Posted on 03/27/2024 3:49:03 PM PDT by Eleutheria5
As many scholars emphasize, particularly in the study of historical subjects like the Civil War, nuances abound, and the narrative is seldom black or white. History's truth often resides in the gray zones, and this holds especially true for the complex society of the Confederate States of America Rather than a simple dichotomy of Blacks and Whites, the antebellum South witnessed a blend of races over two centuries leading up to the Civil War.
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Slavery was common in Africa for many centuries before the Atlantic slave trade. Slaves were kept locally, but a great many were sold to Muslims on the Mediterranean and in the middle east.
Slavery was a step up from simply killing all adult males who lost battles in warfare. Of course, a great many people were killed and eaten.
Women were virtually always treated as a commodity by tribes.
I spent many years researching the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry. They were the first black units authorized by Lincoln to be formed in the north. In my research, I tracked down some of the descendants of the men who served, both white officers and black soldiers. One soldier named Andrew Jason Smith had been born a slave in Kentucky. His father was the plantation owner, also named Smith. When Andrew and another slave heard that their master was going to take them with them when they returned to the war, they ran away. Andrew eventually met up with an Ohio regiment. The Colonel on the unit made him his cook/servant. At the Battle of Shiloh, the Colonel told Andrew to get his horse, and remove it from the battlefield. In doing so, Andrew got hit in the head with a spent bullet. It left a scar on his forehead the rest of his life.
The Colonel had been suffering from chronic diarrhea, and was put on medical leave. He returned home to Ohio to recuperate, and took Andrew with him. It was while Andrew was in Ohio that he heard of the recruitment of black soldiers in Boston. The Colonel got him a train ticket, and Andrew headed east. By the time he got there, the 54th Regiment was already filled, so he enlisted in the 55th, and remained with the unit throughout the war. Andrew went home to Kentucky and spent the rest of his life there. He was married twice. His first wife died, and they had no children. Later in life, he married a younger woman who gave him two daughters, Geneva and Caruth. Their mother died after her dress caught fire in the kitchen, and because the mother's family felt Andrew was too old to raise a baby, they took Caruth and raised her. Geneva remained with her father, but the girls stayed close all their lives.
I first came across information on Andrew Smith from a manuscript collection at Cornell University. The Assistant Surgeon Burt Greene Wilder of the 55th had been a professor at the college, and left all his papers to the school, as well as his brain. There was a photo of Andy in uniform, a photo of him as an older man, and a photo of his daughter Geneva. There were also letters from Andrew to Dr. Wilder. Since Andrew couldn't read or write, he would dictate his letters to Geneva, so the letters I read from Andrew to Dr. Wilder, were in Geneva's hand.
I managed to track down Andrew's grandson who still lives in Indianapolis. The first time we met was at the National Archives in Washington. I had made copies of all the documents and photos of Andrew Jackson Smith that I had found in the collection. It wasn't until I met Andy Bowman, that I discovered that Geneva and Caruth were still alive. Geneva was Andy Bowman's mother. She was living in Chicago at the time, and although I never met her in person, I did speak to her on the phone. She passed away a few years later. I did meet Caruth in person several times, and we carried on a correspondence until she passed at 104. She had been a teacher, had been married, but had no children, so her nephew Andy was very dear to her.
One of the things Caruth had wanted was to get her father The Medal of Honor. He had saved the Federal and State flags at the Battle of Honey Hill, S.C., on November 30, 1864, after both flag bearers had fallen. After the war, Dr. Wilder wrote the awards branch in Washington, but was told that the statute of limitations for Civil War Medals of Honor had expired. In my research, I had discovered the records that would offer evidence of Andrew's actions at Honey Hill. I originally wrote Colin Powell, who was then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he wrote me back, telling me that he would forward the documentation to the Awards Branch. They told me exactly the same thing they'd told Dr. Wilder all those years ago, that the statute of limitation had expired. It took several years, but after other people got involved with Andy Bowman, and after a Congressional vote, Andrew Smith was awarded the Medal of Honor by Bill Clinton in January 2001, just before he left office. Caruth was there that day with her nephew Andy, and his family to receive it. They were in good company, because Teddy Roosevelt was awarded the Medal of Honor the same day.
I remember him, but can’t recall his name. Was he from Virginia? He got all kind of nastiness from other blacks for being proud he was descended from a black Confederate. I can’t remember if he was a member of the Sons of the Confederacy. but he may have been.
The one thing I learned from studying black soldiers in the Civil War, and after meeting the descendant of one of the member of the 54th Massachusetts, who had retired as a Colonel from the U.S. Army, was that in every war, the black soldier had to prove himself over and over. Before joining the Army in WWII, he had joined the black parachute group The Triple Nickel (555). They trained every day to jump out of planes. He said they got to good at jumping out of planes, that they could put a chalk mark on the side of the plane as they went out. He got extremely frustrated because the government wouldn’t let them go overseas, and instead used them to fight fires in the west. He left that group and joined a black Army unit and fought in Italy. He was also in Korea at Heartbreak Ridge. His grandfather was the first black soldier enlisted in the 54th in Boston in 1863. He left school to enlist, and lied about his age. He was also the last survivor of the 54th.
The 5th Massachusetts Cavalry (Unmounted), was a black unit with white officers. One of Frederick Douglass’s sons was a member of the unit. One also served in the 54th Mass. The 5th Mass. Cavalry was the first regiment to enter Richmond after it fell. They also served at Point Lookout, and were eventually sent to Texas after the war.
Women were also treated as a commodity within the European aristocracies and monarchies. That's why so many first cousins ended up marrying each other. It was all about the money, the land, and power.
There was NO SHORTAGE of diversity in the Confederate Army, nor was there a shortage of White soldiers.
There were a lot more black faces in the confederate camps than that. Teamsters, drovers, cooks and other non-combatants were needed in large numbers. The confederate army tended to rely on contracted civilian laborers, many black (since young white men of military age were subject to conscription), and among the blacks, some free and some slave, who were contracted out by their owners.
This is an issue that comes up from time to time when the experts start getting down into the weeds about numbers present in various engagements. The Union armies had the same needs for non-combatant labor, but the Yankees tended to detail soldiers for ancillary duties. When the hard core types start getting sticky about how many men were actually on the firing line, a substantial fraction of the Union troops nominally present were likely on detached duty. I’ve heard eminent historians at various battlefields adjust the federal numbers downward by as much as 25 percent to account for this. I’ve also heard it asserted by solid historians that if you visited union and confederate camps in the first three years of the war, before the USCT started to show up, you would see far more black faces in the confederate camps.
Most of the blacks in the confederate camps were noncombatants. Frederick Douglas estimated that around 5,000 served in the ranks as combatants. That’s not a large number in the broad context of the war, but it’s enough to upset The Narrative.
Who these guys were is an interesting question, and it is closely related to where they were. Broad swaths of the confederacy were not suitable for plantation agriculture, and the peculiar institution had a very different texture to it than in the plantation belt.
The best discussion I can report on this occurred on a picturesque, highly evocative hilltop in central Tennessee, on the edge of the Cumberland Plateau. This was on an organized tour. We were doing the Tullahoma campaign, the early stages of which consisted of a fight for the mountain passes as the federals came up out of Nashville, which sits in a great basin; you go uphill out of Nashville in any direction, unless you are taking a boat down the river. We were discussing the fight for one of the passes. The scene was completely rural except for the interstate highway running through the pass, and therefore right through the middle of the battlefield, but we were a half mile east up on a hilltop.
Somehow the subject of black confederates came up. Our guide was one of those amazing local historians with an encyclopedic knowledge of the region, including long acquaintance with many of the families whose ancestors had served in the war. He rose to the occasion, acknowledged that he didn’t have as much information as he would like, and allowed that it was a good subject for someone to tackle seriously, if willing to take the risk of such a study being career ending in modern academia.
He said, and I paraphrase: “I can tell you where to start. I’ve worked with the muster rolls of the confederate regiments from this part of the state. They’re right there, in plain view, all listed the same way: NAME, followed by ‘free man of color,’ followed by date of enlistment. They are scattered around — three in one regiment, seven in another, 15 over there. But they are not differentiated in any other way in the muster rolls; they’re just entered in the list with everyone else, in the order that they enlisted.”
So who were these guys? My guess is that some of them were the descendants of slaves who had escaped, slipped out into the mountain wilderness, and had been left alone. (During the American Revolution, for example, a third of the slaves in the colonies ran away; all it took was a sufficient breakdown of the slave patrols when the British marched through, and they were gone. Most of them were never recaptured.)
But I will venture a guess that the majority of them were the descendants of slaves who had been manumitted, and one of the most common reasons for manumission is that they were the children of their owner. The reason that most American “blacks” today have 20 percent or more white ancestry is that a lot of those fine aristocratic southern gentlemen were slipping around the slave cabins at night, and some of them, while accepting the institution of slavery, were unwilling to inflict it on their own children. In that lonely Cumberland Plateau setting, we’re not talking plantation agriculture; we’re talking hillbillies and tiny little mountain hamlets. The black family’s shack back up in the holler was indistinguishable from the white families’ shacks in the surrounding area — and they were all kin, and knew it. They all knew who their granddaddy was, and that he was sowing his oats on both sides of the color line. Most of these young men of mixed race would have been anxious to be accepted in white society, and under hillbilly conditions, by and large they were (though a mixed marriage was still explosive). When the war came, at least some of them enlisted along with their white cousins and second cousins.
Unfortunately, we don’t have enough photographs to form a fair impression of what they looked like. Mixed race runs the gamut in skin tone. How dark were they?
We do know that Sally Hemmings was three quarters white. There are no portraits or photographs of her or her children. We do know, however, that she had six children who lived to adulthood. Let’s go with the TJ parentage theory (likely true, but there’s disputed dating that complicates one of the children). We know that Jefferson saw that all six were well trained in skilled trades. We know that Jefferson had promised Sally Hemmings that he would free her children when they reached age 21. (She was legally free in France when she was in Jefferson’s household there when he was ambassador, and she returned voluntarily with him to Virginia. We know that she and Jefferson had an agreement; we just don’t know exactly what it was.) Jefferson kept his promise to free the children when they turned 21 — these were the only slaves he ever freed — except for the two who ran off early, and he apparently sent these two money to help them on their way. And last but not least, we know that four of these six children passed into white society.
Who were the black confederate soldiers? Young men like TJ’s kids, I imagine. Free men of color. Some pretty black. Some close to passing as white. All “free men of color.”
Thanks for sharing.
Perhaps mention that, merely 388,000/13,000,000 African slaves were transported to North America.
And that the Barbary pirates captured and enslaved approximately 1.25 million Europeans from coastal raids all throughout Europe.
That’s roughly 3 white slaves taken for every black slave.
You’re welcome.
The South's economy was not "slave based". Slaves were certainly used, but the entire economy was not "based" on it. Most Southerners were White, not Black. The vast majority of Southern Whites did not own any slaves. The labor they employed was their own.
Next he says the Confederate Constitution "mandated" slavery. No it didn't. States that did not allow slavery were free to join the CSA and maintain their bans on slavery if they wished. Similarly there was no provision of the Confederate Constitution that would have prohibited a state that allowed slavery then from banning it in the future.
Sally Hemmings was 1/4 Black, not half.
Nathan Bedford Forest was not "the leader" of the KKK. In fact there is no evidence he was ever even in it. It is known that he publicly denounced it several times.
8,000 to 10,000 is an extremely low estimate of the number of Black Confederates who served in combat units. For example, here is just one eyewitness account from a Union observer of only one part of the Confederate Army at one specific date and he estimates he saw 3,000 armed Black Confederates march past him.
“Wednesday, September 10--At four o'clock this morning the rebel army began to move from our town, Jackson's force taking the advance. The movement continued until eight o'clock P.M., occupying sixteen hours. The most liberal calculations could not give them more than 64,000 men. Over 3,000 negroes must be included in this number. 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 of Lewis H. Steiner, New York: Anson D. F. Randolph, 1862, pp. 10-11)
Consider all the other Confederate forces engaged in combat across a front that stretched 1,000 miles and consider the duration of the war and it becomes clear that 8-10,000 must be an implausibly low estimate of the number of armed Black Confederates who were "manifestly a part of the Confederate Army".
I stopped watching at this point given all the inaccuracies in the first 19 minutes.
I make a point of listening to everything, except nauseating TDS liberals. Coleridge says (plagiarizing Kant or Plato?) that “if you do not understand a man’s ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding.” So mistakes need to be analyzed and paid attention to. Besides, it’s just background noise while I either do my work or work out, or look at my investments on line. All very repetitive activities, so I need mind candy to keep myself mindful.
BKMK
Promised freedom more likely
The mullatos were relatively free
Blacks were promised same in the revolution all over the colonies where slaves were including up north
Marion in South Carolina for example
Forrrest in the wbts
Cleburne proposed it WBTS
Promised freedom
That was my first thought as well, but apparently not. At least not that I could find with a cursory research.
This subject surfaces ever so often on this site. The issue is always blacks serving in the Confederate Army as soldiers. What is seldom mentioned is that black free men could enlist and serve in the Confederate Navy,and did. According to Confederate Navy regulations, up to 5% of a ship’s crew could be black. If the ship needed more sailors, the Captain could request a waiver from the area commander and ship additional black sailors.
The CSA was at a severe manpower disadvantage right from the start. They were well aware of it and in most cases, acted sensibly to try to fill out their ranks as best they could.
I know some Confederate States had laws forbidding enlistment of blacks in their militias. I did not know that some did allow that practice. Which Confederate States allowed blacks to enlist in their militia?
New Orleans had a not small population of free mixed-race people (like those who served in the Native Guard) who didn't consider themselves to be fully Black or White. They were different from many other parts of the South (and North) in that regard. That is why it's only there that a colored unit offered itself to the secessionist forces.
Bryan Rigg started his career writing about Jews (more often half- and quarter-Jews) in Hitler's military forces. He went about that in a more serious and professional way than he's going after this, but neither argument changes the overall picture much.
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