Posted on 02/26/2005 9:53:22 PM PST by SmithL
It's lunacy to pretend that black confederate soldiers did not exist in the face of conclusive evidence in the historical records. I suppose that would make both you and Jim McPherson lunatics.
There you go fibbing again. Over a year ago I showed you documentation that (1) the Richmond troops were reported in the newspapers to have performed an arms drill on the streets and (2) one of their units engaged in combat a few weeks later at Amelia Courthouse. Yet here you are on another thread and another day repeating the same old fib as if nothing had changed.
Why don't you just post a link to the thread where you showed the documents instead of launching yet another one of your patented polemics? So far we only have one poster's photographic evidence , that consists of black confederate troops wearing union uniforms. If you have further proof then lets see it professor.
Unfortunately, you are right. And unfortunately, our side has to deal with them, because they are tainting all of us. There is a legitimate scholarly debate about the extent to which tariffs and cultural issues or "abolitionist agitation" ADDED TO the fundamental dividing point of slavery, but when people start saying "slavery had its good points," this is certainly ridiculous for any modern conservative or, I would hope, Libertarian, to claim.
But these numbers pale beside those who escaped in Virginia northward, and whenever Yankee regiments were at all close, there was an exodus to Union lines.
Look it up yourself. He knows it's there as well as I do and I don't have the time to go digging around in threads from over a year ago.
I don't know what history you're using, but I do know that the Richmond Enquirer reported on 3/23/65 that
"The appearance of the battalion of colored troops on the Square, yesterday afternoon, attracted thousands of our citizens to the spot, all eager to catch a glimpse of the sable soldiers. The bearing of the negroes elicited universal commendation. While on the Square, they went through the manual of arms in a manner which would have done credit to veteran soldiers"
Further, Confederate leadership was terrified of arming them, even when individual commanders at times thought it the only alternative.
That is only partially true. Some confederate leaders opposed arming them until 1865. In other cases states such as Tennessee passed laws allowing blacks to be armed in the state militias as early as 1861.
But these numbers pale beside those who escaped in Virginia northward, and whenever Yankee regiments were at all close, there was an exodus to Union lines.
Whether they do or not, it does not alter the fact that there were blacks in the confederate armies including blacks that were armed and even some who saw combat.
Yes, there were blacks (very, very, VERY few) who were armed in the Confederacy. This totally begs the point of the article and of Bill Flax, who tries to portray a miniscule handful of black troops (virtually all of whom, by the way, were guaranteed their FREEDOM for enlisting) as indicative of their enthusiasm for fighting for the Confederacy. By the way, are you sure the black troops in Tennesssee you are referring to are not UNION black troops armed after most of Tennessee fell to the Union?
That's all I desire to be acknowledged. My point is that there are some people on threads like these (e.g. Partisan) and some historians (e.g. McPherson) who deny even that much, even if the ones that were armed only number between a couple hundred and a couple thousand.
This totally begs the point of the article and of Bill Flax, who tries to portray a miniscule handful of black troops (virtually all of whom, by the way, were guaranteed their FREEDOM for enlisting)
That was not always their motivation and in fact was probably only a motivation for those who enlisted in the Confederate federal army in Richmond in 1865. There were about 140,000 free blacks living in the CSA during the civil war and from what the records indicate, they are the ones who enlisted with the various state militia units in places like Tennessee and Louisiana before the CSA federal units began accepting blacks.
By the way, are you sure the black troops in Tennesssee you are referring to are not UNION black troops armed after most of Tennessee fell to the Union?
I am certain. It was the product of a law passed by the Tennessee state legislature and signed by Governor Harris in June of 1861...around the 21st or 22nd IIRC, though I don't have the journal at hand right now.
[yawn]..and yet you have time to post a half dozen of these boring 'I'm right and you're a liar' comments. Why don't you just produce the evidence that you claim you have or stop wasting our time?
FWIW, my research has shown that whatever nonwhite confederate soldiers existed in Lousiniana, they sure as heck didn't consider themselves black. If they didn't then, we shouldn't now, unless we're attempting to revise history.
Pa faire to sega are moi -eh?
"It had some good points"
This says it all.
Now note how totally, you have taken my post out of all context. I repeat the post to which you replied, with the quote that you used underlined, so that it may be seen more clearly:
You will not find any post of mine about "how great slavery was." You are the one obsessed with that particular system, not I. It had some good points, one must admit; but the underlying premise was certainly wrong, and ill advised--but so too are the demeaning underlying premises of the American Welfare State, and the Bush foreign policy. Was slavery even worse? I am not that judgmental of a system that is clearly sanctioned in the Bible, and which has existed in many forms, throughout the historic period, in every region of the earth.
My points, in repeatedly challenging the South haters, is that their obsession insults the American tradition and divides traditional Americans, at a time when we are losing more and more of our common heritage. I attack you, because you sabotage what I believe in; you slander the freely entered into Union of proud States, where it was understood that we would not interfere with each others' unique customs. For you, that frustrates your need--compulsion, apparently--to slander the South. But it also means that I, who identify with the Jeffersonians, must accept and respect the right of the people in New England to pursue their more strait laced value systems; the right of Massachusetts, to this day, to impose absurd policies on its people, etc., etc..
You know, respect begets respect, and contempt invites contempt. Your lack of respect for the Old South invites the disrespect for other things that you value. It is a short dead end street, which rapidly ends meaningful and mutually beneficial discussion. It is pathetic.
While some of the Leftist historians may see history as a battle between good and evil, where the rich property owners are always evil and the poor peasants and workers are always good, generally Western Historians do not demonize different cultures, they simply analyze them, discussing their strengths and weaknesses, but not making themselves look like ignorant, ranting fanatics, by making half-baked, moral judgments.
You, not I and not the Southerners whom you insult, is the one hung up on slavery. But curiously, you only seem to want to rant about slavery in the American South, among your fellow countrymen. You do not rant about it in the Bible, nor in ancient China--or for that matter in some areas of modern China. You do not rant about the feudal era in Europe; do not claim that Charlemagne or Frederick Barbarosa were savage devils. You do not concern yourself with slavery in the golden age of Greece or Rome, etc.. No, your "moral" rectitude is something you trot out not as an historian, interested in an objective study of history, but as a whip to marginalize Southern Conservatives, who are more devoted than you to the historic values of the Founding Fathers.
Now, let us dissect my admission that while I think slavery a bad system, "it had some good points." One of those good points was in the devotion of the participants to each other--something you of course deny. But there was more genuine kindness between the races in the Old South than there is today.
Another point is the health of the people. The Prudential Life Insurance company conducted a study in the 1890s on the plight of the Negro in the South, and demonstrated a tremendous fall off in the health and position of the free men, a generation after emancipation. It was published by their chief Actuary, Frederick L. Hoffmann.
Is health care a reason to deplore personal freedom? Of course not. (I am on record as very strongly deploring the President's extension of Medicare, for an example of where I stand on such an idea.) So do not suggest that I am saying that it is. But as an historian, you should be willing to accept the good with the bad--that is if you do not have a primary motive as an advocate of something else!
And as an historian, you should understand, that in very few of the world's systems--the systems of the present day--are the citizens/subjects as free as Americans at the time of the Constitutional compact. There are all forms of involuntary servitude, all degrees. The world is not a case of black and white, no pun intended, in the way that you seem to imagine, or want to believe.
William Flax
Posting a response on this thread takes a lot less time than searching through stuff from over a year ago. I know what was posted then and Partisan knows what was posted then, despite his lies about it now. Your request for it accordingly does not concern me and if you wish to know anything further, go look it up yourself.
"However, there is one group of African Americans who will receive no recognition again this year during this month. I am speaking of black Confederates who served and fought to defend their homeland from what they believed to be an armed invasion."
From what "they believed to be an armed invasion?" Try this, "It was an armed invasion."
Yes. The lovely, never do wrong Yankees INVADED the South...
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