Replies

You forgot to quote anything or identify the famous author who is your source of authority.

Why would I? Everything is at the link. Unlike you, I don't feel the need to flood our generous hosts' resources with tons of spam repeating what can be found simply by clicking on the link and reading.

Here I come to save the day!

You would do better to save FR some bandwidth by just making your point without spamming the forum with other people's writings that happen to agree with you.

So let's go over what you needed to post from a book to explain.

Blacks served in the confederate military. Everyone knows that. What we disagree on are the numbers who did so by choice.

The confederacy literally drafted every white male they could find before becoming desparate enough to allow blacks to serve.

Many in the North discriminated against black troops.

Everybody knew all of this before you flooded FR's disks with everybody else's work. It doesn't change the facts that the confederacy fought to preserve slavery, and the North abolished it.

"It was a fact that black casualties in the Union army were far higher than white casualties. Of the approximately 180,000 black troops eventually recruited, about 37,000 died. That death rate amounted to slightly more than 20 percent, as compared with a death rate of 15.2 percent among white troops and only 8.6 percent in the regular army."

Thank you for admitting the confederacy was more likely to kill black troops than white troops. I'm sure they felt it was justified, considering those black troops were fighting to abolish slavery.

Now that you've admitted to the extreme, vile racism of the confederacy, let's see what else you have.

Your only exalted source is this tripe from your progressive Bostonian Kevin Levin. Let us examine what you dragged up and brought in here. You are free to attempt to pass off this radical partisan as a serious scholar, whose words carry significant weight.

I offered three sources that helped to cooborate each other, but it comes as no surprise that you chose to attack his personal beliefs instead of answer the validity of the combined arguments. OK, we'll go there.

First of all, the confederacy amen corner doesn't have any more credibility than lefties do with a lot of us on this issue. Both of you are on the same side. The lefties want to stick us with their history, and you want to accept it on our behalf.

In a tweet of 22 Oct 2021 (today), Levin proclaimed, "I got through about 15 minutes of "4 Hours at the Capitol" before I had to turn it off. There is something downright obscene about giving a platform like this to insurrectionists."

You must think that's worse than the confederacy's defense of slavery.

But getting back to using the review itself, my search turned up very little else on the books you referenced. It doesn't seem that anyone outside of the confederacy amen corner has even taken notice of them.

Kevin M. Levin, is regularly published in the failing far-left magazine, The Atlantic. Shocker, I know.

He's a leftist. So what? I don't see the defenders of the confederacy as being any more credible. You're both on the same mission, which is to stick the right with the democrats' history.

And again, I posted three links which should help cooborate each other.

https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Battle-Crater-Directions-Southern/dp/0813169720 (one of your references)

Yes, I always go to Amazon.com when I want to learn about history, never mind the history they helped make in 2020.

"The battle of the Crater is known as one of the Civil War's bloodiest struggles-a Union loss with combined casualties of 5,000, many of whom were members of the United States Colored Troops (USCT) under Union Brigadier General Edward Ferrero. The battle was a violent clash of forces as Confederate soldiers fought for the first time against African American soldiers. After the Union lost the battle, these black soldiers were captured and subject both to extensive abuse and the threat of being returned to slavery in the South. Yet, despite their heroism and sacrifice, these men are often overlooked in public memory of the war."

It is idiocy to argue that the Confederate soldiers were committing murder. They were the uniformed armed forces an officially recognized belligerent power engaged in a lawful war...Levin seems to think that if the Union leaders attack idiotically, the Confederates should not shoot them. And if they do shoot, that's murder. A rabidly partisan writer, who presents a one-sided view based on his prejedices, is not an historian.

The former slaves were fighting for the freedom of their race, against an entity that was actively enslaving them. The fact that you would post this as a defense of the confederacy in 2021 is appalling.

You failed to provide a link or source for your quote. I'll do it for you.

I was ready to hit the abuse button and report you for lying about me, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Judging from the fact that you insist on flooding FR with all of the text rather than posting simple links, I'm going to assume you don't understand the rules of the net.

Below is exactly what I posted here.

Having seen the full context, I stand corrected. You are right on this, but that isn't the whole story. Lincoln wanted to avoid alienating the border states. From David Hunter

Had you clicked on David Hunter which anyone who knows anything about the Internet at all would have recognized as a link, you would have seen the exact article you linked to.

As expected, you get your mythology from Wikipedia, your bible of history.

I understand the limits of Wikipedia (which you also referenced BTW) but the text was linked to references that anyone could click, so I don't see your problem.

There is still only one meaning for emancipation.

Yes. It's what the North did for the confederacy's slaves after winning the war.

Hunter declared the slaves within his jurisdiction to be free. Lincoln reversed that and the slaves declared free by Hunter remained slaves, by order of Abraham Lincoln the great abolitionist and emancipator, in the war to end slavery.

From Lincoln's letter rescinding the order, "Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system."

And Hunter was relieved of his command.

Not that I agree with the decision legal or otherwise, but it was for insubordination.

BTW, "President Jefferson Davis and the leaders of the Confederate Army were furious when they heard of Hunter's actions and orders were given that he was a "felon to be executed if captured.""

Your quote of me seemed to just stop abruptly.

Frederick Douglas wrote the quote you posted in 1861, expressing frustration with how slowly the issues of slavery in general were being dealt with. He made no secret that abolitionists were frustrated with how slowly everything was happening. That is something else everyone knows but you keep posting because you think it proves something. The North opened up recruitment to blacks in 1863.

Now hop into your time machine and go to 1876, after the war and after abolition, when he wrote "Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."

Looking at it in hindsight, he could understand what Lincoln was up against and why abolition took so long.

Well, it's unanimous. I said nothing about all of anybody. I cited and quoted Frederick Douglass talking about many black men, real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops. And it is clear that you were not talking about all black men. There it is. Nobody was talking about ALL black men. Douglass did not specify how many such men there were, but it is certain that it was not too few for him to mention.

We all know there were blacks who served in the confederacy in various roles and for various reasons. The problem is you haven't posted anything to substaniate your 300,000 estimate.

If I had written something like that, you may have quoted me doing so. Instead of addressing the question, you hide, duck, and weave by a diversion.

That was no diversion. Your question was "If Lincoln had succeeded, and he had restored all the late states in rebellion to the Union as though they had never left, with full representation in Congress, when do you think the 13th (or 14th, 15th) Amendment would have been ratified by the required three-fourths of the States?" That implied that the former slave holding states wouldn't have ratified abolition.

To answer your question, I don't know when or even if they would have ratified the amendment. When do you think they would have voted to ratify it?

I already quoted Lincoln on the applicable law. I'll do it again, and then quote Randall so you may enjoy an educational experience.

That was neither enjoyable nor an educational experience. Just more cut and paste.

"Taken at its best, however, the proclamation, with its partial application, was not a comprehensive solution of the slavery problem; and, in spite of this striking use of national authority, the slavery question, from 1863 to 1865, still remained, in large part, a State matter."

We know this. Slavery couldn't have been abolished completely until the confederacy was defeated in 1865, and President Lincoln had to keep the border states in line until that happened. He did, and slavery was abolished. I again refer you to Frederick Douglas' statement above.

You forgot to quote anything or identify the famous author who is your source of authority.
Why would I? Everything is at the link. Unlike you, I don't feel the need to flood our generous hosts' resources with tons of spam repeating what can be found simply by clicking on the link and reading.
Here I come to save the day!
You would do better to save FR some bandwidth by just making your point without spamming the forum with other people's writings that happen to agree with you.

Actually, I quoted YOUR source, something you had failed to do.

Your quote is not from my #479 which starts:

https://cwmemory.com/2006/06/08/blacks-in-gray-or-enough-is-enough/
Blacks in Gray or "Enough is Enough""
Just because someone can publish their beliefs in a book doesn't mean the rest of us have to accept their conclusions. It wasn't 300,000. It wasn't even near the 100,000+ slaves that escaped to join the Union Army.
Your only exalted source is this tripe from your progressive Bostonian Kevin Levin. Let us examine what you dragged up and brought in here. You are free to attempt to pass off this radical partisan as a serious scholar, whose words carry significant weight.

The above pertains to the hiding of your liberal source Kevin D. Levin, the radical progressive liberal from Boston.

It is woodpusher #480 (23 Oct 2021) which starts as below, and pertains to your other hidden, unidentified source of authority, Sam Smith.

Black Confederates: Truth and Legend
You forgot to quote anything or identify the famous author who is your source of authority. Here I come to save the day!
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/black-confederates-truth-and-legend
Black Confederates: Truth and Legend
The Civil War was a fiery prism at the center of American society. Every life entered the prism at its own angle and was refracted in its own way.
By Sam Smith
All together now. Who the heck is Sam Smith?
Sam Smith
A native of Nashville, Tenn., and a graduate of the University of North Carolina, Sam Smith worked with the Civil War Trust’s K-12 educational programs. An award-winning board game designer, Smith has also written or co-written more than 50 articles on Civil War subjects, and is a frequent lecturer at the National Museum for American Jewish Military History.
As you quoted nothing from your appeal to authority, I shall quote from what he had to say.

And I proceeded to illuminate the discussion by quoting what YOUR SOURCE had to say in the article for which you provided a link, but withheld the name of the author and the entirety of the contents.

You did not even reference anything Sam Smith claimed. Let us try a Sam Smith claim.

After the Proclamation, the refugees in the contraband camps, along with free black people throughout the North, began to enlist in the Union Army in even greater proportion than Northern white men.

The operative word here is enlist. It seems many whites were engaged in the largest mostly peaceful protest in American history — against the draft. They were even hanging strange fruit from the lamp posts. Large numbers were being conscripted, because as Frederick Douglass put it, "they were willing to fight for the Union, but that they were not willing to fight for the freedom of the negroes; and thus it was made difficult to procure enlistments...."

Frederick Douglass, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass From 1817-1882 (1882), Chapter XII, HOPE FOR THE NATION.

The Proclamation itself was like Mr. Lincoln throughout. It was framed with a view to the least harm and the most good possible in the circumstances, and with especial consideration of the latter. It was thoughtful, cautious, and well guarded at all points. While he hated slavery, and really desired its destruction, he always proceeded against it in a manner the least likely to shock or drive from him any who were truly in sympathy with the preservation of the Union, but who were not friendly to emancipation. For this he kept up the distinction between loyal and disloyal slaveholders, and discriminated in favour of the one, as against the other. In a word, in all that he did, or attempted, he made it manifest that the one great and all commanding object with him, was the peace and preservation of the Union, and that this was the motive and main spring of all his measures. His wisdom and moderation at this point were for a season useful to the loyal cause in the border States, but it may be fairly questioned, whether it did not chill the Union ardour of the loyal people of the North in some degree, and diminish, rather than increase, the sum of our power against the rebellion: for moderate, cautious and guarded as was this proclamation, it created a howl of indignation and wrath amongst the rebels and their allies. The old cry was raised by the copperhead organs of “an abolition war,” and a pretext was thus found for an excuse for refusing to enlist, and for marshalling all the negro prejudice of the North on the rebel side. Men could say they were willing to fight for the Union, but that they were not willing to fight for the freedom of the negroes; and thus it was made difficult to procure enlistments or to enforce the draft. This was especially true of New York, where there was a large Irish population. The attempt to enforce the draft in that city was met by mobs, riot, and bloodshed. There is perhaps no darker chapter in the whole history of the war, than this cowardly and bloody uprising in July, 1863. For three days and nights New York was in the hands of a ferocious mob, and there was not sufficient power in the government of the country or of the city itself, to stay the hands of violence, and the effusion of blood. Though this mob was nominally against the draft which had been ordered, it poured out its fiercest wrath upon the coloured people and their friends. It spared neither age nor sex; it hanged negroes simply because they were negroes; it murdered women in their homes, and burned their homes over their heads; it dashed out the brains of young children against the lamp posts; it burned the coloured orphan asylum, a noble charity on the corner of Fifth Avenue, and scarce allowing time for the helpless two hundred children to make good their escape, plundered the building of every valuable piece of furniture; and coloured men, women, and children were forced to seek concealment in cellars or garrets, or wheresoever else it could be found, until this high carnival of crime and reign of terror should pass away.

- - - - - - - - - -

#489

We all know there were blacks who served in the confederacy in various roles and for various reasons. The problem is you haven't posted anything to substaniate your 300,000 estimate.

We all know I made no such estimate. I shall now make an estimate. I estimate that your level of desperation is about to break all bounds of reason.

Richard Rollins, in Black Confederates at Gettysburg, noted,

This lack of interest in black Confederates began to change just a few years ago. Two scholalrly articles have appeared, the best of which, Arthur W. Bergeron's "Free Men of Color in Gray," graced the pages of Civil War History.¹² A few articles have also been published in magazines aimed at a larger general reading public.¹³ One book has alread been written and at least two others are in the works.
One scholar [woodpusher: Ervin L. Jordan, Jr.; see footnote 15] has estimated that up to 25% (65,000 out of 261,000) of free negroes in the South and 15% (600,000 out of 4 million) of slaves sided with the South at one time during the war.¹⁵ Whatever the actual figures, it will be difficult to conclusively prove any estimate.
12. Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., "Free Men of Color in Grey," Civil War History XXXII (1986), 247-255. See also Mary F. Berry, "Negro Troops in Blue and Gray: The Louisiana Native Guards, 1861-1863," Louisiana History 8 (1967),165-190. Most of the latter is devoted to the Native Guards who were Union troops, not the Confederates. Alexia J. Helsley, "Black Confederates," South Carolina Historical Magazine 74 (July, 1973), 184-187.
13. J. K. Obatala, "The Unlikely Story of Blacks Who Were Loyal To Dixie," Smithsonian 9 (1979), 94-101; Wayne R. Austerman, ''Virginia's Black Confederates," Civil War Quarterly VIII (1987), 46-54; Greg Tyler, "Rebel Drummer Henry Brown, Civil War Times Illustrated February, 1989, 22-23; Scott E. Sallee, "Black Soldier of the Confederacy," < i>Blue and Gray 1990, 24-25; Greg Tyler, "Article Brings Notice To A Unique Rebel, Civil War Times Illustrated May/June 1990, 57,69; Edward C. Smith, "Calico, Black and Gray: Women and Blacks in the Confederacy," Civil War XXIIl (1990), 10-16; and Jeff Carroll, "Dignity, Courage and Fidelity," Confederate VeteranNovember/December 1990, 26-27.
14. H. C. Blackerby, Blacks in Blue and Gray: Afro-American Service in the Civil War (Tuscaloosa, Ala.: Portals Press, 1973); Ervin Jordan, Jr., is working on Black Confederates in Virginia and Charles K. Barrow, of Atlanta, is researching a wider topic.
15. Ervin L. Jordan, Jr., quoted in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, "Virginia' section, November 5, 1990, 1,7.

Ervin L. Jordan, Jr. made an estimate, as noted by Richard Rollins.

Blackerby is further cited at footnotes 16, 20, 47 and 50.

Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., is Historian for the Louisiana Office of State Parks and formerly served as Curator at the Port Hudson State Commemorative Area. A native of Louisiana, he received an M. A. and Ph. D. in American History from Louisiana State University. He is a member of several professional organizations and was the recipient of the Charles L. Dufour Award of the New Orleans Civil War Round Table in 1993.

Dr. Bergeron is the editor of The Civil War Reminiscences of Major Silas T. Grisamore, C.S.A (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993), and author of Confederate Mobile, 1861-1865 (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1991) and Guide to Louisiana Confederate Military Units, 1861-1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989).

Ervin L. Jordan, Jr., is the Associate Curator of Technical Services, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library. He specializes in Confederate history and is the author of The 19th Virginia (1987), Charlottesville and the University of Virginia In The Civil War (1988), and Black Confederates, Afro-Yankees: The History of the African-American Experience in Civil War Virginia (forthcoming). He earned a Bachelor of Arts cum laude from Norfolk State University and was a three-time recipient of the Floyd W. Crawford Award for Distinguished Historical Scholarship. He received a Master of Arts from Old Dominion University.

Richard Rollins is Vice-President of MidRange Software Solutions and Editor of Rank and File Publications, Redondo Beach, California. He received a Ph.D. in American Intellectual History from Michigan State University and taught at Michigan State, Ohio State University, Carroll College, and the University of Southern California. He is the author of The Long Journey of Noah Webster and The Autobiographies of Noah Webster (1989), and editor of Pickett's Charge: Eyewitness Accounts (1994) and A Day With Mr. Lincoln: Essays in Honor of the Lincoln Exhibit at the Huntington Library (1994). His essay on “Black Confederates at Gettysburg” originally appeared in Gettysburg Magazine in 1992.

I'm not sure how that measures up to your invoked authority of the famous and renowned Kevin D. Levin and Sam Smith.

H.C. Blackerby, Blacks in Blue and Gray, 1st Ed., 1979, in Appendix C at page 121.

Records indicate that 300,000 or more blacks served with Confederate armies part of the time. Some were soldiers. Others served in many ways, from horsehoers to guards.

H.C. Blackerby at 39:

A single volume can tell but little of Confederate black heroism, most of it living only in tradition. The honor roll is long, while torn and tattered, in bits and pieces, here and there, hidden in musty archives, in diaries, in family records, in old cellars and attics.
Memorials honoring the war service of blacks to the Confederacy can be found in Virginia, in Mississippi, in South Carolina, and elsewhere.
The loyalty of blacks to the Confederacy continues to embarrass blacks and whites. It was only natural that blacks reacted to the war as whites did, and if history is told as it was it will be recorded (if we dismiss the technicalities) that there may be as many black sons and daughters of the Confederacy as there are whites. But if it be insisted that only those duly enrolled and armed blacks qualify as Confederates, there are tens of thousands of Negroes who are living descendants of blacks in gray.

Blackerby at 40 makes an interesting point:

That most blacks supported the Confederacy is apparent if we count the number of memorials honoring blacks’ service to the Confederacy standing in the former slave states as contrasted with no monuments in the Lincoln states extolling Union black soldiers. The granite and marble shafts pointing heavenward to the angels while paying homage to the blacks who served the Lost Cause are in their rightful places.

As for documentation, apparently you have not bothered to look at Blackerby's book before dismissing it. For Louisiana Black Native Guards, see page 101 et seq. For Black Confederate Pensioners, see Appendix C.

See also, Ricardo J. Rodriguez, Black Confederates In The U.S. Civil War, A Compiled List of African-Americans Who Served the Confederacy, JAR Press (2010), pp. 2-224.