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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."
Very true. One of our town's claims to fame!
Oh, but my goodness must nip this in the bud, nip this in the bud, - blacks who fought for the South - Oh say it isn't so? If there were - they were slaves that were chained to the wagon wheels, doncha know? Also, there were no free blacks in the South. There were no black slave owners. Every and I mean every barefooted ridgerunner owned slaves. No one in the North every owned slaves. Only angels lived north of the Mason-Dixon and only cruel, rich, lazy, slaveowners lived south of it - slaves excepted. No Republican ever owned slaves - read that little jewel of wisdom right here in FR. Lincoln was the greatest man that ever lived. He had absolutely no reason to pursue the war other than his love for the black man and his desire to see them free. Have I left anything out?
I don't know the name of the poster - but we will in all probability be 'enlightened' with reams and reams of articles about Lincoln's wonderfulness.
You know. If the Southerners were such heinous people and such a blight on the union - and since at the time, slavery was legal, and so was succession. The wonderful Lincoln said so - just didn't think 'this' was a good enough reason, why didn't they just let them go from the union and consider it good riddance to bad trash? I have always wondered that. If I had relatives that were doing legal things but totally heinous (slavery was), I would want to distance myself from them. I wouldn't want them around me.
I feel that way about politically correct relatives right now.
That was awful nice of those Confederate ladies to honor the dead slaves then.< /sarcasm>
Go to the Petersburg battlefield visitor centor and check out the pics. See who the blacks with shovels digging the canal that was never finished were. Their uniforms look a whole lot like yankee uniforms and they were behind yankee lines and it was the yankees' canal to supply yankee troops.
That may have been for the rich plantation owners, but not my ancestors, or the 'common folk' of the South. They were too poor to own slaves. They were probably right there in the fields with slaves, just trying to make a living.
What would you do if an occupying army invaded your land, slaughtered your cattle and swine, confiscated your crops, and burned your house down? If I would find myself in that situation, I would probably follow their example and take up arms.
The problem here is that many of these people arguing have not qualified the meaning of "service". Most "black Confederates" were "serving" the Confederacy as cooks, butlers, bodyservants, and particularly teamsters. In fact, it was partly this Confederate black "service" that kept the lesser populated white South able to provide men to the fighting armies. Ending this was one (not the only) factor in the Contraband Acts, and the Emancipation Proclamation. Many of these slave/servants in better equipped companies can be clearly seen in surviving photography wearing Confederate uniforms. (their service would also qualify them for pensions)
But were they soldiers? That question is tricky and relies on very few sources. Some free blacks offered their services to the CSA in 1861 but were turned down. Monetary contributions were accepted. The New Orleans Native Guard, a wealhty mulatto/Creole militia group of War of 1812 fame offered theirs in 1862 but were turned down and joined the Union Army. The other famous account were the two companies raised in April 1865 (only because of RE Lee's demands "we should decide if these people should fight for us or against us") and who drilled in Richmond. They never saw action.
The rest is heresay. I think probably many light-skinned black folks "passed" as whites. Probably no diffferent than women who fought and passed as men. Also there are accounts of body servants of officers (slaves who "grew up" side by side with their masters) picking up a rifle a time or two. This certainly happened on many (or at least several) occasions. The problem here is that this story was later interpreted in post-war literature as "the loyal Darky". It can be found in the book "in Ole Virginia" (forgot the author). It was overemphasized to contrast "loyal" blacks during segregation to "troublemakers", a segregationalist "morality play" in a way.
The point here is we forget how hard it was to have black troops raised for the Union Army. In the Confederacy it was a conflict to the social order. For example paraphrasing Howell Cobb "if they make good soldiers they justifiable can not be held as slaves". We forget that between the 18th century and 1860's in the south we had Gabriel Prosser, Nat Turner, and John Brown's rebellions/raids. That generation of Southerners were much more uncomfortable with guns in the hands of slaves than their grandfathers were. (see the slave codes of the 1830's). It was difficult enough for Cleburne and a man like even Lee to get black soldiers raised. We must understand the threat that posed to the southern worldview.
This is not to bash the south or anyone's Confederate ancestor. The mean-spirited "south as losers" attitude is self righteous and discounts northern attrocities/ inconsitancies. Only the truly cold-hearted person could stand at Gettysburg and not feel their bravery and sacrifice. My opinion, however humble, is that the black Confederate is mythology. By advocating it, you play into the hands of political correctness. Even if you were to prove 70,000 C.S.A. black soldiers served, your opponents would discount them as "sellouts" and "Uncle Tom's". It would not affect their South bashing one iota.
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