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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."
No, he didn't.
I would hardly expect Frederick Douglass to be an expert on the confederate military and he did have an agenda besides. What better way to shame the North into recruiting black combat troops than to claim that the confederacy, of all places, already had them? And while you have occasionally posted alleged accounts from Union officers about black combat troops how about some accounts from southern leaders on black combat troops? How about Jackson talking about those 2000 black troopers who were supposed to be with his corps or Lee commenting on the battlefield prowess of the tens of thousands of black troops stande waite seems to believe were in the Army of Northern Virginia. Instead you have Lee relunctantly saying that although he would prefer a white army, the need for troops is so great that he is prepared to accept black ones.
And as I pointed out to billbears, Douglass had his agenda. He wanted black Union troops and what better way to get them than to shame the North by claiming the confederates were already using them? It seems like all the claims and accounts of black combat troops come from the North. Why none from the south? Why didn't Jackson comment on his black troops if he was supposed to have over 2,000 with him? Why does Lee state a preference for the army remaining white if he already had black troops in his ranks?
We don't know that for sure. If the overwhelming majority were slaves then it can't be said that they had a choice, can it? No doubt some served the army voluntarily but it's likely that most were there because their owners were or their owners said so.
There were even blacks who rode with Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest when he gave Union generals fits in Mississippi and Tennessee. "Better Confederates did not live," Forrest said of the blacks that rode with him
I assume a quote from the man who is mistakenly credited with starting the Klan will be good enough? BTW, you may want to read that second link. A descendant of the Black Confederates made a documentary about them
That is a new angle.
If I recall correctly, Forrest's quote was delivered a number of years after the war. What about during it? What about Jackson and Johnston and Hood and Lee? Where are their accounts of the courage and dedication of their black troops? All we have from Lee on the matter is he January 1865 letter where he bemoans the fact that his preferred white army is no longer possible and that black troops should be enlisted. If they had been serving with him for years then why is he so unhappy about it in '65?
LOL
No, I am afraid the mighty Stonewall has taken that position.
OK, I read the second link. Let's see. According to him 50,000 to 100,000 were fighting for the confederacy, yet provides nothing to support that. He does include the unsupported claim that some served as combat soldiers. If so, where? Why not contemporary accounts of their service from the confederate side? He talks about the 3000 seen with knives and guns, and then immediately blows the time line. Those blacks were not on their way to Gettysburg, he is obviously quoting the Louis Steiner report which was reporting activities before Antietam. A minor matter, perhaps, but one which shows that accuracy wasn't important and he was simply parroting the same stuff that has been stated over and over. Nothing new, no supporting evidence. Nothing at all.
Maybe he was just shaming them with the truth. Horace Greely did so as well:
"For more than two years, Negroes have been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They have been embodied and drilled as rebel soldiers and had paraded with white troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union." - Horace Greely
It seems like all the claims and accounts of black combat troops come from the North. Why none from the south?
There are, the black participants at Confederate Veteran reunions testify to that. Tennessee, for example, legally sanctioned the recruitment of free blacks into the ranks of State Regiments. The 14th Tennessee Infantry Regiment listed numerous "free men of color" on their Roll of Honor, one of which was killed in action carrying their colors during Pickett's Charge. On the other side of it, there were a few regimental commanders who didn't like it when blacks were in their firing lines and they issued orders that they were to stay in the rear and no longer fight, making it clear they were addressing an existing situation. It is not just the Northern side that provides the claims and accounts, its just that those are the ones most often presented since it is believed the information will be less doubted due to the source.
Why didn't Jackson comment on his black troops if he was supposed to have over 2,000 with him?
Actually, I think Dr. Steiner said there were at least 3,000 with that particular group. There was no reason for him to mention them, they were simply a part of the Army. They were just members of the various units.
Why does Lee state a preference for the army remaining white if he already had black troops in his ranks?
Those comments were dealing with a different issue, the one of creating racially segregated all-black regiments. Some officers had objected to the idea and Lee did not want to cause problems within the command structure at a critical point in the war. Of those who objected to that particular legislation, most felt that all-black units would not be disciplined enough to be effective if the blacks were just congregated together and were not part of a white infrastructure. And of course there were some, just as in the North, who simply did not want all-black units held up as equals to the predominantly white regular Army units. Both sides had people who felt that way.
"This was passed by the confederate congress in February 1864. If blacks had been serving in the confederate army prior to this then why was this legislation necessary? And if they had been serving as combat troops prior to this then why did this legislation limit them to service roles only?"
Confederate Army is a proper noun and should be capitalized. Tsk-tsk ... your grammar is atrocious. I figured that your being an ex-Naval Officer you would have had the wherewithall to research farther than cherry-picking only that which supports you argument. So for your further edification I will give this -
Black Confederate military units, both as freemen and slaves, fought federal troops. Louisiana free blacks gave their reason for fighting in a letter written to New Orleans' Daily Delta: "The free colored population love their home, their property, their own slaves and recognize no other country than Louisiana, and are ready to shed their blood for her defense. They have no sympathy for Abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have plenty for Louisiana. They will fight for her in 1861 as they fought in 1814-15." As to bravery, one black scolded the commanding general of the state militia, saying, "Pardon me, general, but the only cowardly blood we have got in our veins is the white blood."
Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest had slaves and freemen serving in units under his command. After the war, Forrest said of the black men who served under him, "These boys stayed with me.. - and better Confederates did not live."
Articles in "Black Southerners in Gray," edited by Richard Rollins, gives numerous accounts of blacks serving as fighting men or servants in every battle from Gettysburg to Vicksburg.
Professor Ed Smith, director of American Studies at American University, says Stonewall Jackson had 3,000 fully equipped black troops scattered throughout his corps at Antietam - the war's bloodiest battle. Mr. Smith calculates that between 60,000 and 93,000 blacks served the Confederacy in some capacity. They fought for the same reason they fought in previous wars and wars afterward: "to position themselves. They had to prove they were patriots in the hope the future would be better ... they hoped to be rewarded."
Many knew Lincoln had little love for enslaved blacks and didn't wage war against the South for their benefit. Lincoln made that plain, saying, "I will say, then, that I am not, nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races ... I am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
The very words of his 1863 Emancipation Proclamation revealed his deceit and cunning; it freed those slaves held "within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States." It didn't apply to slaves in West Virginia and areas and states not in rebellion. Like Gen. Ulysses Grant's slaves, they had to wait for the 13th Amendment, Grant explained why he didn't free his slaves earlier, saying, "Good help is so hard to come by these days."
Lincoln waged war to "preserve the Union". The 1783 peace agreement with England (Treaty of Paris] left 13 sovereign nations. They came together in 1787, as principals, to create a federal government, as their agent, giving it specific delegated authority -specified in our Constitution. Principals always retain the right to fire their agent. The South acted on that right when it seceded. Its firing on Fort Sumter, federal property, gave Lincoln the pretext needed for the war.
The War Between the States, through force of arms, settled the question of secession, enabling the federal government to run roughshod over states' rights specified by the Constitution's 10th Amendment.
Sons of Confederate Veterans is a group dedicated to giving a truer account of the War Between the States. I'd like to see it erect on Richmond's Monument Avenue a statue of one of the thousands of black Confederate soldiers.' - Walter Williams (African-American professor of economics at George Mason University).
So now I suppose you're going to tell me he's a liar?!
the draft did NOT apply to non-whites.
FRee dixie,sw
in a speech in Boston, MA Frederick Douglas said that there were at that time (1861) THOUSANDS of blacks in the CSA fighting for THEIR COUNTRY. (emphasis mine.)
did Douglas lie? i think NOT.
FRee dixie,sw
slaves could NOT be members of the army, navy or marines because they were not free to take the oath of enlistment. we are talking about FREE MEN who joined of their own FREE WILL. you KNOW this.
FRee dixie,sw
he obviously knew that many blacks, indians, hispanics & asians were serving in the CSA armed forces. he was, after all, NOT blind.
FRee dixie,sw
On the contrary, confederate is either a noun, verb, or adjective depending on use. But while Turkey can be a proper noun when referring to the country, confederate is not because there was no country called the confederate states.
As for the rest it ignores the questions I've asked over and over again. Where are the contemporary accounts from the southern leaders of their black combat troops? Where is any word from Stonewall Jackson of the fighting prowess of the troops that Dr. Steiner saw and whom you believe were combat soldiers? Why does Robert Lee lament the fact that he is forced to give up his preferred all-white army and bring in black troops? There isn't any, because the idea of a black man fighting on equal footing with a white man was an anathma to the southern leadership from Davis on down. Look at what happened to Patrick Cleburne in 1863 for suggesting it.
So now I suppose you're going to tell me he's a liar?!
No, but Dr. Williams wasn't there and given his mistakes in history in the past I don't place a lot of stock in this comment, either.
Can you identify any unit in the PACSA that fought as part of the Army of Northern Virginia or the Army of Tennessee? It was my understaning that PACSA designations were given to bands like Quantrill's mob to give them some protection if they were captured. Protection not afforded the civilians in Lawrence BTW.
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