Posted on 02/10/2003 8:22:03 AM PST by H8DEMS
If he posts to me I will respond to him.
It's dead easy to show that there were no more than a handful of black rebel troops.
Walt
Not just rose-colored family legend, either. I have all the plantation accounts and correspondence from the war and immediately post-war years. He never broke up families, and he divided profits with all his slaves who had a trade and practiced it. Bas was a blacksmith and routinely took 10-to-25 percent for all smithing work that he did (the percentage seems to vary over the course of the family records that I have). I don't think Bas was motivated by fear or compulsion, because after the war he and his wife remained associated with our family and had their own house on the place. His wife, Ellen, survived him by many years and my grandmother knew her well, she was prominently featured in the newspaper writeups of gg grandfather and grandmother's 50th wedding anniversary.
I know of at least one other black UCV member, up in Rome GA, who was quite a local celebrity for years after the war. I'm sure there were blacks associated with the Confederate Army who were there for the wrong reasons (and there were I am sure some whites in the same boat - community compulsion, fear of "what the neighbors might say", etc.) But the image of the Confederacy as some sort of unrelievedly evil Nazi precursor, filled with wailing and gnashing of teeth, is JUST as wrong and inaccurate as the "Old Folks At Home" stereotype of the contented slaves playing the banjo and dancing around the cabin door. There were evil people who mistreated those that place and circumstance had given them power over . . . in the North AND in the South. They are everywhere, in every time and place, just as there were kind and humane people in the South as there are everywhere. Nobody has a monopoly on good or evil.
Very good points AAM.
No, you're not!! They didn't exist!! Or didn't you read Walt's cut and paste? I swear it's like listening to the talking points of the SPLC. Asa Gordon is God and Jimmy McPherson is his backup. Factual evidence is presented and we're attacked with cut and paste.
It doesn't matter if you're holding the letter in your hand, or the clothing worn by a brave Confederate soldier, unless it came from Morris Dees' lackeys, it's not official. I swear, I want to know what color the sky is in their world sometimes
I think that was the reason in most cases. Many slaves would have seen the Union army as an outside invader, killing their families and destroying their homes. In fact, that was the same reasoning exhibited by most white Southerners. They were more loyal to their homes and families than they were to the Confederacy itself.
That wouldn't explain the thousands of blacks who followed Sherman's army and it wouldn't explain this:
"On the steaming night of June 6, 1863, four rebel regiments surprised black guards. The black novices, soldiers for only sixteen days, fumbled with their guns, fell back, stood firm, and flashed their bayonets. The blacks' white captain called the ensuing bayonet brawl "a horrible fight, the worst I was ever engaged in—not even excepting Shiloh."
In one ironic tableau, a Union black and a Confederate white lay slain, arms locked like brothers, each with the other's bayonet planted in his belly. At last, a Union ship reinforced the unyielding blacks, and the rebels retreated.
Black soldiers, declared an astounded Confederate battle report, resisted us "with considerable obstinacy, while the white or true Yankee portion ran like whipped curs."
One Confederate master suffered the best proof of black obstinacy. His slave captured him "and brought him into camp with great gusto." A Wisconsin cavalry officer described the lesson many Northerners learned from Fort Wagner and Millikens Bend (and from the battle for Port Hudson, Louisiana, where black troops futilely charged and their bodies were left to rot under the blazing sun), "I never believed in niggers before, but by Jasus, they are hell for fighting."
--"The South vs. the South" p. 127 by William Freehling
Walt
This didn't come from Morris Dees:
"Mr. Wickham said that our brave soldiers, who have fought so long and nobly, would not stand to be thus placed side by side with negro soldiers. He was opposed to such a measure. The day that such a bill passed Congress sounds the death knell of this Confederacy. The very moment an order goes forth from the War Department authorizing the arming and organizing of negro soldiers there was an eternal end to this struggle."
This didn't come from Morris Dees:
"I think that the proposition is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began. You cannot make soldiers of slaves or slaves of soldiers. The moment you resort to this your white soldiers are lost to you, and one reason why this proposition is received with favor by some portions of the army is because they hope that when the negro comes in they can retire. You cannot keep white and black troops together, and you cannot trust negroes alone. They won't make soldiers, as they are wanting in every qualification necessary to make one."
There is no credible evidence of more than a handful of black rebel soldiers.
Walt
But Walt to believe what you're saying we would have to deny Frederick Douglass now wouldn't we? And what would Asa say if you start bad mouthing Frederick Douglass?
It is dead easy to show anything if one has only to meet your standards for "showing".
It is dead easy to show anything if one has only to meet your standards for "showing".
But Walt to believe what you're saying we would have to deny Frederick Douglass now wouldn't we? And what would Asa say if you start bad mouthing Frederick Douglass?
Frederick Douglass had an agenda. That agenda was to get equal rights for blacks. He wanted to do that by getting black men into the Union army. Douglass:
"Who would be free themselves must strike the blow....I urge you to fly to arms and smite to death the power that would bury the Government and your liberty in the same hopeless grave. This is your golden opportunity."
"Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship."
There is no credible evidence of more than a handful of black rebel soldiers.
Walt
I have no problem admitting to racist policies in some Northern states but are you honestly suggesting that free blacks were treated better down south? Ridiculous!
SECTION 1. Whereas, The efficiency of the army is at times greatly diminished by the withdrawal from the ranks of soldiers to perform labor and duties which can as well be done by free negroes and slaves--
The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, That all free male negroes, between the ages of eighteen and fifty years, shall be held liable to perform any labor or discharge any duties with the army, or in connection with the military defences of the country, such as working upon fortifications, producing and preparing materials of war, building and repairing roads and bridges, and doing other work usually done by engineer troops and pontoniers, acting as cooks, teamsters, stewards and waiters in military hospitals, or other like labor, or similar duties which may be required or prescribed by the Secretary of War or the or the general commanding the Trans-Mississippi department, from time to time. And said free negroes, whilst thus engaged, shall receive rations and clothing, under such regulations as the Secretary of War may prescribe, and shall receive pay at the rate of eighteen dollars per month.
SEC. 2. That the Secretary of War and the general commanding the Trans-Mississippi department are each authorized to employ, for duties like those named in the first section of this act, as many male negro slaves, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, not to exceed thirty thousand in the States east of the Mississippi river, and ten thousand in the States west of the Mississippi river, as the wants of the service may require. And the said slaves, whilst so employed, shall be furnished rations and clothing as provided in the preceding section, and the owners paid such hire for their services as may be agreed upon; and in the event of the loss of any slaves whilst so employed, by the act of the enemy, or by escape to the enemy, of by wounds or death inflicted by the enemy, or by disease contracted whilst in any service required of said slaves, and by reason of said service, then the owners thereof, respectively, shall be entitled to receive the full value of such slaves, to be ascertained and fixed by agreement at the time said slaves are so hired, under 18 rules to be prescribed by the Secretary of War.
SEC. 3. That whenever the Secretary of War or the general commanding the Trans-Mississippi department shall be unable to procure the services of slaves by hiring them, as above provided, in sufficient numbers, then it shall be lawful for the said Secretary or General to order the impressment, and to impress as many male slaves, within the ages named in the second section of this act, and for the purposes and uses above stated, not at any time to exceed thirty thousand in the States east of the Mississippi river, and ten thousand in the States west of the Mississippi river, as may be necessary: Provided, That slaves so impressed shall, whilst in the government employment, receive the same clothing and rations allowed to slaves hired from their owners, and in the event of their loss or death in the manner or from the causes above stated, their value shall be estimated and fixed as provided by the law regulating impressments, and paid as in the case of slaves hired from their owners, and the value of the hire of said slaves shall be fixed in like manner.
Etc. and so forth and so on. So tell me, billbears, if black troops were so common in the confederate army then why was this legislation necessary in 1864? If blacks were used as combat troops then why does this legislation limit them to supporting roles?
Well, if we can believe the one source, there were whole negro regiments running around and the rebel president and congress knew nothing about it.
Walt
Ahhhh, there-in lies the futility of having a debate about anything Civil War with Walt. If it disproves his opinion (or established belief) it will never be credible. Either that or the point made is simply ignored as though it were never made while the picking of nits in other areas is pursued tirelessly in the hope that the "credible evidence" is forgotten -- a tactic that continues to work quite well, I admit.
People can make their own judgments based on the record and a little common sense. When they do, they will discard this nonsense about black rebel soldiers.
Why do you think that President Davis ordered the suppression of Pat Cleburne's paper on recruiting black soldiers?
Can you address that or will you make personal attacks on me, or will you slip back to ineffectual lurking?
Walt
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