Posted on 01/16/2003 10:05:26 PM PST by stainlessbanner
Did free blacks support the Confederacy during the Civil War?
About 10 years ago, this was the question Winston Jones of West Chester asked himself.
What he discovered was that, yes, free blacks did support the Confederacy and in November, he independently published a novel "For God, Country and the Confederacy" through First Books, based on those findings.
The novel follows the St. Claire family, a free black family who owns a farm and owns slaves to help work the land in New Orleans, and begins the day Fort Sumter was attacked and ends, one year later, the day New Orleans falls to the Union.
The book is available online from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble and Jones has signings planned locally throughout the months of February and March. The book is also available at Barnes and Noble at Main Street at Exton.
The first signing is on Sunday, Feb. 9 at 3 p.m. at Art Partners Studio in Coatesville. Another signing is planned for Saturday, March 8 at noon at the Dane Tilghman Gallery also in Coatesville.
Jones, a playwright who works at HDX in Exton as an engineer, spent five and 1/2 years researching the novel, which he first began as a play. Most of the time, he said, he spent checking and re-checking notes to insure that he was being historically accurate.
"When I was in school, I was taught that blacks in the Confederate South were either slaves or were trying to escape to the North. They were uneducated and had no rights," he said.
He said the information found in history books didn't give the full picture, because what he learned was that free blacks did live in the South. "They could read, they were educated, they had businesses and had an economic foothold in the Confederacy," he said.
When the Civil War started, he said about 40 percent of the Confederate South was black and between 50 to 7 percent or a quarter of a million of those blacks were free. "In many cases, they had five to 10 generations of freedom," said Jones. He said some also had slaves.
"We need to get this information out, so black kids growing up don't feel like they're victims and so white kids don't think all whites are oppressors," he said. "Blacks were more than just slaves, but we were never taught that. We were not given enough information so we could make our own decisions."
He said he is an one-person campaign to get the history books correct. "The kids are the leaders of tomorrow," said Jones. "If we continue to raise our children by telling them that one race is the victim and the other is the oppressor, then there are going to continue to be problems between the races understanding one another."
He said all most people know about the Confederate South is from three movies, "Birth of a Nation," "Gone with the Wind," and "Roots." And all three deal with blacks being victims, he said. "As a nation, that brings with it a lot of guilt," he added.
He said as a result of his research, he learned that blacks were not always victims and that he and his wife, Jodi, are raising their son, Elliot, 11, to think differently about blacks in the South. "Not every black was a slave," he said. "Some were free, educated, owned businesses and were part of the economy in the South."
However, he stressed that he was not saying that slavery was good. "It is a scar on America's past, but not every black was a slave in the Confederate South."
Asked why he chose to put this information in the form of a novel, he said, "Because all the research is out there, but it's dull and clinical."
He said that he does include a bibliography in the book for those that want to study the issue further.
So why independently publish the book? He said he tried when President Bush was first elected to sell the book to prospective publishers, but at the time the issue was too hot with controversy over Confederate flags being flown at state capitals. He said he sent 75 query letters and received all of them back within a few weeks with a negative response.
That is part of the reason why he chose to publish the book himself. However, he said the book is not about race, but about how the Civil War impacted a free black family of the Confederate South, specifically, in this case, the fictional St. Claire family of New Orleans.
In addition to the signings already mentioned, Jones has the following book signings scheduled:
n Wednesday, Feb. 12 at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes & Noble at Main Street at Exton
n Saturday, Feb. 16 at 2 p.m. at the Chester County Conference and Visitor's Bureau in Kennett Square
n Thursday, Feb. 27 at Hudson United Bank in West Chester.
There also may be two others later in March at the Chester County Book Store in Downingtown and West Chester, dates to be determined.
I am not calling Dr. Steiner a liar. He says there are 3,000 negroes among the 64,000 rebel troops. But other reports say there were closer to 45,000 rebels. Should we rachet down Dr. Steiner's estimate on that basis?
Up to 1/4 of Lee's army on this campaign was straggling.
But consider this, from an account of Fort Pillow:
"However, another Confederate soldier, Samuel H. Caldwell, wrote to his wife a few days after the massacre "If General Forrest had not run between our men & the Yanks with his pistol and sabre drawn not a man would have been spared." To support this, Brigadier General James R. Chalmers, CSA, who was Forrest's second-in-command "similarly claimed to a Federal officer on April 13 that he and Forrest had `stopped the massacre as soon as [we] were able to do so'. He further explained that their men `had such a hatred toward the armed negro that they could not be restrained from killing the negroes after they had captured them.'"
So it was okay for the rebels to use slaves in arms, but wrong for the Union to do so?
There is no credible evidence of more than a handful of black rebel soldiers.
Walt
Once again you simply dismiss the inconvenient statements of Union heroes (for no other reason than their words contradict your revisionist "history") and resort to using quotes specific to that proposal for raising all-black regiments. That proposal was a completely different issue than the blacks that were already a minority percentage serving in one capacity or another with the regular Confederate Army. Dr. Steiner observed that five percent of Jackson's Army was negro, most of those armed and otherwise equipped as soldiers. Not all were, but "most". If you want to have some fun and be disillusioned, Walt, go to Arlington National Cemetery and look at the Confederate Memorial that was erected there in 1914. It was created by a Confederate veteran named Moses Ezekiel, who was knighted by the King of Italy for his work as an artist in Europe after the war. On one of the memorial's panels you will see a bas-relief of Confederate soldiers marching off to war. One of those soldiers is a black man. Go and see for yourself.
Your ignorance of history is astounding. The blacks used by the Union were primarily runaway Southern slaves. That was the stated purpose of the EP, to encourage Southern slaves to runaway and then be used as soldiers by the Union. Lincoln said so (all that "emancipation" talk is a myth created by revisionists. The EP was a war action to drain labor from the Confederacy, Lincoln said so). Many Confederates did not see those troops as soldiers, they saw them simply as runaway slaves that had taken up arms against them. They saw them as both runaways and traitors. Consider an event observed by Arthur Freemantle following the battle of Manassas. A Southern slave with the Army had run off to the union side immediately prior to the battle, and was recaptured following the Confederate victory. Two other black servants were so outraged by his action that they insistently demanded that he be shot or hanged as a traitor. This was before the North's use of black troops. If loyal slaves perceived his actions as traitorous because he would offer his labor to the enemy, imagine how they would have felt if he could have taken up arms. To the Confederates, those troops were not really troops, they were armed groups of runaway traitorous slaves.
ROFLMAO! Douglass and Steiner both said that there were! You can make vaccuous proclamations, Walt, but that doesn't make them true. Since you obviously missed what they said, I'll post it for you again:
"There are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels. There were such soldiers at Manassas, and they are probably there still...Rising above vulgar prejudice, the slaveholding rebel accepts the aid of the black man as readily as that of any other." - Frederick Douglass in 1861.
And you say he didn't say there were black Confederates. You are wrong, again, as usual.
As for Dr. Steiner,
"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, sabers, bowie-knives, dirks, etc. They were supplied in many instances, with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, etc., and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederate Army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde. The fact was patent, and rather interesting when considered in connection with the horror rebels express at the suggestion of black soldiers being employed for the national defense."
Dr. Steiner said they were wearing uniforms and were armed and were "manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederate Army". And you say he didn't say there were black Confederates. As usual, you are wrong.
Frederick Douglass on Lincoln:
LOL - He also said this about Lincoln:
"It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man. He was preeminently the white man's president, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men."
"I have said that President Lincoln was a white man and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race."
"Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery."
You see, Walt, history is not just the bits and pieces we want, or that fit some revisionist pipedream. Douglass did say some nice things about Lincoln, but that doesn't mean he thought Lincoln wasn't prejudiced, which is an idea you have tried to put forth in the past. The record is the record, and Douglass did think Lincoln was prejudiced, but applauded his contribution to the end of slavery at the same time. That is the record, and it is true history. The "history" put forth by revisionists is threatened by that, but only because their "history" is vulnerable to truth. Just like these quotes of Frederick Douglass, the existence of black Confederates threatens revisionist fabrications about "history". Too bad, because History is, Walt. It is not just the parts we want or desire, it just is.
I don't think so, they very obviously stood out in his mind and the numbers for them are very likely accurate as a result.
So it was okay for the rebels to use slaves in arms, but wrong for the Union to do so?
From their point of view, absolutely. The union "slaves in arms", were Southern runaways that had taken up arms against them. To them, they were not "troops" but traitorous armed runaways still subject to the slave laws of their original states. They were seen in a completely different light than the regular Northerners who were invading their States.
But consider this, from an account of Fort Pillow:
Strange quote you have there, as Chalmers always maintained there was no massacre. The officers stopped the firing that was being done on the deserting union troops once it became obvious they were simply fleeing and not an organized threat attempting to reposition themselves. Have you ever read the letters written by one of the Union officers that was taken prisoner, a Lt. Young, I believe (I may have the name wrong, it's been many years since I studied this one). Most fascinating. He clearly admitted there was no massacre and wrote statements attesting to that fact in detail. After he was exchanged, he was in great trouble with his superiors for having written those letters, since the Northern press and Government had already been busy using the "massacre" for PR purposes. To save his career he recanted, but the original letters speak with more truthfulness than the one his superiors forced him to write. I think it very obvious that the soldiers shot escaping the fort were not "surrendering", they were deserting their position. What they didn't know is that they were retreating into a cross-fire. The fort, and those troops, never surrendered, and repeatedly refused to do so. If I remember right, they had repulsed four or five Confederate charges before the Eighteenth Mississippi Cavalry succeeded in breaching their breastwork. After heavy fighting like that it would be normal for firing to continue on a retreating enemy. It was commonly done by both sides in the war. When I first studied Civil War history, I too, thought Ft. Pillow had been a massacre. A thorough look at the record (independent of the interpretations of "historians") gave me a different opinion.
I don't think so, they very obviously stood out in his mind and the numbers for them are very likely accurate as a result.
Lots of things can stand out in your mind and not add to historical accuracy.
He pegs the numbers of rebel troops at 64,000. The actual number was closer to 40-45,000. So if his 3,000 negro figure is similarly modified it comes down to @ 2,100. Doesn't that seem reasonable?
As I said yesterday, and I didn't see a response -- no one else described these blacks as being soldiers, they are not noted in the battle, no dead blacks are found on the field at Antietam -- the federals did control the field, and so forth. Dr. Steiner's statement is uncorroborated and unreliable.
He was probably better on target noting:
"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 extending from opposite corners; on these blue stripes were placed thirteen 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."
There is no credible evidence of more than a handful of black rebel soldiers.
But as one historian pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, maintaining such a position allows one to suggest that the war was not really a crusade for white supremacy. That is the only reason I can think of for your maintaining this position.
Walt
The neo-rebs on their websites have posted figures of 65,000 or 90,000 or even more black rebel soldiers. Those numbers are a fantasy. This whole thing is a fantasy and you'll show it for nothing else, no matter what Dr. Steiner, Frederick Douglass or anyone else said. Many other people said otherwise, or failed to note any black soldiers at all -- and it would surely have been something to remark on.
"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
These professional historians don't accept the notion of black rebel soldiers and you look silly putting it forward.
Walt
The record speaks for itself.
Fault some of the data I've provided.
Here's something for you to think about:
"Then beyond the Reflecting Pool the dignified columns of the Lincoln Memorial. Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln...."
-- Ronald Reagan , first inaugural address, January 20, 1981
"A hundred and one hundred and twenty years ago the greatest of all our Presidents delivered his second State of the Union Message in this chamber. "We cannot escape history," Abraham Lincoln warned. "We of this Congress and this Administration will be re membered in spite of ourselves." The "trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation." Well, that President and that Congress did not fail the American people. Together, they weathered the storm and preserved the union. Let it be said of us that we, too did not fail ; that we, too, worked together to bring America through difficult times. Let us so conduct ourselves that two centuries from now, another Congress and another President, meeting in this chamber as we're meeting, will speak of us with pride, saying that we met the test and preserved for them in their day the sacred flame of liberty this last, best hope of man on Earth.
-- Ronald Reagan , State of the Union Address -January 26, 1982
"We knew then what the liberal Democrat leaders just couldn't figure out....I heard those speakers at that other convention saying "we won the Cold War" -- and I couldn't help wondering, just who exactly do they mean by "we"? And to top it off, they even tried to portray themselves as sharing the same fundamental values of our party! What they truly don't understand is the principle so eloquently stated by Abraham Lincoln:
"You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."
If we ever hear the Democrats quoting that passage by Lincoln and acting like they mean it, then, my friends, we will know that the opposition has really changed. Until then, we see all that rhetorical smoke, billowing out from the Democrats, well ladies and gentlemen, I'd follow the example of their nominee. Don't inhale."
---Ronald Reagan, 1992 Republican Convention Speech
"It was this spirit that helped black folks in America to survive and even begin to move toward prosperity during the years of legalized oppression after the Civil War and well into the 20th century . It was also this spirit, when it came to light in the Civil Rights movement of the late 50's and 60's, that had the power to transform the hardened conscience of America. Surprised and edified by the quiet dignity of black Americans seeking justice, the people of this country were called back to some respect for the first principles of America's life. For the Civil Rights movement followed the example of the American Founders, and of Lincoln, who had proclaimed that every single human being had a worth that comes not from laws and constitutions, but from the hand of God.
With quiet determination the freedom marchers insisted that every government, every law and every power whatsoever is obliged to respect that worth.
...the temptation to succumb to worldly judgment about the dignity of individuals, particularly those not favored by fortune with wealth, position and beauty, can be overwhelming. Black Americans have faced this temptation, and defeated it. Lincoln led the public battle against the doctrine of human inequality, but countless anonymous others have steadfastly done their work over the decades to keep the flame alive and to spread it
--Alan Keyes, Februrary 17, 2001
Restoring the mantle of Lincoln to the Republican Party is a noble goal and, indeed, an essential one. But it is not enough to adopt the slogan. To lead the party in the footsteps of Lincoln requires that we understand clearly and deeply the soul of Lincoln's own deepest ambition -- the wellsprings of the sometimes heartbreaking and, ultimately, healing acts of political and presidential leadership that constitute the legacy of Lincoln.
What was the real purpose that animated the striving of that great man, for which he spent the last resources of his noble soul and ultimately paid with his life?
The answer occurring readily to most Americans would probably be that Lincoln's career, and his presidency, were devoted to the task of freeing the slaves. How then are we to understand the following words, written by Lincoln during the war, to one of the foremost abolitionists of the day? "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it."This quotation can seem almost scandalous in its apparent disregard for the abolitionist cause, particularly for those who are perceptive enough to realize that not all "unions" justify such devotion -- the Soviets, after all, had a "union" and freely accepted the necessity of slavery in their attempt to perpetuate it. Soviet acceptance of slavery in the cause of its union was, of course, deeply wrong. Was Lincoln wrong as well? If we wish to understand, to wear again, the mantle of Lincoln, we must follow his thought deeper, and ask what it was about the Union that could move such a man -- whose deepest moral sentiments were outraged by the institution of slavery -- to defer the cause of abolition if it meant allowing the end of the political union of the American Republic.At stake was the survival of a community of free men still devoted, however imperfectly, to the attempt at just self-government. Lincoln understood the Founders to have formed a Union dedicated to vindicating the possibility of such a community. He believed that the Founders had understood that the institution of slavery, although it ultimately contradicted the principles of the republic, did not vitiate the solemn founding commitment to the pursuit of just self-government. Accordingly, Lincoln argued, the Founders had placed the institution of slavery "in the course of ultimate extinction" partly through a series of practical political concessions such as the constitutional time limit on the slave trade. Far more important, however, was the fact -- as Lincoln argued in scholarly depth -- that the founding generation universally understood that they were committing the country to a perpetual struggle to conform their lives and political institutions to the principles stated in the Declaration that gave birth to the Union itself. They, and Lincoln, knew that slavery could not survive such a commitment.
A Union that had formally broken its commitment to the Declaration, Lincoln believed, would no more be the Union of the founding. It would in fact be no less broken than the divided polity which the secession of the Southern states threatened to cause. Preserving the Union meant preserving the national commitment to the pursuit of justice in self-government, a goal never perfectly attained, but most definitely not to be abandoned because of any dispute about the manner of its accomplishment.
This, I believe, is what Lincoln meant in the famous words at Gettysburg, when he identified the "great task remaining before us." That task, he said, was "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.".....or save the Union on the basis of the Declaration, Lincoln knew, required that slavery be returned to its condition at the Founding -- namely, that it be put firmly on the course of ultimate extinction. The delay in its extinction might be painfully long. But if it was necessary to endure that delay rather than admit that we could not govern ourselves under the principles of the Declaration, Lincoln was prepared to do so.....The resolve to evoke from his fellow citizens their assent to the eventual triumph of justice was Lincoln's greatest ambition, and his failure to do it without war was his greatest sorrow. In our time, the mantle -- the burden -- of the Declaration remains the source of what must be our own greatest ambition. The Republican Party must indeed reclaim the mantle of Lincoln -- we must highly resolve, as Lincoln said, to lead the nation to a renewed determination to seek justice according to the principles of the Declaration.
--Alan Keyes, August 12, 2000
Walt
If -you- deny that a massacre occured at Fort Pillow, you will lose credibility completely.
"Without doubt, the most famous series of atrocities in the war occurred at Fort Pillow, some forty miles north of Memphis, in April 1864. There a force of 1,500 Confederate cavalrymen under the command of Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest demanded the suurender of the fort, manned by some 550 Federals, nearly half of whom were black soldires. When the Union commander refused, Forrest's forces stormed the fort and killed, wounded, or captured almost the entire garrison. Some two-thirds of all black soldiers at Fort Pillow lost their lives, while Confederates killed 36 percent of all white troops. Forrest and Confederate authorities claimed that no such thing occurred, that only black soldiers who continued to fight or tried to escape lost their lives. Eventually, the U.S. Congress's Committtee on the Conduct of the War investigated the affair and concluded that Forrest's men had butchered black troops. Southerners, on the other hand, argued that the report was sheer propaganda, and that Forrest and his command had done nothing wrong. Testimony from both Federal and Confederate troops and civilians on the scene, indicate that Forrest's men did execute some black soldiers. No one will ever know how many men from the USCT lost their lives after they had surrendered, nor will anyone satisfactorily determine Forrest's role in the massacre."
--From Joseph T. Glathaar: "Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers" (New York: Free Press, 1990), at pp. 156-157
CAIRO, ILL.,
April 18, 1864.
General M. BRAYMAN.
GENERAL:
We have the honor of reporting to you, as the only survivors of the commissioned officers of the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, that on the morning of the 12th day of the present month, at about the hour of daylight, the rebels, numbering from 5,000 to 7,000, attacked our garrison at Fort Pillow, Tenn., numbering as it did only about 500 effective men.
They at first sent in a flag of truce demanding a surrender, which Major Booth, then commanding the post (Major Booth of the Sixth U. S. Heavy Artillery, colored), refused. Shortly after this Major Booth was shot through the heart and fell dead.
Maj. William F. Bradford, then commanding the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, assumed command of the fort, and under his orders a continual fire was kept up until about I p.m., when our cannon and the rifles of the sharpshooters were mowing the rebels down in such numbers that they could not make an advance. The rebels then hoisted a second flag of truce and sent it in, demanding an unconditional surrender. They also threatened that if the place was not surrendered no quarter would be shown. Major Bradford refused to accept any such terms; would not surrender, and sent back word that if such were their intentions they could try it on. While this flag of truce was being sent in the rebel officers formed their forces in whatever advantageous positions they were able to select. They then formed a hollow square around our garrison, placed their sharpshooters within our deserted barracks, and directed a galling fire upon our men. They also had one brigade in the trenches just outside the fort, which had been cut by our men only a few days before, and which provided them with as good protection as that held by the garrison in the fort.
Their demand of the flag of truce having been refused, the order was given by General Forrest in person to charge upon the works and show no quarter. Half an hour after the issuance of this order a scene of terror and massacre ensued. The rebels came pouring in solid masses right over the breast-works. Their numbers were perfectly overwhelming. The moment they reached the top of the walls and commenced firing as they descended, the colored troops were panic-stricken, threw down their arms, and ran down the bluff, pursued sharply, begging for life, but, escape was impossible. The Confederates had apprehended such a result, and had placed a regiment of cavalry where it could cut off all effective retreat. This cavalry regiment employed themselves in shooting down the negro troops as fast as they made their appearance.
The whites, as soon as they perceived they were also to be butchered inside the fort, also ran down. They had previously thrown down their arms and submitted. In many instances the men begged for life at the hands of the enemy, even on their knees. They were only made to stand upon their feet, and then summarily shot down.
Capt. Theodore F. Bradford, of Company A, Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, was signal officer for the gun-boat, and was seen by General Forrest with the signal flags. The general in person ordered Captain Bradford to be shot. He was instantly riddled with bullets, nearly a full regiment having fired their pieces upon him. Lieutenant Wilson, of Company A, Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, was killed after he had surrendered, he having been previously wounded. Lieut. J. C. Ackerstrom, Company E, Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, and acting regimental quartermaster, was severely wounded after he had surrendered, and then nailed to the side of the house and the house set on fire, burning him to death. Lieut. Cord Revelle, Company E, Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, was shot and killed after surrender.
Maj. William F. Bradford, commanding our forces, was fired upon after he had surrendered the garrison. The rebels told him he could not surrender. He ran into the river and swam out some 50 yards, they all the time firing at him but failing to hit him. He was hailed by an officer and told to return to the shore. He did so, but as he neared the shore the riflemen discharged their pieces at him again. Again they missed. He ran up the hill-side among the enemy with a white handkerchief in his hand in token of his surrender, but still they continued to fire upon him. There were several Confederate officers standing near at the time. None of them would order the firing to cease, but when they found they could not hit him they allowed him to give himself up as a prisoner and paroled him to the limits of the camp. They now claim that he violated his parole the same night and escaped. We have heard from prisoners who got away from the rebels that they took Major Bradford out in the Hatchie Bottom and there dispatched him. We feel confident that the story is true.
We saw several negroes burning up in their quarters on Wednesday morning. We also saw the rebels come back that morning and shoot at the wounded. We also saw them at a distance running about, hunting up wounded, that they might shoot them. There were some whites also burning. The rebels also went to the negro hospital, where about 30 sick were kept, and butchered them with their sabers, hacking their heads open in many instances, and then set fire to the buildings. They killed every negro soldier Wednesday morning upon whom they came. Those who were able they made stand up to be shot. In one case a white soldier was found wounded. He had been lying upon the ground nearly twenty-four hours, without food or drink. He asked a rebel soldier to give him something to drink. The latter turned about upon his heel and fired three deliberate shots at him, saying, "Take that, you negro equality." The poor fellow is alive yet, and in the hospital. He can tell the tale for himself.
They ran a great many into the river, and shot them or drowned them there. They immediately killed all the officers who were over the negro troops, excepting one, who has since died from his wounds. They took out from Fort Pillow about one hundred and some odd prisoners (white) and 40 negroes. They hung and shot the negroes as they passed along toward Brownsville until they were rid of them all. (Out of the 600 troops, convalescents included, which were at the fort, they have only about 100 prisoners, all whites, and we have about 50 wounded, who are paroled.
Major Anderson, Forrest's assistant adjutant-general, stated that they did not consider colored men as soldiers, but as property, and as such, being used by our people, they had destroyed them. This was concurred in by Forrest, Chalmers, and McCulloch, and other officers.
We respectfully refer you to the accompanying affidavit of Hardy N. Revelle, lettered A, and those of Mrs. Rufins, lettered B, and Mrs. Williams, lettered C. Respectfully submitted.
F. A. SMITH,
First Lieutenant Company D, 13th Tennessee Cavalry.
O.R.-- SERIES I--VOLUME XXXII/1 [S# 57]
From a letter to his family by Sgt. Achilles V. Clark of Forrest's command, written a few days after the massacre. The original is in the Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville:
"The slaughter was awful--words cannot describe the scene. The poor deluded negros would run up to our men, fall upon their knees and with uplifted hands scream for mercy but then were ordered to their feet and shot down. The white men fared but little better." Incidentally, Clark wrote that he and others tried to stop the butchery, only to find that "Gen. Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs and the carnage continued."
There is some confusion in the various accounts, but no one today doubts that a large number of black Union soldiers were executed.
Declaring a "no quarter" policy was no excuse then, and certainly shouldn't provide mitigation now.
Walt
No.
"Viewing the man from the genuine abolishionist ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed cold, tardy, weak and unequal to the task. But, viewing him from the sentiments of his people, which as a statesman he was bound to respect, then his actions were swift, bold, radical and decisive. Taking the man in the whole, balancing the tremendous magnitude of the situation, and the necessary means to ends, Infinite Wisdom has rarely sent a man into the world more perfectly suited to his mission than Abraham Lincoln."
-- Frederick Douglass.
Walt
"There are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels. There were such soldiers at Manassas, and they are probably there still...Rising above vulgar prejudice, the slaveholding rebel accepts the aid of the black man as readily as that of any other." - Frederick Douglass in 1861.
Well, I found more of this article of Douglass' from 1861.
Douglass:
"We would tell him that General Jackson in a slave state fought side by side with Negroes at New Orleans, and like a true man, despising meanness, he bore testimony to their bravery at the close of the war."
Douglass neglected to tell his readers that Jackson betrayed some of the slaves whom he had promised freedom:
"James Roberts was one man who responded to Andrew Jackson’s call for volunteers in the fall of 1814. He was a slave who soon found himself enlisted in the Tennessee militia. Roberts fought in New Orleans and claimed that as many as fifty Blacks were killed during the battle, a fact that was omitted from Jackson’s official report. In the end, Jackson did not grant these men the freedom he had promised them. Of this betrayal Roberts wrote, “Such monstrous deception and villainy could not, of course, be allowed to disgrace the pages of history, and blacken the character of a man who wanted the applause and approbation of his country.”
http://www.galafilm.com/1812/e/background/amer_afric_par2.html
Again I tell you that Douglass in 1861 ardently sought to enlist blacks to fight -against- the slave power and he was willing to stretch the truth mighty thin to bring that about.
Walt
Of course it's the only reason you can think of, Walt. You're very obviously a hatemonger and bigot who sees history through the guise of agenda. I maintain the position that there were black Confederates because there were. I also believe blacks participated the American Revolution, something you must certainly think impossible, given your maniacal hate-driven revisionist thinking. Your revisionism is motivated by hatred, and you have show that very clearly many times. How you must hate Abraham Lincoln for his race prejudice, and how you must hate US Grant for using slaves to care for his children, and how you must hate the US Government for protecting slavery before, during, and after the Civil War (13th amendment came many months AFTER, and the UNION SLAVE STATES held on to thiers till the end). How you must despise the US Government for planning and attempting genocide on the western Indians, an act performed by the same Union Generals that protected slavery before, during, and after the Civil War. Or are you a hypocrite in addition to being a simplistic hatemonger? I have no trouble believing you despise the US Government, after all, you called the Constitution "a pact with the devil".
How many?
Walt
I was quoting William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist, who said that in a speech on July 4, 1829.
You don't know the history.
Walt
These professional historians don't accept the notion of black rebel soldiers and you look silly putting it forward.
You look silly denying history and calling all those union soldiers and newspaper reporters liars. Read the regimental history of Berdan's Sharpshooters, for example. There are at least two stories in there about black Confederate sharpshooters they contended with. I guess you think they lied. Read through the Northern newspapers. You will find stories that mention black Confederates. What the revisionists you quoted are talking about is the idea that the Confederacy was a multicultural Army where all races were equal and so forth. That was no more true for the Confederacy than it was for the Union. That is not what we are talking about. What we are talking about is whether or not blacks served in the Confederate Army, and the answer is yes. True, most were support personnel, either servants or hired blacks, but many served as soldiers as well. Some commanders allowed it, some didn't. No, black Confederates were not treated as equals. Blacks up North or in the Union army were not treated as equals, either. AMERICA, NORTH AND SOUTH, was a plethora of race prejudice in the 1800's. That is the simple truth, Walt. There were black Confederates, Frederick Douglass knew it, Horace Greeley knew it, the union soldiers knew it, the northern newspapers knew it, Dr. Steiner knew it. Anyone who would doubt it would also have to believe that blacks did not participate in the American Revolution, because they could have run off and joined the British to gain their freedom.
No, I understand that there was a whole regiment of black troops in Washington's army, from either Connecticut or Rhode Island, I think. There is also a black figure in the famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware River.
Walt
You look silly denying history and calling all those union soldiers and newspaper reporters liars.
You haven't provided any credible evidence of any number of black soldiers. Certainly Frederick Douglass didn't see any black rebel soldiers. His source that such existed in September, 1861 is unknown, at least to me. It's hearsay.
Dr. Steiner said the rebel army numbered as much as 64,000, when it really was no more than about 45,000. Both he and Douglass were proponents of enlisting blacks in the federal armies. Their comments can add context to an interpretation, but taken with other evidence, there is simply no credible evidence of more than a handful of black rebel soldiers. As I indicated yesterday, if there were blacks fighting for the rebels, then rebel congressmen, rebel generals, and even the rebel president seemed unaware of such. Jefferson Davis' suppression of General Cleburne's proposal to arm slaves is well known. There was -no-way- the rebels were going to allow blacks to arm -- they were terrified of slave revolt. Your "interpretation" is made up of a few quotes. When the context is viewed, your position simply can't be sustained.
Walt
I deny that most of what was written in the Northern newspapers was true. The only real "massacre" aspect of the battle was the mercilessly effective firing done on the troops trying to retreat to the boats and a secondary defensive position they had prepared below the bluffs. They were cut down mercilessly in a crossfire, which was a 'massacre', of sorts. Such 'massacres' are usually bragged about when done by Union troops. "Good planning, and effective shooting", would be your words for it if the tables had been turned. Forrest and his officers ordered a stop to that firing as soon as they arrived. Even the union testimony attests to that. Much of the "testimony" of the "atrocities" that is often quoted are patently fantastical and contradictory and are disproven by other union survivors with more credibility. The same goes for the "official report" of the US 13th Tennessee. Major Bradford never surrendered the garrison, and that cute little story in their "official" report that he was fired upon after doing so is typical of the lies and twisting of truth in the unit's report. He never surrendered the garrison, even the garrison's surgeon (among others) attested to that fact. Yes, the firing done on the retreating members of the garrison was "merciless", that is probably a good way to describe it. Those men ran straight into a cross fire. The same thing happened to many Confederates at other battles.
If the letter of Achilles Clark, which I could not find listed in the holdings of the Tennessee State Archives, professes that General Forrest "ordered them shot down like dogs", it is directly contradicted by the testimony of nearly everyone else, including Union witnesses who testified that General Forrest immediately ordered firing ceased the moment he arrived.
There is some confusion in the various accounts, but no one today doubts that a large number of black Union soldiers were executed.
I agree that there is confusion (and outright contradiction) in the union accounts. I would also say that some were wrongly shot. But most were killed "in the heat of battle", during the initial storming of the fort (which never surrendered) and then as the rest fled to their secondary postition. The union plan, as testified to by union officers, was that if the garrison fell, they would fall back to a previously prepared position under the bluffs where they had stashed ammunition and would continue to fight until they could reach the boats. The gunboats were to cover their retreat from the garrison and hold off the Confederates until they could evacuate. Unfortunately, the gunboats had abandoned them. The few that reached the secondary position, after traversing through a crossfire, realised that there was no hope without the boats, and did try to surrender. No doubt some of those were wrongly shot, just as Confederates were sometimes wrongly shot trying to surrender to Union troops after a hotly fought contest. Fort Pillow became a fantasy event for Union propagandists, and much more fiction was written about it than truth. If it was a "massacre", then the Union is just as guilty of committing such "massacres". It is an unfortunate fact of war that sometimes soldiers are shot trying to surrender when others about them still fight.
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