Posted on 02/21/2006 7:59:04 AM PST by stainlessbanner
Relatively few people are aware that during the Civil War, Confederate leaders put forth a proposal to arm slaves to fight against the Union in exchange for their freedom.
In his new book Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves during the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2006), UCSC history professor Bruce Levine examines the circumstances that led to this startling and provocative piece of American history. In the process, he sheds new light on a little-known but significant story of slavery, freedom, and race during the Civil War.
The idea for the book came to Levine in the late 1980s when he was teaching at the University of Cincinnati and working on another book about the origins of the Civil War.
"The more I read about this episode, the more I realized how important it was to our understanding of the war; it wasn’t just an interesting little footnote,” said Levine. "After all, how could the war be about slavery if the Confederates were willing to sacrifice slavery in order to win the war? And it turned out that there was a cornucopia of information on that and related subjects available in letters, government documents, and newspaper articles and editorials.”
Levine traveled throughout the South, combing through archives for newspaper accounts of the war, letters sent to Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders, diaries of officers and troops, and memoirs by and about former slaves. He spent time exploring the internal documents of the Confederate government, which were captured by the Union army and are now stored at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Levine found that Confederate leaders had been receiving--and rejecting--letters from various Southerners suggesting that they arm the slaves since the very beginning of the war.
But it was only in November of 1864, after the Confederates were defeated at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and finally Atlanta, that Davis reversed himself and endorsed the proposal to arm the slaves. The result was a fierce public debate in newspapers, drawing rooms, army regiments, and slave quarters throughout the South.
The book shows how the idea was proposed out of desperation and military necessity--the Confederates were badly outnumbered, slaves were escaping and joining the Union armies, and the South was close to defeat and to the loss of slavery. But as Levine points out, "the opposition of slave owners was ferocious--even though they were facing defeat and the end of slavery, they would not face those realities. They would not give up their slaves, even to save the Confederate cause itself."
"Only a tiny handful of slaves responded to the Confederate proposal," Levine added. "They viewed it as an act of desperation and were skeptical of the sincerity of promises of emancipation. The reaction of the slaves generally was 'Why would we fight for the Confederacy; it's not our country? They were very well informed through the grapevine."
Levine noted that the book is designed to emphasize how important the slaves’ actions were during that period of history.
"The story of the Civil War is usually told as a story of two white armies and two white governments," Levine said. "The popular image is of passive, grateful slaves kneeling at the feet of Father Abraham. But in fact, the slaves were very active in shaping the war and its outcome.”
"There are a lot of revelations in this book," Levine added. "The proposals discussed here provided an early glimmering of how the white South would treat blacks for the next century."
Levine is the author, coauthor, or editor of six previous books, including Work and Society (1977), Who Built America? (two volumes, 1990, 1992), The Spirit of 1848: German Immigrants, Labor Conflict, and the Coming of the Civil War (1992), and Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War (rev. ed. 2005). He has been a professor of history at UCSC since 1997.
Merriam Webster defines rebellion as "open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistance to an established government." So can we agree that their acts were a rebellion?
I'll give you that your other what-ifs are good questions, and would have been interesting, but as to "What if Texas had been been required to abolish slavery once it came in as a state?" it wouldn't have happened. Texas would still be an independent republic if that had been the demand of the U.S.A., as one of the primary reasons for Texans fighting for their independence was preserving their right to own slaves in the face of a Mexican ban on the institution.
I'm always willing to learn and the web is a fountain of knowledge. Here is a Link to a site listing confederate regiments. Which ones were the black ones?
ROTFLMAO. Try reading the proclamation before making such laughable statements.
You rang?
So you're claiming that in 1862 or 1863 or 1864 the confederacy didn't have enough to equip it's white troops but in March 1865 they did?
Turtledove is on about his ninth or tenth volume of an alternate history. In it the south won in 1863, won a second war in the 1870's or 80's, lost World War II and now has a Hitler-like strongman in charge who is busy gassing all the blacks in concentration camps. Oh, and he started World War II by invading the U.S. All highly entertaining.
It wasn't mainly about slavery. States rights, in particular Nullification, were a bigger factor, and that was about trade and tariffs.
"I knew about this when I was just a lad..some 45 years ago..my Dad, a Southerner, explained this to me..it's not "startling" or new.."
It is common knowledge in the South.
Actually, I disagree. Slavery was still not entrenched during the Republic period and Texas wanted very much wanted to join the Union. A little pressure would have made a difference.
As William Freehling points out in Road to Disunion, Texas has only a few thousand slaves at that point and Sam Houston proved flexibible in his negotiations with both the British and the Mexicans (who offered reunification on friendly terms) on this point. Abolition of slavery, probably through a phased approach, at this point was not a fantasy at all.
Pat Cleburne didn't achieve any higher command precisely because of this suggestion. He remained a division commander until his death.
Shiloh was in April 1862, months before the Emancipation Proclamation.
Maybe because they didn't, Stainless. With all the hoopla going on around here I'm surprised that nobody has bothered to post the actual legislation, it's out there on the web:
Senate Bill No. 190
A BILL To provide for Raising Two Hundred Thousand Negro Troops.
SECTION 1. The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, That the President of the Confederate States be and he is hereby authorized to receive into the military service, any number of negro troops not to exceed two hundred thousand.
SEC. 2. That the President be and he is authorized, to assign officers already appointed, or make appointments of officers, to raise and command said troops; and the same, when raised, shall be organized as provided under existing laws.
SEC. 3. That no negro slave shall be received into the service without the written consent of his owner and under such regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of War to carry into effect this act.
SEC. 4. That it is hereby declared, that Congress does not hereby assume to change the social and political status of the slave population of the States, but leaves the same under the jurisdiction and control of the States to which it belongs.
So it's evident that as late as February 1865, arguably the darkest moment in the confederacy's existance, when they are taking the monumental step of arming slaves they still can't bring themselves to free those slaves they expect to fight for them!!! Considering that every southern state at the time had clauses in their constitutions which prevented the legislature from passing any laws emancipating slaves or interfering in slave ownership then those slaves would have gone from the battlefield back to the cottonfield. So you tell me again, please, that it wasn't about slavery.
Better him than Hood? Besides the move to arm slaves came fairly late.
And my whole point was, my dear, was that Pres. Lincloln did not want to be involved with freeing slaves anywhere but the confederate states. Our history shows that other than confederate states owned slaveS, and that some free blacks and cherokee Indians even owned slaves.
Why did he not write to free ALL SLAVES!
A few thousand slaves was not a small number. And for people who fought to secede from Mexico in order to keep them, it would be rather unlikely that many would eagerly give them up as a precondition to Union.
From the Handbook of Texas:
"In 1836 there were probably 5,000 blacks, 30,000 Anglo-Americans, 3,470 Hispanics, and 14,200 Indians in Texas. A population of about 50,000 is indicated by the vote for the first president of the republic in 1836, and the vote of 1845, the last year of the republic, indicated a population of 125,000. In 1847 a partial enumeration was made showing a population of 135,000, of whom 39,000 were slaves. In a census of the state for 1848 the total population was given as 158,356, of whom 42,455 were slaves."
"On many plantations, as on Lousiana Governor Moore's by the summer of 1863, slaves simply came and went at pleasure, using the master's place as a convenient domicile, while spending their days wandering the countryside and scavenging."
"On October 17, 1864, the governors of N.C., S.C., VA, GA, AL, and MS met in Augusta, GA, to discuss the crisis in Confederate affiars and compose recommendations to their states and the national government.
"One of the several resolutions they adopted was a call for the use of slaves in the military, with the government compensating their masters for them somehow, actually arming them as soldiers, and promising them freedom after the war if they served well."
-William C. Davis, Look Away! pp 157
You are right, had he lived longer, perhaps he would have advanced the movement. It seems Southern politicians at the state level (representatives and governers) endorsed the move to arm slaves and it was carried up to the highest Confederate officials.
In fact, it is curious that the legislation did not demand (ie. conscript) all able-bodied slave men 18+ for military duty.
Also, by this time in the war, most accepted the fact win or lose, slaves would be freed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.