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By MATT MAY, Staff
Posted on 04/18/2003 6:53:53 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
latest update: Friday, April 18, 2003 at 08:36 AM EDT
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click photo to enlarge By MATT MAY, Staff |
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By PETER GUINTA
Senior Writer
Most Civil War histories usually ignore the more than 70,000 African-Americans who served with Confederate armies.
People know little about them, but in 1861, noted black abolitionist Frederick Douglass said, "There are many colored men in the Confederate Army as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops and doing all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government."
Black soldiers' contributions to Union armies are already well known, popularized in Hollywood films such as "Glory" with Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman.
However, suggesting that Southern blacks fought and died for a government that condoned and supported slavery is politically incorrect nowadays.
Nonetheless, at least three black Confederate veterans are buried in San Lorenzo Cemetery on U.S. 1 -- three of only six documented in the state.
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 click photo to enlarge By MATT MAY, Staff |
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Their memories -- and the memories of 46 white Confederate soldiers who died during that war -- will be honored Saturday, when Nelson Wimbush of Orlando, grandson of a black soldier who rode with Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, speaks at 10 a.m. at the Plaza de la Constitucion.
Wimbush is coming to St. Augustine to mark an early observance of Confederate Memorial Day by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Gen. William Wing Loring Camp 1316, St. Augustine.
According to Jim Davis, a U.S. Army veteran of Vietnam and adjutant of the Loring chapter, the observance was moved from April 26, the anniversary of Gen. Joseph E. Johnson's surrender, to avoid conflict with Flagler College's graduation.
"After the speech, the names of all veterans listed on the Confederate Monument will be read aloud," Davis said.
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 click photo to enlarge Special to The Record |
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Loring, a veteran of the Seminole and Mexican wars, was raised in St. Augustine and accepted a commission in the Army of the Confederacy in 1862. His ashes are buried under a monument in the west Plaza, Cordova and King streets, raised in his honor in 1920 by the Anna Dummett Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy.
"All of our veterans ought to be honored for the sacrifices they gave," Davis said. "This is our way of honoring the sacrifices of our Confederate veterans."
After reading the names, participants will be invited to San Lorenzo Cemetery to place flags on the graves of the 160 Confederates -- black and white -- buried there.
John Masters of St. Augustine, a retired U.S. Army colonel with combat service in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, has documented 9,000 Confederate graves in Florida. Only six of them are black, he said, because most records of the time did not list race.
"Graves of black Confederate veterans are scarce as hen's teeth," he said.
Most black Confederates worked as cooks, drivers or musicians, but at least 18,000 served as combat troops, Masters said.
"Black people don't want to believe that, but it's true," he said. "Nobody wanted to be a slave, but this was their home and the North was an aggressor nation."
All St. Augustine black Confederates survived the war.
Osborn was born here in 1843, the son of freed slaves. He was 18 when he enlisted in 1861 as a musician in Capt. John Lott Phillips' Company B, 3rd Florida Infantry Regiment, called the St. Augustine Blues.
He served in St. Augustine, Fernandina Beach, Tallahassee, Mobile, Ala., and Chattanooga, Tenn., fighting in the Battle of Perryville.
He was discharged in 1862 after his one-year enlistment ended and due to his ill health. He died in 1907.
In St. Augustine National Cemetery is buried a Samuel L. Osborn Jr., private in Company D, 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, who died in 1890. Masters believes this may be Emanuel's brother.
Welters, who served in the same company as Osborn and Papino, was also known under other names, such as Anthony Wetters, Tony Fontane and Antonio Huertas. A former slave, he was born in 1810 and enlisted as a fifer in 1861, when he was 51 years old.
He participated in the battles of Perryville, Murfreesboro, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Chickamauga, Atlanta, Franklin and Nashville.
Returning to St. Augustine, after the war, Welters lived at 79 Bridge St. and became active in politics and with the E. Kirby Smith Camp, United Confederate Veterans. He died in 1902 at 92 years old.
Only a few facts are available about Papino. He was born in 1813 and enlisted as a musician and mechanic in 1861 at 48 years old but was discharged in November 1862.
His burial place is not precisely known, but a stone in San Lorenzo stands near his comrades' graves in memorial of his service.
Many blacks who fought for the Confederacy drew pensions for their service after the war. Arkansas, the only state which identified these individuals by race, documented 278 blacks who received such pensions.
Masters said Confederate Gen. E. Kirby Smith, who was born and raised in St. Augustine, had a black orderly, Alex Darns. After the war, the general paid for his former orderly to attend medical school.
Darns later became a successful doctor in Jacksonville.
"St. Augustine was occupied by the Union in 1862," Masters said. "Smith's mother was a Confederate spy. She and someone else cut down the flag pole in front of the arsenal (now National Guard headquarters) so they couldn't fly the Union flag on it."
certainly in today's "PC-kulture" the LIBS of all sorts will not accept back CSA veterans, BUT that does NOT denigrate OR deny the honorable service of the many thousands of blacks/indians/asians/hispanics/jews, who wore the gray.
if you choose to believe the 1st-person accounts of NUMEROUS yankee officers who saw MANY armed black veterans, it is difficult to accept your contention that they were something other than soldiers, sailors & marines.
on the march to Gettsburg, a yankee COL of medical troops said that he saw "MANY (emphasis mine) stinking n______s in the rebel ranks, armed with the same weapons & wearing the same filthy gray rags as all the other damned rebels." HE estimated that the large unit he saw passing his location was between 20-25% black. ( i refuse to argue about what HE SAW, as i was not there!)
as to celebrating the service of black CSA veterans ONLY for the last 10 years, that is patently FALSE. no less a person than the CDR of the UCV in 1914 spoke at the dedication of the Confederate monument at Arlington National Cemetery about the service of black veterans; indeed he pointed out the figure on the monument of a uniformed, armed black rebel soldier! the city of New Orleans erected a statue to the black CSA veterans of LA in the 1920s, which was the height of membership, NOT coincidentaly, of the KKK.
it is only the racists, bigots,damnyankees & LIBs who deny/denigrate the service of NON-white Confederates! NOT southrons! ONE of the LIES of PC-scholarship is to say that no slaves wore the gray;this is a lie of omission, because most of the liars know full well that the veterans were FREEMEN (slaves, not being free persons, could not take the oath of enlistment).
BTW, at the 50th commeration of the battle of Gettsburg, the National Park Service attempted to stop the many black rebels who had come for the re-enactment of Pickett's Charge from participating; the WHITE rebels told the officials that if their black compatriots in arms were excluded from the "slow-motion charge", that the whites would also not participate!
FRee dixie,sw
LOL!
FRee dixie,sw
only FREE men could take the CSA oath of enlistment. yes, there were slaves who were contracted out to the CSA military, but they were NOT servicemembers, but rather civilian laborers.
the black 100,000 or so black VETERANS were FREEMEN, who CHOSE to join the fight for dixie liberty.
sad for your side, that is FACT!
FRee dixie,sw
his book just may open your eyes.
FRee dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
FRee dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
you LOSE again!
free dixie,sw
FRee dixie,sw
FRee dixie,sw
the rebel army was MOSTLY state, privately-raised & local units and a FEW PACSA troops.
damn few state, local OR privately raised units cared anything about what the Richmond bureaucrats wanted. mostly, they IGNORED the orders that camr down from the PACSA staff or "misunderstood" the orders.
free dixie,sw
TRY TRUTH for once.
FREE dixie,sw
Which is why it was not uncommon to find blacks being used in a supporting role - teamsters, cooks, servants and the like - in spite of the fact that it was against the law to do so. But combat soldiers? Not likely.
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