Confederate Memorial Day will honor soldiers who sided against the Union

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

"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."

I didn't say anything about envoys being sent by other nations. Anyway, who in their right mind would come with roving bands of lawless union thugs burning down the countryside? However, they were at least recognized by the Vatican as Benjamin's letters show. The Vatican recognized Davis as the President of the Confederate States of America

No. 67.]
Rome, November 14, 1863

Sir: At 3 o'clock on the afternoon of yesterday I received a formal notification that his Holiness would favor me with an audience, embracing my private secretary, Mr. W. Grayson Mann, to-day at 12 o'clock.

I accordingly proceeded to the Vatican sufficiently early to enable me to reach there fifteen minutes in advance of the designated hour. In five minutes afterwards-ten minutes prior to the appointed time-a message came from the sovereign Pontiff that he was ready to receive me, and I was accordingly conducted into his presence.

His Holiness stated, after I had taken my stand near to his side, that he had been so afflicted by the horrors of the war in America that many months ago he had written to the Archbishops of New Orleans and New York to use all the influence that they could properly employ for terminating with as little delay as possible the deplorable state of hostilities; that from the former he had received no answer, but that he had heard from the latter and that his communication was not such as to inspire hopes that his ardent wishes would be speedily gratified.

I then remarked that "it is to a sence of profound gratitude of the Executive of the Confederate States and of my countrymen, for the earnest manifestations which your Holiness made in the appeal referred to, that I am indebted for the destinguished honor for which I now enjoy. President Davis has appointed me special envoy to convey in person to your holiness this letter, which, I trust, you will receive in a similar spirit to that which animated its author."

Looking for a moment at the address and afterwards at the seal of the letter, his Holiness took his scissors and cut the envelope. Upon opening it he observed: "I see it is in English, a language which I do not understand." I remarked: "If it will be agreeable to your holiness, my Secretary will translate its contents to you." He replied: "I shall be pleased if he will do so." The translation was rendered in a slow, solemn, and emphatic pronunciation. During its progress, I did not cease for an instant to carefully survey the features of the sovereign Pontiff. A sweeter expression of pious affection, of tender benignity, never adorned the face of mortal man. No picture can adequitely represent him when exclusively absorbed in Christian contemplation. Every sentence of the letter seemed to sensibly affect him. At the conclusion of each, he would lay his hand down upon the desk and bow his head approvingly. When the passage was reached wherein the President states, in such sublime and affecting language, "We have offered up at the footstool of our Father who is in Heaven prayers inspired by the same feelings which animate your Holiness," his deep sunken orbs visibly moistened were upturned toward that throne upon which ever sits the Prince of Peace, indicating that his heart was pleading for our deliverance from that causeless and merciless war which is prosecuted against us. The soul of infidelity--if, indeed, infidelity have a soul-- would have melted in view of so sacred a spectacle.

The emotion occasioned by the translation was succeded by a silence of some time. At length his Holiness asked whether President Davis was a Catholic. I answered in the negative. He then asked if I was one. I assured him that I was not.

His Holiness now stated, to use his own language, that "Lincoln & Co." had endeavored to create an impression abroad that they were fighting for the abolition of slavery, and that it might perhaps be judicious in us to consent to gradual emancipation. I replied that the subject of slavery was one over which the Government of the Confederate States, like that of the old United States, had no control whatever; that all ameliorations with regard to the institution must proceed from the States themselves, which were as sovereign in their character in this regard as were France, Austria, or any other continental power; that true philanthropy shuddered at the thought of the liberation of the slave in the manner attempted by "Lincoln & Co."; that such a procedure would be practically to convert the well-cared-for civilized negro into a semibarbarian; that such of our slaves as had been captured or decoyed off by our enemy were in an incomparably worse condition than while they were in the service of their masters; that they wished to return to their old homes, the love of which was the strongest of their affections; that if, indeed, African slavery were an evil, there was a power which, in its own good time, would doubtless remove that evil in a more gentle manner than that of causing the earth to be deluged with blood for its sudden overthrow.

His Holiness received these remarks with an approving expression. He then said that I had reason to be proud of the self- sacrificing devotion of my countrymen from the beginning to the cause for which they were contending. "The most ample reason," I replied, "and yet, scarcely so much as of my countrywomen, whose patriotism, whose sorrows and privations, whose transformation in many instances from luxury to penury, were unparalleled and could not be adequetly described by any living language. There they had been from the beginning--there they were still more resolute, if possible, than ever, emulating in devotion, earthly though it was in its character, those holy female spirits who were last at the cross.

His Holiness received this statement with evident satisfaction, and then said: "I would like to do anything that can be effectively done, or that even promises good results, to aid in putting an end to this most terrible war, which is harming the good of all the earth, if I knew how to proceed."

I availed myself of this declaration to inform his Holiness that it was not the armies of Northern birth which the South was encountering in hostile array, but that it was the armies of European creation, occasioned by the Irish and Germans, chiefly by the former, who were influenced to emigrate (by circulars from "Lincoln & Co." to their numerous agents abroad) ostensibly for the purpose of securing high wages but in reality to fill up the constantly depleted ranks of our enemy; that those poor unfortunates were tempted by high bounties (amounting to $500, $600, and $700) to enlist and take up arms against us; that once in the service they were invariably placed in the most exposed points of danger in the battle field; that in consequence therof an instance had occurred in which an almost entire brigade had been left dead or wounded upon the ground; that but for foreign recruits the North would most likely have broken down months ago in the absurd attempt to overpower the South.

His Holiness expressed his utter astonishment, repeatedly throwing up his hands, at the employment of such means against us, and the cruelty attendant upon such unscrupulous operations.

"But, your Holiness," said I, "Lincoln & Co. are even more wicked, if possible, in their ways than in decoying innocent Irishmen from homes to be murdered in cold blood. Their champions, and would your Holiness believe it unless it were authoritatively communicated to you, their pulpit champions have boldly asserted as a sentiment: 'Greek fire for the families and cities of the rebels and hell fire for their chiefs.' "

His Holiness was startled at this information, and immediately observed: "Certainly no Catholic could reiterate so monstrous a sentiment." I replied: "Assuredly not. It finds a place exclusively in the hearts of the fiendish, vagrant, pulpit buffoons whose number is legion and who impiously undertake to teach the doctrines of Christ for ulterior sinister purposes."

His Holiness now observed: "I will write a letter to President Davis, and of such a character that it may be published for general perusal." I express my heartfelt gratification for the assertion of this purpose. He then remarked, half inquiringly: "You will remain here for several months ?" I, of course, could not do otherwise than answer in the affirmative. Turning to my secretary, he asked several kind questions personal to himself and bestowed upon him a handsome compliment. He then extended his hand as a signal for the end of the audience and I retired.

Thus terminated one among the most remarkable conferences that ever a foreign representative had with a potentate of the earth. And such a potentate! A potentate who weilds the conciences of 175,000,000 of the civilized race, and who is adored by that immence number as the vice regent of Almighty God in this sublunary sphere.

How strikingly majestic the conduct of the government of the Pontifical State in its bearing toward me when contrasted with the sneaking subterfuges to which some of the governments of western Europe have had recourse in order to evade with our commissioners. Here I was openly received by appointment at court in accordance with established usages and customs and treated from beginning to end with a consideration which might be enveid by the envoy of the oldest member of the family of nations. The audience was of forty minutes duration, an unusually long one.

I have written this dispatch very hurriedly and fear that it will barely be in time for the monthly steamer which goes off from Liverpool with the mails from the Bahama Islands next Saturday.

I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant.

A. DUDLEY MANN.
Hon. J. P. BENJAMIN,
Secretary of State, C. S. A., Richmond, Va.

--------------------------

No. 69.] Rome, December 9, 1863

Sir: The cardinal secretary of state, Antonelli, officially transmitted to me yesterday the answer of the Pope to the President. In the very direction of this communication there is a positive recognition of our government.

It is addressed "to the Illustrious and Honorable Jefferson Davis, President of ther Confederate States of America."

Thus we are acknowledged, by as high an authority as this world contains, to be an independant power of the earth.

I congratulate you, I congratulate the President, I congratulate his cabinet; in short, I congratulate all my true-hearted countrymen and countrywomen, upon this benign event. The hand of the Lord has been in it, and eternal glory and praise be to His holy and righteous name.

The document is in the latin language, as are all documents prepared by the Pope. I can not incure the risk of its capture at sea, and, therefore, I shall retain it until I can convey it , with entire certainty, to the President. It will adorne the archives of our country in all coming time.

I expect to receive a copy of it in time for transmission by the steamer which carries this (via New York) at Nassau.

I shall leave here by the 15th instant, and will proceed to Paris and from thence to Brussels and London.

The example of the sovereign pontiff, if I am not much mistaken, will exercise a salutary influence upon both the Catholic and Protestant governments of western Europe. Humanity will be aroused everywhere to the importance of its early emulation.

I have studiously endeavored to prevent the appearance of any telegraphic or other communications in the newspapers in relation to my mission. The nature of it, however, is generally known in official circles here, and it has been mentioned in one or more journals. The letters, in my opinion, ought to be officially published at Richmond, under a call for the correspondence by the one or the other branch of Congress. In the mean time I shall communicate to the European press, probably through the London Times, the substance of those letters.

I regard such a procedure as of primary importance in view of the interests of peace, and I am quite sure that the holy father would rejoice at seeing those interests benefited in this or any other effective manner.

I have the honor to be, sir, very respectively, your obedient servant,

A. DUDLEY MANN.
Hon. J. P. BENJAMIN,
Secretary of State, C. S. A.., Richmond, Va.

Most Civil War histories usually ignore the more than 70,000 African-Americans who served with Confederate armies.

Fiction.

There is no credible proof that more than a handful of blacks fought for the CSA.

Consider:

FRIDAY, February 10, 1865.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SECOND CONGRESS-SECOND SESSION

EMPLOYMENT OF NEGROES AS SOLDIERS

Mr. Wickham, of Virginia, moved the indefinite postponement of the bill. He was opposed to its going to a select committee. If it went to any committee it should go, in the regular channel, to the Committee on Military Affairs. He wished, however, this question of arming and making soldiers of negroes to be now disposed of, finally and forever. He wished it to be decided whether negroes are to be placed upon an equality by the side of our brave soldiers. They would be compelled to. They would have to camp and bivouac together.

Mr. Wickham said that our brave soldiers, who have fought so long and nobly, would not stand to be thus placed side by side with negro soldiers. He was opposed to such a measure. The day that such a bill passed Congress sounds the death knell of this Confederacy. The very moment an order goes forth from the War Department authorizing the arming and organizing of negro soldiers there was an eternal end to this struggle.-(Voice-That's so.)

The question being ordered upon the rejection of the bill, it was lost-ayes 21, noes 53. As this vote was regarded as a kind of test of the sense of the House upon the policy of putting negroes into the army, we append the ayes and noes-the question being the rejection of this bill authorizing the employment of negroes as soldiers:

Ayes-Messrs. Baldwin, Branch, Cruikshank, De Jarnette, Fuller, Garland, Gholson, Gilmer, Lamkin, J. M. Leach, J. T. Leach, McMullin, Miles, Miller, Ramsey, Sexton, Smith, of Alabama, Smith, of North Carolina, Wickham, Witherspoon, Mr. Speaker.

Noes-Messrs. Akin, Anderson, Barksdale, Batson, Bell, Blandford, Boyce, Bradley, H. W. Bruce, Carroll, Chambers, Chilton, Clark, Clopton, Cluskey, Conrad, Conrow, Darden, Dickinson, Dupre, Ewing, Farrow, Foster, Funsten, Gaither, Goode, Gray, Hartridge, Hatcher, Hilton, Holder, Holliday, Johnston, Keeble, Lyon, Pugh, Read, Rogers, Russell, Simpson, J. M. Smith, W. E. Smith, Snead, Swan, Triplett, Villere, Welsh.

If any number of black soldiers had been serving in the ranks of the CSA armies, how did it escape the notice of Congress?

It also escaped the notice of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and others:

Page 246, Confederate Veteran, June 1915. Official publication of the United Confederate Veteran, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the Confederated Southern Memorial Association.

Gen. Howell Cobb, an unbeliever in this expedient, wrote from Macon, Ga., January 8, 1865: "I think that the proposition is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began. You cannot make soldiers of slaves or slaves of soldiers. The moment you resort to this your white soldiers are lost to you, and one reason why this proposition is received with favor by some portions of the army is because they hope that when the negro comes in they can retire. You cannot keep white and black troops together, and you cannot trust negroes alone. They won't make soldiers, as they are wanting in every qualification necessary to make one. :

Samuel Clayton, Esq., of Cuthbert, Ga., wrote on January 10, 1865: "All of our male population between sixteen and sixty is in the army. We cannot get men from any other source; they must come from our slaves... The government takes all of our men and exposes them to death. Why can't they take our property? He who values his property more than independence is a poor, sordid wretch."

General Lee, who clearly saw the inevitable unless his forces were strengthened, wrote on January 11, 1865: "I should prefer to rely on our white population; but in view of the preparation of our enemy it is our duty to provide for a continuous war, which, I fear, we cannot accomplish with our present resources. It is the avowed intention of the enemy to convert the ablebodied negro into soldiers and emancipate all. His progress will thus add to his numbers and at the same time destroy slavery in a most pernicious manner to the welfare of our people. Whatever may be the effect of our employing negro troops, it cannot be as mischievous as this. If it ends in subverting slavery, it will be accomplished by ourselves, and we can devise the means of alleviating the evil consequences to both races. I think, therefore, that we must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves used against us or use them ourselves at the risk of the effects which may be produced upon our soldiers' social institutions. My own opinion is that we should employ tl1em without delay. I believe that with proper regulations they can be made efficient soldiers. They possess the physical qualifications in an eminent degree. Long habits of obedience and subordination, coupled with the moral influence which in our country the white man possesses over the black, furnish an excellent foundation for that discipline which is the best guarantee of military efficiency. We can give them an interest by allowing immediate freedom to all who enlist and freedom at the end of the war to their families. We should not expect slaves to fight for prospective freedom when they can secure it at once by going to the enemy, in whose service they will incur no greater risk than in ours. In conclusion, I can only say that whatever is to be done must be attended to at once."

President Davis on February 21, 1865 expressed himself as follows: "It is now becoming daily more evident to all reflecting persons that we are reduced to choosing whether the negroes shall fight for or against us and that all the arguments as to the positive advantage or disadvantage of employing them are beside the question, which is simply one of relative advantage between having their fighting element in our ranks or those of the enemy."

Would Lee and Davis have had those points of view had there been any number of blacks in ranks?

There is no -credible- evidence of blacks in active rebel service.

"It's pure fantasy,' contends James McPherson, a Princeton historian and one of the nation's leading Civil War scholars. Adds Edwin Bearss, historian emeritus at the National Park Service: 'It's b.s., wishful thinking.' Robert Krick, author of 10 books on the Confederacy, has studied the records of 150,000 Southern soldiers and found fewer than a dozen were black. 'Of course, if I documented 12, someone would start adding zeros,' he says.

"These and other scholars say claims about black rebels derive from unreliable anecdotes, a blurring of soldiers and laborers, and the rapid spread on the Internet of what Mr. McPherson calls 'pseudohistory.' Thousands of blacks did accompany rebel troops -- as servants, cooks, teamsters and musicians. Most were slaves who served involuntarily; until the final days of the war, the Confederacy staunchly refused to enlist black soldiers.

"Some blacks carried guns for their masters and wore spare or cast-off uniforms, which may help explain eyewitness accounts of blacks units. But any blacks who actually fought did so unofficially, either out of personal loyalty or self-defense, many historians say.

"They also bristle at what they see as the disingenuous twist on political correctness fueling the black Confederate fad. 'It's a search for a multicultural Confederacy, a desperate desire to feel better about your ancestors,' says Leslie Rowland, a University of Maryland historian. 'If you suggest that some blacks supported the South, then you can deny that the Confederacy was about slavery and white supremacy.'

"David Blight, an Amherst College historian, likens the trend to bygone notions about happy plantation darkies.' Confederate groups invited devoted ex-slaves to reunions and even won Senate approval in 1923 for a "mammy" monument in Washington (it was never built). Black Confederates, Mr. Blight says, are a new and more palatable way to 'legitimize the Confederacy.'"

-- Wall Street Journal, May 8, 1997

AND:

"There seems to be no evidence that the Negro soldiers authorized by the Confederate Government (March 13, 1865) ever went into battle. This gives rise to the question as to whether or not any Negroes ever fought in the Confederate ranks. It is possible that some of the free Negro companies organized in Louisiana and Tennessee in the early part of the war took part in local engagements; but evidence seems to the contrary. (Authors note: If they did, their action was not authorized by the Confederate Government.) A company of "Creoles," some of whom had Negro blood, may have been accepted in the Confederate service at Mobile. Secretary Seddon conditioned his authorization of the acceptance of the company on the ability of those "Creoles" to be naturally and properly distinguished from Negroes. If persons with Negro Blood served in Confederate ranks as full-fledged soldiers, the per cent of Negro blood was sufficiently low for them to pass as whites."

(Authors note: Henry Clay Warmoth said that many Louisiana mulattoes were in Confederate service but they were "not registered as Negroes." War Politics and Reconstruction, p. 56) p. 160-61, SOUTHERN NEGROES, Wiley

There is -no- credible evidence that even a small number blacks served as soldiers in the rebel armies.

Walt

The Confederates made very clear at the time that the property they were fighting for was, above all, slaves.

That may have been for the rich plantation owners, but not my ancestors, or the 'common folk' of the South.

They made pretty clear it was.

"... a North Carolina mountaineer wrote to governor Zebulon Vance a letter that expressed the non-slave holder's view perfectly Believing that some able-bodied men ought to stay at home to preserve order, this man set forth his feelings: "We have but little interest in the value of slaves, but there is one matter in this connection about which we have a very deep interest. We are opposed to Negro equality. To prevent this we are willing to spare the last man, down to the point where women and children begin to suffer for food and clothing; when these begin to suffer and die, rather than see them equalized with an inferior race we will die with them. Everything, even life itself, stands pledged to to the cause; but that our greatest strength may be employed to the best advantage and the struggle prolonged let us not sacrifice at once the object for which we are fighting."

-- "The Coming Fury" p. 202-203 by Bruce Catton.

And:

"Though I protest against the false and degrading standard to which Northern orators and statesmen have reduced the measure of patriotism, which is to be expected from a free and enlightened people, and in the name of the non-slaveholders of the South, fling back the insolent charge that they are only bound to their country by the consideration of its "loaves and fishes," and would be found derelict in honor and principle, and public virtue, in proportion as they were needy in circumstances, I think it but easy to show that the interest of the poorest non-slaveholder among us is to make common cause with, and die in the last trenches, in defence of the slave property of his more favored neighbor.

"The non-slaveholders of the South may be classed as either such as desire and are incapable of purchasing slaves, or such as have the means to purchase and do not, because of the absence of the motive-preferring to hire or employ cheaper white labor. A class conscientiously objecting to the ownership of slave property does not exist at the South: for all such scruples have long since been silenced by the profound and unanswerable arguments to which Yankee controversy has driven our statesmen, popular orators, and clergy. Upon the sure testimony of God's Holy Book, and upon the principles of universal polity, they have defended and justified the institution! The exceptions, which embrace recent importations in Virginia, and in some of the Southern cities, from the free States of the North, and some of the crazy, socialistic Germans in Texas, are too unimportant to affect the truth of the proposition."

--J.E.B. DeBow, 1860

DeBow was the taker of the 1850 census.

You are wrong and ignorant of the history.

Walt

Evidence presented, documentable evidence, and it's all 'crapola' because it flies in the face of decades of 'history' written by men who wrote for Socialist newspapers...

You are just throwing up a distractor.

It's easy to see slavery as the main incitement in the writings of the people of the day. Why don't you address what -they- said:

What did the seceding states say publicly was the reason for their secession?

"Declaration Of The Immediate Causes Which Induce And Justify The Secession Of South Carolina From The Federal Union"

We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.
In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows:
"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her [New Jersey] more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her [New York's] tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.
* * *

The ends for which this Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
* * *
The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.
Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief.
We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.
Virginia

...the federal government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of Southern slaveholding states;
Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain, that the ordinance adopted by the people of this state in convention, on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the General Assembly of this state ratifying or adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the union between the State of Virginia and the other states under the Constitution aforesaid is hereby dissolved,...
Georgia

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic. This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war....
[N.B. See the list of "Declaration Of Cause Of Secession" for several states HERE, and note that IN EVERY INSTANCE the ONLY topic addressed is SLAVERY. TARIFFS ARE NOT MENTIONED. "States' Rights" are not mentioned except as in relation to the right of the Slave states to continue the institution].
Alabama

....And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States,
Be it resolved by the people of Alabama in Convention assembled, That the people of the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, be and are hereby invited to meet the people of the State of Alabama, by their Delegates, in Convention, on the 4th day of February, A.D., 1861, at the city of Montgomery, in the State of Alabama, for the purpose of consulting with each other as to the most effectual mode of securing concerted and harmonious action in whatever measures may be deemed most desirable for our common peace and security.
Texas

WHEREAS, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression;...

Walt

They have some cool shirts I want...In particular, they have a particularly mean NB Forrest one and a John S. Mosby one that are very cool tributes to these guys.

Think about this.

Over 100 Union POW's were murdered at Saltville, VA.

Here's a tidbit from that:

Saltville, Virginia - 10/2/64 - Champ Ferguson and Brigadier General Felix Robertson executed over 100 wounded members of the 5th USCT Cavalry, the morning after the battle there. (They essentially drove their wagons across the fields where the wounded USCT were, crushing them under their wheels.) While Ferguson was captured some months later, and tried and executed for this (and other) crimes, Robertson lived until 1928, the last surviving Confederate general.

That's a good one.

But what about the 2-300 Union POW's murdered at Fort Pillow, TN in April, 1864?

Or the 40 loyal Texans hanged at Gainesville, TX, in October, 1862?

Or the 22 loyal North Carolinians hanged by George Pickett?

Or the 184 men and boys murdered at Lawrence, KS?

Keeping count?

Or what about this:

"Headquarters Department Trans-Mississippi,Shreveport, La, June 13, 1863

Maj. Gen. R. Taylor Commanding District of Louisiana:

GENERAL:

In answer to the communication of Brigadier-General Hebert, ofthe 6th instant, asking what disposition should be made of negro slaves taken in arms, I am directed by Lieutenant-General Smith to say no quarter should be shown them. If taken prisoners, however, they should be turned over to the executive authorities of the States in which they may be captured, in obedience to the proclamation of the President of the Confederate States, sections 3 and 4, published to the Army in General Orders, No. 111, Adjutant and Inspector General's Office, series of 1862. Should negroes thus taken be executed by the military authorities capturing them it would certainly provoke retaliation. By turning them over to the civil authorities to be tried by the laws of the state, no exception can be taken.I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

S. S. Anderson"

The so-called CSA took the lead in atrocities.

The rebels never acted honorably, they always acted dishonorably.

Walt

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!)

I know you are not like real in touch with reality, but you are paraphrasing a Dr. Steiner of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, which later became the Red Cross. And he was writing about the rebels before Antietam, not Gettysburg. And he was a civilian, not a federal officer. An excerpt from a phamphlet he had published:

Wednesday September 10. [1862]

—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 the 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...

At ten o'clock Jackson's advance force, consisting of some five thousand men, marched up Market street and encamped north of the town. They had but little music; what there was gave us "My Maryland" and "Dixie" in execrable style. Each regiment had a square red flag, with a cross, made of diagonal blue stripes extend- ing from opposite corners; on these blue stripes were placed thir- teen white stars. A dirtier, filthier, more unsavory set of human beings never strolled through a town—marching it could not be called without doing violence to the word. The distinctions of rank were recognized on the coat collars of officers; but all were alike dirty and repulsive. Their arms were rusty and in an unsoldierly condition. Their uniforms, or rather multiforms, corresponded only in a slight predominance of grey over butternut, and in the prevalence of filth. Faces looked as if they had not been acquainted with water for weeks: hair, shaggy and unkempt, seemed entirely a stranger to the operations of brush or comb. A motlier group was never herded together. But these were the chivalry—the deliverers of Maryland from Lincoln's oppressive yoke."

You've seen this before.

Walt

I just found it interesting that black people (who apparently hate the confederate flag) now want to celebrate the confederate military. It just seems strange.

You might find this interesting:

-- Wall Street Journal, May 8, 1997

AND:

There is -no- credible evidence that even a small number blacks served as soldiers in the rebel armies.

Walt

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	click photo to enlarge A Confederate flag adorns a memorial marker placed in remembrance of Isaac Papino, an African American soldier who served in the Confederate army. By MATT MAY, Staff


	click photo to enlarge Col. John Masters unrolls an American flag before placing it at a grave of Anthony T. Welters, an African American soldier who served in the Confederate army. By MATT MAY, Staff


	click photo to enlarge Confederate soldier Anthony T. Welters is pictured in this late 1800's portrait. Welters is one of at least two African American Confederate soldiers buried at San Lorenzo Cemetery in St. Augustine. Special to The Record