click photo to enlarge
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."
Quiet - you'll tip off the Wlat Brigade to the fact that "neo-Confederates" have been forging photographs. I never thought we would get that pic of Mr. T in a rebel uniform past them, but they are catching on :)
I know, but you see apparently according to some even pictures are now myths. Can change every part of history when new information becomes available except that four year span. For that we base all of our information on documentation written by those leaning toward the Socialist cause (i.e. Sandburg, Mcpherson). Even though to go along with the documented photographs there are letters written by both sides on the bravery of Black Confederates, there are stone monuments to Black Confederates throughout the South, and even letters written home that have been found by descendants of these brave Black Confederates.
The problem that Republicans, at least some Republicans, refuse to see is that the original party was the big government party. A bastardization of the Whigs, who were the original big government party
Hmmm....
Hmmm..
Enlisting in the Palo Alto Confederates in 1861 from his home in Palo Alto, Mississippi, at age 15 Andrew Martin Chandler was mustered into Co. F of Blythe's Mississippi Infantry, 44th Mississippi Infantry. He participated in several campaigns with his childhood , friend and former slave, 17 year-old Silas Chandler.37th TexasAndrew was captured at Shiloh and was held prisoner in Ohio while Silas made repeated trips home to Mississippi to bring Andrew needed goods. Andrew was exchanged and he and Silas returned to their unit. Andrew was later wounded at Chickamauga. Army surgeons prepared to amputate his leg, but Silas used a piece of gold given to him by Andrew's mother to buy whiskey to bribe the surgeons to release him. He carried Andrew on his back for several miles and loaded him onto a boxcar heading to Atlanta - once there Andrew was taken to a hospital, where Silas cared for him until the family could join them - his leg, and possibly his life, were saved by Silas' attention and efforts.
The following is from a 1950 typed transcript of handwritten notes from an interview with Andrew Martin Chandler conducted in 1912:
"He served in the Confederate Army, and even in 1912, was still true to the cause. He told me much about his service in the army, even though he considered his contribution as rather slight, being that of less importance than any soldier in the ranks.
While there, he told me of another Silas Chandler that served with him in the Army. This Silas was a former slave owned by his parents, who was papered out just before the war. Even though he was granted his freedom, he insisted on going off to war with Andrew, partially because of their friendship, and partially because since Silas was a little older, he felt that he needed to protect Andrew. Andrew told me that even though Silas was considered a servant by the other men and blacks in the unit, he was very much an equal, displaying just as much hatred for the yankees as anyone in the whole unit!
Andrew then showed me an old picture of the two of them together, and while they appeared as mere boys, the look of stern determination on their faces tells the whole story of their dedication to each other and their country."
Andrew and Silas returned to Palo Alto, remained fast friends, lived close by each other and, in 1878, Andrew signed the papers which resulted in Silas receiving a Mississippi Confederate Veteran Pension.
Andrew gave Silas land adjoining one of the the Chandler plantations on which Silas built a church for the Black population of Palo Alto. Andrew Martin Chandler, born April 3, 1846, died May 7, 1920, and veteran of the 44th Mississippi Infantry, CSA, rests in Palo Alto beneath a gravestone decorated with Confederate symbols within the family graveyard, which is surrounded by a iron fence. Just across the road, the church Silas built still stands, and the past members of that church also lie in rest on all three sides of Andrew Chandler.
Silas Chander, Black Confederate veteran and faithful friend, lies eight to ten miles away, his grave now decorated with a Confederate Iron Cross deservedly placed there in a Confederate Honor Service eight years ago under the guidance of the Mississippi Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Andrew's Great-grandson, Andrew Chandler Battaile, still lives in Mississippi, while Silas' Great--grandson, Bobbie Chandler, lives the Northeast. About eight years ago, the two men reunited and restored the family relationship.
And a FORMER slave to boot. Remained his friend after the war? Surely the d#mn yankee revisionism must have an explanation for this. BTW, you never answered my question. Why celebrate the introduction of the party of big government, such as was the Republican/Whig/Federalist aim, so much?
Sherman's order was to destroy only public property in his take the "war to the people" 20 mile wide swath of total destruction on the March to the Sea?
The only private property destroyed by Sherman's troops was that done by the 1st Alabama US Cavalry?
How did Sherman plan to "take the war to the people" if he wasn't planning to destroy private property?
The explain the following please:
SECTION 1. Whereas, The efficiency of the army is at times greatly diminished by the withdrawal from the ranks of soldiers to perform labor and duties which can as well be done by free negroes and slaves--
The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, That all free male negroes, between the ages of eighteen and fifty years, shall be held liable to perform any labor or discharge any duties with the army, or in connection with the military defences of the country, such as working upon fortifications, producing and preparing materials of war, building and repairing roads and bridges, and doing other work usually done by engineer troops and pontoniers, acting as cooks, teamsters, stewards and waiters in military hospitals, or other like labor, or similar duties which may be required or prescribed by the Secretary of War or the or the general commanding the Trans-Mississippi department, from time to time. And said free negroes, whilst thus engaged, shall receive rations and clothing, under such regulations as the Secretary of War may prescribe, and shall receive pay at the rate of eighteen dollars per month.
SEC. 2. That the Secretary of War and the general commanding the Trans-Mississippi department are each authorized to employ, for duties like those named in the first section of this act, as many male negro slaves, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, not to exceed thirty thousand in the States east of the Mississippi river, and ten thousand in the States west of the Mississippi river, as the wants of the service may require. And the said slaves, whilst so employed, shall be furnished rations and clothing as provided in the preceding section, and the owners paid such hire for their services as may be agreed upon; and in the event of the loss of any slaves whilst so employed, by the act of the enemy, or by escape to the enemy, of by wounds or death inflicted by the enemy, or by disease contracted whilst in any service required of said slaves, and by reason of said service, then the owners thereof, respectively, shall be entitled to receive the full value of such slaves, to be ascertained and fixed by agreement at the time said slaves are so hired, under rules to be prescribed by the Secretary of War.
SEC. 3. That whenever the Secretary of War or the general commanding the Trans-Mississippi department shall be unable to procure the services of slaves by hiring them, as above provided, in sufficient numbers, then it shall be lawful for the said Secretary or General to order the impressment, and to impress as many male slaves, within the ages named in the second section of this act, and for the purposes and uses above stated, not at any time to exceed thirty thousand in the States east of the Mississippi river, and ten thousand in the States west of the Mississippi river, as may be necessary: Provided, That slaves so impressed shall, whilst in the government employment, receive the same clothing and rations allowed to slaves hired from their owners, and in the event of their loss or death in the manner or from the causes above stated, their value shall be estimated and fixed as provided by the law regulating impressments, and paid as in the case of slaves hired from their owners, and the value of the hire of said slaves shall be fixed in like manner.
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?
One of the main problems with that body was the total inability to enforce orders on down the line. There was an awful lot of autonomy even at the platoon level -- my gg grandfather's company ELECTED their officers every so often . . . and there is constant trouble -- mentioned frequently in his letters -- with getting even discipline, let alone orders from On High, enforced. As Willie said to Joe in a more recent conflict, "Drink it all. That guy who put out the order about shavin' ain't comin' up here."
It doesn't matter what "the law" or the Army Regulation was - you'll have to look down at least to brigade and probably to regimental level to find out what was really going on.
No, they went "above and beyond" by doing some pillaging of private homes, etc.
in regards to the 1st U. S. Alabama Cavalry falling out of favor with Sherman.
Again, the questions are
1. how did they fall out of favor with Sherman for doing what they were ordered to do? It would seem, if anything, they would get a medal or something for going "above and beyond" their duty when the object of the campaign was total destruction.
2. Per your statement pillaging of private homes, etc., Sherman's orders were to destroy only public property?
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