some states over others, but a party was formed and a president elected to do just that. But it was the South's fault...

Re: "all Christian nations" is in reference to scriptural context of slavery. Object as you may on a theological level, even Pope Pius acknowledged the legitimacy of the Confederacy and their effort to leave the union, and the scriptures say what they do regardless of how objectionable the words may be.

[phi11yguy19]

the federal government, not the states, had authority

...as a common guarantor of its constituent State's sovereignty. Passing laws that pitted half the states against the other, forever tipping a delicate balance of power to one group at the expense of the other was not what anyone signed up for.

Slavery had previously been outlawed, with minimal complaint, in some of the territories

Yes, as the cries for banning slavery from the territories grew from the north, the southern states did concede to split the territories on a north-south line all the way to the pacific - a means that would never tip the balance of power. Unfortunately that proved to not be enough...it had to be of the territories.

secession and war

Those did not go hand in hand, as witnessed under Buchanan. The "war" started when Lincoln violated his armistices with SC and FL as we've shown directly quoting the historical record of communications with his own Navy. If you insist on ignoring such facts, then you're choosing to believe a lie.

[LS]

So, a) Jordan DID say it, contrary to what you stated, meaning I was right, and b) you question his sources. Very, very different.

I don't recall any claims of a "cover up." Evidence? Pages?

[phi11yguy19]

the causes they declared were primarily associated with the protection of slavery

which is equivalent to saying "the causes were primarily associated with the protection of (institutions not delegated to the jurisdiction of the common government, but reserved to the states)

of course there were constitutional means to delegate control of slavery to the federal government, but the same conflicting interests present in 1789 remained conflicting and never allowed that to happen. so one side figured a way to permanently tip the balance so that once they gained enough representation via a monopoly on expansion, they could impose their states' rules on the others. the others realized it was now a "union" only in name, and exercised their right to leave. what part about that is "beyond you"?

[central_va]

Any state can secede for any reason at any time. Without that implied secession overhanging FedGov™, we have centralized Tyranny. Which is what we find ourselves in now.

You or I have no say whether a state secedes or not unless we live in that particular state(s). It's called a republic, learn it, live it , love it.

[phi11yguy19]

Unfortunately that proved to not be enough...it had to be of the territories.

That should've read "it had to be all of the territories."

[x]

The way to create a “myth” is to set up a strawman, attribute it to your opponent, and then knock it down. Gates gives the game away when he says: “No black rebel units ever fought Union forces, although many slaves fought alongside their owners...” Perhaps someone has claimed that there were black companies, brigades, etc., BUT I have never seen such a claim.

Looks like you're not above creating myths and strawmen of your own. Look around the Internet and you'll find claims of thousands, tens of thousands of Black Confederates. You'll find a few such claims on this very thread and on other FR Civil War threads. If you said that those supposed Black Confederates were slaves forced to dig ditches and build bridges or slaves and servants who occasionally picked up a gun to defend their masters, the posters who make those claims of thousands of Black Confederates would argue that you were wrong.

So what are they implying? That thousands of African-Americans volunteered or wanted to volunteer to serve in the Confederate forces? That they fought in their own Black units or in integrated ones? That seems to be where those who make the exaggerated claims of thousands of Black Confederates are headed. Again, take a look at some of the posts on this very thread.

Now that it's clear that the evidence for these claims is very skimpy, you may see people backing down. But you have to give Gates his due: people who talk about thousands of Black Confederates are talking about more than an occasional manservant or driver or porter who participated in a battle. Sometimes they say that there were many Black or integrated units. Some times they just let people assume it. But there most certainly were claims that "Black Confederates" involved more than a few slaves firing guns in a few battles.

The only myth in the story is the suggestion that slavery was the only or main “cause” for the support of the war.

Now that is a straw man. A main cause or root cause isn't necessarily the "only" cause. The two are very different. It's crystal clear that without slavery we wouldn't have gotten that war at that time with those sides. That doesn't mean that everybody was fighting for or against slavery or that nobody else had any other reason for picking up a gun. It just means that you can't talk about the American Civil War without talking about slavery. Believe me, some people have tried -- some people are still trying -- and they just aren't telling the whole truth.

[Amadeo]

Stand Watie is a legendary hero in the Eastern Indian community.

My great, great, great uncle commanded a Creek confederate unit. They didn’t see a lot of action. But he left voluminous diaries of every day life in an Indian confederate unit. After the war there was no authority to discharge him and his men, so he wrote his own discharge papers.

[achilles2000]

I don’t “look around the internet” for lunatic assertions, and I don’t know of any significant historian or historical group that claims that there were brigade, division, or corps level black units. But you seem to ignore that even Gates is admitting that “many” black slaves “fought” alongside their masters -note that the words are “many” and “fought.” In fact, given the numbers of men involved in the war and the timespan Gates’ use of “many” could well be a concession that there were several thousand, although, if there were, I am sure that they were scattered among hundreds or thousands of units.

You mention people “backing down” on their claims on this subject. When I first noticed people claiming that some blacks fought on the Confederate side they were met with categorical denials and derision from people like Gates. The point I was making is that Gates is doing a “climb down” from that position and tries to save face by attacking a claim about Confederate units I don’t believe that even the League of the South has made.

It is simply no longer possible to maintain the comic book view of the sides on the conflict found in many textbooks. Both the relationships between the races in the South and the North and the forces that lead to disunion were complex.

“It’s crystal clear that without slavery we wouldn’t have gotten that war at that time with those sides.”

This is pointless. We could as well say that “without the tariff disputes”, or “without the internal improvement disputes”, or “without the disputes over the meaning of federalism”, or “without the Northern invasion of the South”, or “without the disputes over territorial expansion”, etc. you wouldn’t have gotten that war at that time with those sides.

In the beginning, Lincoln and his supporters were willing to throw the slaves to the dogs with the Corwin Amendment, which, had slavery been the main or only issue for the South, would have eliminated any fear any Southerner had about the federal abolition of slavery. Later, Lincoln decided to use a largely meaningless Emancipation Proclamation to frame the war in terms of slavery to keep the French and British from recognizing the Confederacy. By now, I think most people who read in this subject at all know that while Lincoln didn’t like slavery, he also didn’t like blacks. This was also the overwhelming majority view in the North before and after the war.

The “Jaffaite” narrative of Lincoln and the War as a noble fight to free the slaves and vindicate the Declaration is as ahistorical and the Pollard narrative of the stainless “Lost Cause.” For Gates and other race pimps there is a clear political and social pay-off to controlling the War narrative. That some people on FR insist on manichean interpretations, however, strikes me as odd.

[mac_truck]

So, a) Jordan DID say it, contrary to what you stated, meaning I was right, and b) you question his sources. Very, very different.

To clarify, there was nothing published by Jordan to substantiate his claim of 100,000 black confederates or 10,000 black confederate soldiers. Not sure I would include such unsubstantiated claims in the catagory of 'scholarly' or 'peer reviewed' either.

I don't recall any claims of a "cover up." Evidence? Pages?

I was assuming a familiarity with Jordan and his research on your part based on your positive comments of his work. One need only search on 'Elvin Jordan+ cover-up' to find an example of his oft-repeated claim that there was a conspiracy to white wash black involvement in the confederacy.

[LS]

Well, you ducked twice.

Show me where Jordan misused sources. I'll be at school tomorrow and can supply quotations. Can you?

[mac_truck]

Well, you ducked twice.

Not at all. However, your premise that...

"There is plenty of solid academic scholarship to suggest that there were at least 100,000 black confederates, of whom perhaps 10% were armed and fought"

...is false.

The fact that some black college professsor made this unsubstantiated claim in a book is ...meaningless..without substantial corraborating evidence. Its not quotes you'll need to provide here LS, its the author's underlying evidence that supports them that needs to be presented.

-btw Professor Ervin Jordan is already on record as saying he believes there was a conspiracy to cover-up the evidence of black confederate soldiers.

Do you agree?

[LS]

I wouldn't call it "conspiracy." I'd say that there is a tendency of ALL liberal profs to deny the presence of Black Confederate soldiers as it goes against their template. And whether the prof is black or not is purely a racist comment.

And, yes, you're ducking. You cannot provide ANY evidence now for the third time that what he says is not true, only to impugn (unnamed) sources and never offering a single quotation or piece of evidence. That's not the way we do history. You have to actually have evidence, and so far, he does, you don't.

[x]

I don’t “look around the internet” for lunatic assertions, and I don’t know of any significant historian or historical group that claims that there were brigade, division, or corps level black units.

You don't have to look very far to find people who do make those claims. Some of them are right here on Free Republic. There are others elsewhere on the Internet.

Of course, no "significant historians" do make that claim, but when the "Black Confederates" controversy started there were those who said or implied or led others to believe that the Confederacy had many African-American or integrated units. Try this for example:

Black Southerners found their way into Confederate armies in three ways. They served as body servants, taking up arms or in other ways demonstrating their support for the war. There were many individuals who enlisted in regular units on their own. finally there were several all-black or predominately-black units in Confederate armies or local defense forces. All three catagories of black Confederates appeared at Gettsyburg.

Of course those phantom units are absurd, but to say that nobody believes in them because "significant historians" don't would be like saying that nobody believes that 911 was an inside job because no "significant historian" does.

To find fault with a writer for addressing and criticizing fringe concerns only encourages the spread wacky fringe opinions. If you never thought or said that Southern Blacks rushed to join Black or integrated units, good for you, but don't pretend that there aren't people who have held and spread such opinions.

When I first noticed people claiming that some blacks fought on the Confederate side they were met with categorical denials and derision from people like Gates.

Hmmm ... people like Gates. That's what Internet politics involves -- putting words in other people's mouths. It's not going to stop any time soon, but you have what Gates actually writes here, and you choose to focus on what he might have said earlier or what "people like him" said. You accuse him of creating a "straw man" and here you are, still propping up your own straw man.

In fact, Gates has "backed down" but in the opposite direction. He endorsed a limited "Black Confederates" hypothesis, and when it was criticized he backed away from his original assertions. Did you even read the article? You may be right about his character, but speculating about what "people like Gates" wrote or thought, rather than finding out what he actually said, doesn't say much for your point of view on this, either.

When somebody says that there were thousands of Black Confederate troops, armed and in uniform and implies that they volunteered for military service, one person might simply issue a blanket denial that any African Americans ever fired a shot from the Confederate side. Another skeptic might be more judicious and say that there were drivers and porters and menservants and laborers in the Confederate lines who might at one point have picked up a gun. The second person would be closer to the truth, but they'd both be more correct than the person who made the original absurd claim.

I'm not going to fault somebody who responded to an absurd claim with a complete denial and then looked more carefully into the matter to come up with a more measured and balanced view. As it is, though, we have Gates's statement on the record, so there's no need to put words into his mouth, or to attack him for what he didn't say or find excuses for what he didn't do.

We could as well say that “without the tariff disputes”, or “without the internal improvement disputes”, or “without the disputes over the meaning of federalism”, or “without the Northern invasion of the South”, or “without the disputes over territorial expansion”, etc. you wouldn’t have gotten that war at that time with those sides.

A long-standing structural or institutional factor can't be the cause of a specific war at a specific time. Saying that the Constitution and state's rights caused the Civil War is like saying that France and Germany sharing a common border caused the wars of 1870, 1914, and 1939. Sure, the fact that France and Germany were neighbors helped make war possible, but why did wars start in those years and not in others? You have to look for some factor that isn't constant or long-lasting, something other than "disputes about federalism."

Tariffs and internal improvements also couldn't have been a very important factor in sparking secession and war. I'd say that so long as Southerners stayed in Congress and especially in the Senate, they wouldn't have had higher tariffs or more internal improvements than they could live with. That's just my opinion, but there's more.

If tariffs or internal improvements had been the issue of the hour, no way would the Democratic Party have split into two rival Northern and Southern parties, assuring a Republican victory. Southern Democrats would have stood with Northern Democrats against such policies. And if tariffs or internal improvements had been the essential issues to Southerners they wouldn't have further split their vote between the two Democrats and the ex-Whigs Bell and Everett. If tariffs or internal improvements had been more important than slavery, you can bet Southerns and Democrats would have stood together against them.

That some people on FR insist on manichean interpretations, however, strikes me as odd.

Manichean = a fancy way of saying "not my own"?

Most people recognize that all good wasn't on one side and all evil wasn't on the other. But partisans have a way of undercutting the moral arguments of the other side, so as to leave their own in a better position. The fact that people recognize that the war wasn't a crusade of pure good against pure evil doesn't mean they'll agree with the specific opinions you hold, and the fact that they disagree with you doesn't mean they take the war for such a crusade.

[mac_truck]

I wouldn't call it "conspiracy".

Then your argument is with the author, Ervin Jordan. He made that assertion.

I'd say that there is a tendency of ALL liberal profs to deny the presence of Black Confederate soldiers as it goes against their template.

Lol. I could care less what ANY academic has to say about it. Either you can cite the underlying supporting evidence for your assertions or you can't. Neither you or Jordan has provided a jot of evidence to back up the ridiculous notion that there were 100,000 black men serving in the confederacy, or that there were 10,000 black soldiers fighting for the south. Stop running away from that fact.

You cannot provide ANY evidence now for the third time that what he says is not true

I can cite the same CSA pension application records from a dozen states that Ervin Jordan claims show evidence of a "conspiracy" to whitewash the participation of black soldiers in the confederacy. Those records, according to Jordan, show that the few black men who applied to the various state boards as former 'soldiers' had their applications changed to show they were 'liveries' or 'cooks' or 'gravediggers', etc. instead. In many cases those black men were denied CSA pensions.

Now I am willing to accept those pension application records from a dozen different states at face value and as being accurate records, but once again...

LS, do you believe there was a "conspiracy" amongst a dozen state pension boards to cover-up the truth about black soldiers in the confederacy?

That's not the way we do history. You have to actually have evidence, and so far, he does, you don't.

No, here's how you do history pal. ( Post 11 ) You quote some hack professor making an unsupported claim, you package him in with a better known and more widely read historian (who doesn't make the same claim), you apply the 'scholarly' and 'peer reviewed' labels and call it... shinola.

No sale.

[LS]

Absolutely I believe that the CONFEDERATE state pension boards tried to deny black soldiers their pensions, so if you want to phrase it that way, yes, it's a conspiracy. And My argument is with YOU "pal," not Jordan, and YOU have shown zero evidence to dispute Jordan's claims except the "fact" that racist Confederates would in fact deny rights to blacks (even if soldiers). Wow, imagine that, the South denying rights to black.

And since you cannot apparently do history in any fashion---accepting Confederates' word at face value, but not testimony of black soldiers---then I have to assume you are clueless about how to do history . . . "pal."

[achilles2000]

1. I don’t know whose site you linked, but I don’t see anything that says that thee were even brigade level black units. Instead, what he describes is the involvement of a few here and a few there. For example:

“In Lynchburg 70 men enlisted to fight for the defense of Virginia soon after it seceded.

In late April, 60 black Virginians carrying a Confederate flag asked to be enlisted.

In Hampton 300 blacks volunteered to serve in artillery batteries.”

Of course, over all when the entire Confederacy is taken into a account, small groups like these could aggregate into a fair number, which is what the author you linked claims. Nevertheless, he doesn’t claim that there was a freedman’s brigade or division, for example.

As for “integrated units”, I would wager that almost all units were integrated in the sense that blacks were present performing various tasks. The issue is whether not whether they were there, but whether they did any fighting. Gates is conceding that many fought. If you include individuals of mixed race, the number could be several tens of thousands, which isn’t much considering the size of the armies, but it would be interesting nonetheless.

2. I agree with you regarding my comment regarding “people like Gates”. I should have simply said the typical liberal. You can find many of them calling him a heretic for saying the many blacks actually fought for the Confederacy. In any event, I should have left Gates out of it.

3. “A long-standing structural or institutional factor can’t be the cause of a specific war at a specific time.”

If we accepted this, then slavery couldn’t have been a cause either because it was both a long term institution and a structural factor in the economy of the US, not just the South. Disputes over these sorts of things do lead to conflict. And, of course, every conflict occurs at a specific place(s) and time(s). For example, while I agree that “borders” by themselves don’t cause wars, disputes about borders certainly do.

3. “Most people recognize that all good wasn’t on one side and all evil wasn’t on the other.”

Now it’s my turn to echo you. The Manichean view of the War is not uncommon, and “You don’t have to look very far to find people who do make those claims. Some of them are right here on Free Republic. There are others elsewhere on the Internet.” ;-)

[x]

If we accepted this, then slavery couldn’t have been a cause either because it was both a long term institution and a structural factor in the economy of the US, not just the South.

It wasn't so much the existence of slavery as the possible expansion or collapse of slavery, the growing abolitionist and proslavery movements.

If slavery had been a universally accepted institution, this particular war probably wouldn't have happened.

But it's hard to see how this particular war, at this time, with these sides would have happened without slavery and the conflicts surrounding it.

Of course there were conflicts about the Constitution at the same time, but since most conflicts in constitutional interpretation are resolved peacefully, one has to ask what made the conflict in 1860 so different.

[achilles2000]

“It wasn’t so much the existence of slavery as the possible expansion or collapse of slavery, the growing abolitionist and proslavery movements.”

I think you will find that Southerners of the period knew that slavery couldn’t expand within the US because outside of the South the conditions for plantation agriculture didn’t exist. So, even if slavery were permitted in a new state, they knew that the slave economy and culture wouldn’t take hold. The abolition movement was viewed as extremist even in the North, and I don’t believe it was growing at all prior to the war. I also don’t think that there was a growing proslavery movement. I would agree that those involved in the controversy over slavery became more intransigent in their views after 1830 or so.

“If slavery had been a universally accepted institution, this particular war probably wouldn’t have happened.”

If there hadn’t been a tariff issue; if there hadn’t been ....this particular war probably wouldn’t have happened. Who knows? Counterfactual history is interesting, but undecidable. Change some factor, and maybe you don’t get a war or you get a war different from that particular war.

“But it’s hard to see how this particular war, at this time, with these sides would have happened without slavery and the conflicts surrounding it.”

The Corwin Amendment addressed the slavery issue squarely and would have resolved the issue in the strongest possible way to protect slavery forever. Lincoln and the North (except for abolitionists, who were few) supported it. I glad that the South rejected it.

“Of course there were conflicts about the Constitution at the same time, but since most conflicts in constitutional interpretation are resolved peacefully, one has to ask what made the conflict in 1860 so different.”

Most being resolved peacefully doesn’t assure all will be. We may be standing on the precipice of an “unpeaceful” constitutional conflict ourselves over many issues that have built up, but which may be triggered by Obamacare, etc.