Historian: Civil War tales are pure bunk

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History doesn't lie. Right? Well, the winners want history to make them look good. Sometimes the losers get their say, too.

Perspectives can change. Villains can be made to look like heroes. Interpreting the past can lead to lively debates. And because it is history, often the only confirmation comes from what was written down or told orally through generations.

When talk turns to the Civil War and blacks' role with the Confederacy, there is no room for revisionist theories for Asa R Gordon.

The war between North and South was not about states' rights or a War of Southern independence. States' rights and independence are WHATS of the Civil War. The WHY of it was to preserve slavery, Gordon told a small group at St. James AME Zion church in Kissimmee last week.

Simply put, there should be no memorials honoring men like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. They and others resigned from the Union Army and fought against their country.

They were rebels, and they are traitors to the United States. Nations normally don't honor traitors, Gordon, a retired astrophysicist, said to a crowd that included a group from the Osceola Children's Home.

People normally don' t build memorials for traitors, racists or those who practice genocide.

In the United States, Confederate memorials dot the countryside. The flag is flown with pride. The Nazi flag - and Nazi leaders - inspire hatred.

It should he no different for Lee and others who fought for the South. The real heroes, Gordon said, are those Southerners who fought for the North.

As for those who try to promote the idea that blacks were willing soldiers for the South, Gordon's research disproves it.

In a lecture that was close to three hours long, the founder and executive director of the Washington, D.C. -based Douglass Institute of Government left no doubt about the fantasies and historical myths of Afro-Confederates.

The commitment to the neo-Confederate movement is often emotional rather than intellectual, he said. It cannot stand the scrutiny of scholarship. The belief that blacks willingly served in the Confederate Army is ludicrous and harmful, he said.

"A slave didn't have a choice. If his master said he was going, the slave couldn't say no. He was a slave."

Those who say blacks fought for the South should look at Confederate documents, which ban blacks serving as regular members of the Army. They also need to look at records showing that those who did serve deserted when they got the chance.

Propagation of the present-day theories make it hard for people to realize that blacks were unhappy about their condition, Gordon said.

"How can you owe a people anything, if in fact they were so satisfied with the state that suppressed them?" he asked. "How can you correct that legacy if you are in denial about the true reasons?"

Gordon's visit was sponsored by Ann Tyler and Evan McKissic. McKissic, a retired Osceola teacher, has been critical of the theories of another retired local teacher, Nelson Winbush.

Winbush travels the country recounting the stories of his grandfather, who he said willingly and proudly served with Southern forces.

"I try to get the truth out. I talked with my grandfather, and I know what he said," Winbush said.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Pino welcomes comments. He can be reached at (407) 931-5935, by e- mail at OSOpino1@aol.com, by fax at (407)931-5959 or by mail at The Osceola Sentinel, 804 W. Emmett St., Kissimmee, 34741.

Gordon clearly does not know what he is talking about. There are numerous contemporary Union sources that confirm that Blacks, as well as Indians and Jews all fought for the South. Slavery was moribund regardless of the outcome of the unnecessary Civil War. IMHO, the War set back race relations and Black progress in this country.

Well that is your opinion. And it's a question that by its very nature can never be resolved. But what support or evidence do you have to support it?

The fact that slavery was abolished elsewhere in the hemisphere peacefully by 1890 ignores the particular characteristics that would have prevailed in the Confederacy. Slavery was abolished where it was not a major feature of society, or where it could be abolished from outside and above. Slavery was abolished in the West Indies because the planters and local whites didn't have the final say over whether it would be abolished or not. Slavery probably would have been abolished by an independent confederacy when it was no longer needed economically, but whether that would have been in 1870, 1890, or 1910, or 1930, it's impossible to say, save that 1870 might have been too early and 1930 too late.

A generation or more of slavery, and what then? What would have happened to the slaves? The experience generally was a century of segregation. Does anyone really think that the Confederacy would have been better than that? Would the freedmen have been resettled somewhere? They certainly wouldn't have been granted fully equal rights with the Whites. There's a notion that fellow feeling amongst Southerners North and South would have prevailed in the end. But look at how long it took for this feeling to develop, how it couldn't overcome segregation, and how it took outside action to liberate that sense of fraternity from the institutions Southerners -- or more exactly Southern Whites -- had built.

"With the exceptions of L. Frank Baum, Laura Ingalls, Edith Wharton and Washington Irving, you can have most of the rest."

Plus Baum's legacy rests on one book, The Wizard of Oz. I doubt one person in 10,000 has read any of his works; his fame is based strictly on the Hollywood film.

Julia Ward Howe, Louisa Mae Alcott and Laura Wilder? Next.

Horatio Alger and Upton Sinclair were essentially journalists, hardly the foundation of a great culture.

James Fennemore[sic] Cooper, Sinclair Lewis, Carl "Curr-oh-seen!" Sandburg, Hawthorne and Irving are probably not even taught in schools anymore, north or south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Henry James became a British subject (no love for the dear old land of his birth lost there). Miller spent his productive years in Paris, retiring to Big Sur in California.

Eugene O'Neil[sic]...yeah, but most of his plays have not held up that well. "Long Day's Journey Into The Night" and "The Iceman Cometh" are about the only two still revived.

The Transcendentalists? Whatever blows your skirt up.

If Clinton hadn't given Monica a copy of "Leaves of Grass", I doubt even Whitman would be much remembered in the United States of Amnesia.

O. Henry? Melville? Wharton? cummings? Yeah, they're good, I'll give those to non-seq.

As Lawrence said so memorably, Hemingway was a good photographer, but photographs don't age well.

You got it - a post from 4 years ago from a racist Afro-centric crackpot who hates the world. It's really pretty sad. Check this little excerpt out from Gordon's website:

note: Prepared by the Douglass Institute of Government (D.I.G.) for any African American Organization (Apparently Good for all Time!) to hand out or display prominently for those well meaning whites who will inevitably bore you with their psychotic question of reverse-racism, which they self- righteously assume to be self-evident in any organization organized by blacks to promote the welfare of blacks suffering under the yoke of white supremacy.

DIG

The whole Black Confederate soldier thing is bogus” - Ludwell Johnson of the Museum of the Confederacy

It's B.S., wishful thinking." - Edwin Bearss, historian emeritus, NPS

They were never mustered into the Confederate Army," – James Hollandsworth, Associate Provost at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.

It's mostly moonshine They've taken a core of true information and ballooned it all out of proportion.” - James McPherson, Princeton professor emeritus and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War history Battle Cry of Freedom. -

If I were rewriting Battle Cry of Freedom, I would mention that [the participation of black Rebel soldiers] happened on an unofficial and limited basis, but it was not a regular, sizable component of the Confederate army." - James McPherson

There were a few black Confederate [combatants] nobody knows how many. There may have even been several hundred, but it was entirely unofficial, unsanctioned, irregular, and sporadic" - James McPherson

Of course If I documented 12 [black Confederates out of 150,000 CSA soldiers researched] someone would start adding zeros," - Robert Krick, author of 10 books on the Confederacy

Ervin Jordan Jr. - a black archivist and assistant professor from the University of Virginia. In Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia, were he proved there were black confederates, he admits that he hasn't uncovered tens of thousands of black Confederates in wartime Virginia - in fact, he's found barely a fraction of that.

There was no black Confederate unit in Mobile, it was a Creole unit. It would be a long, long stretch to say that it was a black unit. There was no counterpart to the black divisions that fought on the Union side." - Sheila Flanagan, assistant director of the Museum of Mobile. - Mobile Register, August 23, 1998

"Many thousands of Jews did slave labor in military production factories in Nazi Germany - but that certainly didn't make them "thousands of Jewish soldiers fighting for Germany.”” Truman R. Clark, professor of history, Tomball College. - The Houston Chronicle, Aug 29, 1999

Howell Cobb, GA State Legislator - "you cannot make soldiers of slaves . . . . The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves will make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong." - Cobb to James A. Seddon, 8 Jan. 1865, in O.R., ser. 4, 3: 1009-

Baum actually wrote about nineteen Oz books, IIRC, plus numerous other works for kids and some for grownups. His publishers, Reilly & Lee, hired a number of folks, mostly Ruth Plumly Thompson, to continue to write the Oz books after his death. I think there were forty in all by various authors. Baum's largely forgotten now, though. I certainly wouldn't put him in the first rank of authors, but he's an entertaining children's writer. (Lewis is much better, IMHO, Puddleglum ;-) )

A lot of the authors aren't "really" Yankees anyhow. Too recent, or too far West.

The "New England writers" were certainly associated with (though ambivalent about) the abolitionist movement. Alcott's dad Bronson was the only one I know who put his money where his mouth was, allowing black children to attend his school (it promptly closed, however, when all the white denizens of Massachusetts pulled their kids out.) Bronson was an impractical dreamer, of course, his daughter and his wife Abby supported the family. And Alcott was pretty racist (going by the true definition of belief that blacks as a race were inferior to whites). The best (or worst) example I recall is a story she wrote about a captured seagull, with a main character being a little black girl who embodies every stereotype from the minstrel shows. Wish I could remember the title.

Consider these quotes:

"Yet there were other quite different signs of black attitudes, ones more comforting if puzzling. From all across the new Confederacy there came stories of blacks, free and slave, who wanted to do their bit for the new nation. Even as the first elements of the new government reached Richmond, they could see a South Carolina slave who had come north with a Carolina regiment to defend the Virginia frontier, marching about the city wearing a sword with which he swore he would shave Lincoln's head.

"A free black descended from one of George Washington's slaves, now the owner of a small farm near Mt. Vernon, offered twenty-eight acres, one-sixth of his property to be sold at auction to raise money for Virginia's defense.

"More active efforts in Virginia came form other quarters, like the fifty free blacks in Amelia County, and two-hundred more in Petersburg who offered themselves to the government to perform labor or even to fight under white officers. Slaves like a Tennessee barber named Jim donated money from their small savings to help raise companies; a Montgomery slave subscribed $150 of his own to the first call for loans from Secretary of the Treasury Christopher Memminger; not far from Mobile sixty slaves on one plantation practiced drilling every night after a full days' work, expressing their hope to fight the "damned buckram abolitionists" who had caused the crisis that now led to the fear of slave uprisings and the consequent curtailment of their few little freedoms."

-Look Away! William C. Davis

Davis goes on to say their motives and support varied. Some freedmen were in it for the business, using their skills as blacksmiths and masons, to earn money. Others were caught up in the excitement of the times, looking for adventure. Still others realized that although the might be near the bottom of the social order, it was still their state and they ought to defend it. Others had hopes of freedom if their patriotism was displayed during this time of crisis.

There are many good accounts of blacks and Jews in the Confederacy - lots of research is being done. North & South magazine ran a great article "Black Confederates: Myth or Reality?" (vol. 5 no.3) with many good sources and accounts.

I don't see a single footnote in the Massingill article that could be used to verify his claims. I'd like to have one for this assertion in particular:

America was shocked on December 7th, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and for nearly 50 years the conventional wisdom led us to believe that this was a totally unprovoked aggression ...until just recently when it became widely known that American pilots had been involved in covert bombings of Japanese soldiers for nearly a year before.

Curiously, I can't seem to get the article back, just the standard "404 file not found." It would be very interesting to know just what substance there might be in his claims. I suspect much results from the "fog of war" and from taking individual anomalies as rules, rather than exceptions.

If I remember correctly, and I'm sure I'll be remanded harshly if I'm not, there was not one black living in Illinois at the start of the Civil War.

You remember incorrectly. There were, in fact, 7,628 free blacks in Illinois for the 1860 census. That roughly 2700 more than the total number of free blacks in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi and Texas combined. Now...how harsh was that?

Why? It was against state law.

It was also against the law for a free black to live in Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas. It was against the law to free a slave in Alabama and Mississippi. Real Garden of Eden for a free black down south, wasn't it?

Well I have read many of the authors posted and except for a few I can't say that many did a thing for me. Of course we have Sandburg, the part time poet when he was taking time from worshipping the 'benevolent dictator'. You know those volumes of drivel he wrote about lincoln. And we can't forget Upton 'Rats in the meat' Sinclair. While heinous, it probably wasn't the best time for him to start crying foul. The decades immediately following the War, every politician was wanting a hand in the pot and setting up just one more federal agency would sure be the answer.

Jack London? Eh, that's a pass. Hemingway? Another pass. Melville, Hawthorn, and Irving? Before the war really in another time.

Besides you're acting like there would be no interaction between the nations. Had the north fulfilled its Constitutional duties and allowed the South to leave instead of attacking them, and burning it to the ground in the process, I imagine both nations would have been as close as two nations could be, like Canada and these United States. Some minor issues but all in all not likely to start a war over anything. Of course the north WOULD probably have been the weaker party considering all their money came from the South. And as for this

I'm just pointing out how y'all tried to reward all those stalwart black men who you claim fought and died for the confederacy. You tried to return them to a state of semi-slavery and, when that was unsuccessful, you put Jim Crow laws into place as soon as reconstruction ended.

You need to get your story straight. Elsewhere you told me these laws were passed before Reconstruction in that short period of self governance. Now you're saying it was after Reconstruction. Well? Which was it? Fact is, that the laws were in place before Reconstruction finished and some were even passed by our yankee occupiers. I guess trying to recreate how it was 'back home', huh?

No, no, no, billbears. The Black Codes preceded Reconstruction and were done by the southern legislatures all on their lonesome. In fact, the Black Codes were one of the reasons why the radical Republicans launched Reconstruction in the first place, along with the race riots in New Orleans and Memphis. The Jim Crow laws were after Reconstruction. Clear now?

I imagine both nations would have been as close as two nations could be, like Canada and these United States.

You know it wouldn't have been peaceful, billbears. Lincoln had his duty to do as he saw it, and as the Supreme Court saw it (But we won't go into Texas v. White today). Had the southern rebellion been successful then the United States and the confederacy would have been close, all right, from a geographical point of view. But in relations, think Egypt and Israel, think Iraq and Iran, think East Germany and West Germany, but don't think the U.S. and Canada. Wouldn't happen.

There are many good accounts of blacks and Jews in the Confederacy...

More 'accounts' than there were actual troops. Most of what you call soldiers were in-fact forced labor. That labor, which is necessary for any Army, allowed the CSA to devote the majority of their troops to combat roles as opposed to the Union Army that had to use soldiers for all of the support and logistics functions. The reality is that as far as combat troops go, the two side were equal through much of the war even though the Union army had many more men. No doubt there were a few blacks, free and slave who felt some misplaced devotion to the CSA, but the fact is that nearly 100,000 freed slaves from Confederate states voluntarily joined the Union Army and served with great distinction. I think even the most fanatic neo-reb would not claim anywhere near that number of blacks in actual combat roles in the CSA.

BTW. Just out of curiosity, what in the hell do the Jews have to do with it? There were very few Jews in the US in the 1860s and I’m sure they likely served on both sides in equal numbers --- i.e. not very many. Does it somehow justify the Confederate cause that there was some small number of Jews involved or are you saying they were flocking from Russia and Poland to join the Confederacy?

but the fact is that nearly 100,000 freed slaves from Confederate states voluntarily joined the Union Army and served with great distinction.

Considering that only 180,000 blacks fought for the north, are you saying that over half were from the South?

180,000 found here

Now would these 100,000 slaves be the ones that escaped across enemy lines, of which in reality it was only a handful of that number, or would this be the slaves in northern occupied territory of which were still considered slaves by the US government and not freed? Give me a number and a link here. And I'll tell you, it better not be from Asa or his friends because that will automatically be discounted!!

From link in 116

Southern territory under Union control provided the largest number of black soldiers during the war, further weakening the South's economic base. Many were fugitive slaves or "contrabands," a military term for seized enemy property like cotton, machinery or other goods. The refugees sought freedom, safety and employment behind the Federal lines where many served as soldiers, laborers, servants, teamsters, scouts, spies, teachers and nurses
In 1862, several black regiments were recruited by white officers in the South and West without Presidential or Congressional authorization. The combat actions of the 1st South Carolina, a regiment of ex-slaves raised by Generals David Hunter and Rufus Saxton, received notice in the Northern press. The regiment's commander, Massachusetts abolitionist and man of letters Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, wrote encouraging reports about this regiment: "Nobody knows anything about these men who has not seen them in battle...No officer in this regiment now doubts that the successful prosecution of the war lies in the unlimited employment of black troops."

So basically slaves that were not free under US law were given the 'option' of fighting for the north. More like roped into it. And can you believe that Col Wentworth raised a troop of black soldiers WITHOUT Presidential or Congressional approval?!? Can we count those men as fighting? But of course!! They fought for the union. I guess that only happened up north though didn't it? < /sarcasm>

From your own link bill.

Southern territory under Union control provided the largest number of black soldiers during the war,

As I recall the figures, of the 180,000 US Colored Troops, 94,000 were from the Confederate states, especially the deep south states. Recrutment in South Carolina actually started well before the Emancipapion Proclamation. Also keep in mind that 80% of all blacks were from the slave states so yes, it is perfectly logical and true that the majority were from slave states.

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