Blacks in the CS Ranks?

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

Humm. I posted period accounts with annotations for discussion.

I dont believe anything.

Damn this site is not what it used to be.

You cant count on not seeing anymore period accounts from this ole boy for certain sure.

Humm.

[Gary of CA]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

I had a black history professor named Dr. Mays. He wrote a book on Africa-American families living in the South. He had told us in class that no more than 9,000 Blacks served in the Confederate Army.

Not an attack on you Greg, but the professor's assertion raises the question as to what he meant by "serve." If "serve" includes musicians, teamsters, cooks, manservants then the figure is plausible. I doubt if 9,000 blacks picked up muskets and fought in the ranks. Occasionally one would do something, but that was the exception and not the rule. Of course, there were two small companies that were recruited from the staff at Chimborazo near war's end. Drilled on the grounds of the capitol, they were jeered by the white Richmonders. They fought briefly before being overwhelmed. Are you in touch with the professor?

[Hank Trent]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

Each community knew who was whom.

Which is why I said in my hypothetical example, "whose parents in another state..." Obviously this would have been done by moving into a different community.

I also didn't mean to imply it would be done just for the purpose of enlisting, if it inadvertently seemed that way. I was thinking primarily of someone who already had decided long before to pass for white for personal reasons (or whose parents had decided to), and who then coincidentally did what other white people in the community were doing and enlisted.

Strong movements were afoot in the 1860 deep south to boot out or re-enslave all those not pure white.

Which would be why someone might have an incentive to pass if they could. :)

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

I mentioned the "train guard" story, not because it supports the general idea of "black Confederates" serving valiantly in the ranks, but because it's the only remotely credible story of such I've encountered, apart from the anecdotal accounts of faithful manservants &c.

If you look at it from a cold material standpoint, there were sound reasons that the Confederacy would not want to use blacks as soldiers. First, an able bodied black man might represent the principal remaining capital of his owner. Second, with all the likely white men gone for soldiers, the Confederacy had all the more need for black workers in agriculture, mining, and industry. Third, within the army, the Confederacy had plenty of need for teamsters, laborers, cooks, and officers' servants. Here, pre-war practices really hurt, because the illiteracy of most slaves precluded their use as clerks and copyists as well. With all the tasks that blacks could and did perform for the south, it's just possible that not that many would have remained available to serve in the ranks anyway.

Curiously enough, the southern prejudice against black soldiers does not seem to have been nearly so strong in the colonial era. I think some of the original "black codes" actually provided compensation for slave owners whose "servants" were killed in action. In any case, it's easier to find references to black soldiers in the ranks during the Revolution than later.

The North itself went to extraordinary lengths to maximize the number of able-bodied men in the ranks through such steps as arming invalids, galvanizing Confederate POWs to fight Indians, hiring men into the hospital corps at the same pay as an extra-duty private, and discouraging the use of soldiers as officers' servants. In addition to USCT, it made use of thousands of blacks in the same service roles as the Confederate army.

In some ways I think it would be more interesting to look at the number of blacks who served in the U.S. army outside of the USCT (and compare the totals) than to continue to chase the illusion of substantial numbers of black combat soldiers in the Confederate army.

[Auld Pelty]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

Teamsters, waggoners, shoemakers, cooks, muscians were listed on muster rolls for a reason. They served in the army and provided essential services so soldiers could break things and kill people. Does not really matter one whit whether tens of thousands of black men carried weapons in the Confederate Army as long as they served honorably. And these men served in non segregated units.

It was the Union Army that segregated black men into regiments and then used them for cannon fodder.

[shubal]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

Cannon fodder eh?
Read much on the prelude to the Crater action during the siege of Petersburg?

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

If the black cooks, teamsters, and servants in the Confederate army could be said to have served in "integrated" units, you would have to allow the same for those performing the same role in the Union army.

To say that blacks in the Union army were comparatively segregated because of their combat role, a role that -- with the exception of two companies and as many individuals' worth of anecdotes -- they were not allowed in the Confederate army at all, is to make a rhetorical rather than historical argument.

It's an argument that also ignores the number of white officers and noncoms among those 200,000 USCT.

Further, discrimination against black troops seems to have manifested itself in their use as garrison and other line of communications troops. The 54th Massachusetts had to ask for the role of "cannon fodder." It was considered an honor.

[Tom Dodson]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

Possibly a little off subject, but if the black troops had been allowed to lead the attack at The Crater after the explosion as they had trained to do, the result of the battle may have been different. They knew to go AROUND the hole, NOT down into it.
Tom Dodson

[Auld Pelty]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

Can anyone cite an instance where black soldiers were ever held back or resented in the Confederate Army? Perhaps that is why so little was written about it. But, there were attempts to integrate blacks and whites in the Northern Army:

"The following correspondence of the Springfield Republican, a leading organ of the Lincoln party in Massachusetts, cannot be read without filling the reader with irrepressible indignation, and with a warning of alarm of an approaching conflict iii which the white man will be driven to fight for the natural suprema- cy of his race. Judge Kelly, Republi- can Congressman from Philadelphia, in a recent speech threatened that the ne- gro regiments shall be marched into the North, with a bayonet at the breast of every copperhead. PENSACOLA, Fla., Feb. 1, 1863. As the experiment of organizing negro regiments has been instituted by the government, its progress and results are a matter of great interest; and hay- big had an opportunity to witness the efforts to enforce the principle of mili- tary equality of such regiments, I will volunteer to give you its history. For several months past the military post of Ship Island has been garrisoned by two companies of the 13th Maine regiment, under command of Col. Henry Rust. Recently, the 2d Louisiana Reg- iment of black volunteers was ordered to rendezvous at this Island, and Col. Rust was ordered to transfer the com- mand of the post to their commanding officer, CoL N. W. Daniels. Col. Rust and staft as ordered, repaired to Fort Jackson, leaving behind him on the Is- land the two companies of the 13th Maine. Upon assuming command of the post, Col. Daniels issued orders commanding the consolidation of the two companies of whites with his regiment of blacks. He ordered them to attend battalion drill, and be consolidated at dress pa- MEN lN THE ARMY. rade. In camp and guard duties black Captains were placed over white Lieu- tenants, and thus white officers and black, white privates and black, in one black column blent, obsequiously doing honor to black equals and superiors, were to inaugurate the reign of ebony. The recognition required was not mere- ly the passing salute and modes and forms of military etiquette, but an equal military equality, with its accompanying honors and obedience. Against the orders thus consolidating them with blacks, the officers of the two white companies earnestly protested. But their protest being unheeded and unanswered, after a suitable delay, they finally refused to obey the orders. They refused to take their companies to bat- talion drill or appear on dress parade; they refused also to detail guard to be commanded by negroes. They were ar- rested, and the command of the compa- nies finally devolved upon the Orderly Sergeants. By the Sergeants offering to detail guard, the question was put di- rectly to the members of the companies whether they would do duty as guard under negro officers. Following the ex- ample of their officers, the men peremp- torily refused. Whereupon the men were ordered under arrest, their mus- kets and equipments taken from them. and black guards stationed around their appointed quarters. The execution of the order for arrest- ing the companies was one of the most humiliating scenes I ever witnessed. As a precaution against disturbance, the black regiment was ordered under arms and muskets loaded. Two companies of blacks, with their black officers. marched to the quarters of the disobe- dient soldiers, and called upon them to surrender themselves as prisoners. In- stead of resisting, the men obeyed the summons in a spirit characteristic of the intelligent New England soldier, who knows how to obey, but knows, too, the philosophy of resistance to injustice. Silently they marched in front of their negro masters, stacked their arms, hung their accoutrements upon their glittering bayonets, and turned sadly away, while their black captors bore away their arms with feelings and expressions of glee, as if they were trophies of conquest. Asthe ebony band returned from their work, their comrades in camp welcomed them with shouts of triumph. By a sin- gle word or act on the part of the white officers, a scene of riot and bloodshed would have been the sequel. But wiser counsels prevailed, and officers and men quietly submitted themselves as prison. ers to those with whom they would not serve as soldiers or acknowledge as equals."

The Old Guard May 1863.

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

[QUOTE=Auld Pelty;154215]Can anyone cite an instance where black soldiers were ever held back or resented in the Confederate Army? Perhaps that is why so little was written about it. But, there were attempts to integrate blacks and whites in the Northern Army:

[QUOTE]

The first answer to your question lies in the failure of the Confederate government to authorize any raising of "black soldiers" at all until 1865. That seems like "holding back" to me.

Beyond that, the statement of John Jones when he saw them drilling in Richmond indicates something less than enthusiasm or support:

[March 23d] "The parade of a few companies of negro troops yesterday was rather a ridiculous affair. The owners are opposed to it."

A better question might be whether you can find any Confederate wartime source that praised "black soldiers" in the rebel army. I don't doubt people had good things to say about some of their servants (Lee's got a mixed review from their master), but I think it would give us something more to go on if you actually had a citation pertaining to combat troops.

As for the newspaper account, I don't think anyone denies there was racism throughout the country. Besides newspaper accounts we have a wealth of derogatory statements in diaries and letters.

But northern sources also include praise, notably in Thomas Wentworth Higginson's articles in The Atlantic and his book Army Life in a Black Regiment. There's nothing nearly equivalent in southern literature.

[Auld Pelty]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

Here is some more praise of black soldiers by Northerners:

"During our war of 1861, ex-slave Frederick Douglass observed, '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...and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government.'" Also reported by this source: "Horace Greeley, in pointing out some differences between the two warring armies said, 'For more than two years, Negroes have been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They have been embodied and drilled as rebel soldiers and had paraded with white troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union.'

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/

[David Fox]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

Frederick Douglas is not known to have traveled widely in the Confederacy. And it made a great deal of difference to Southrons whether or not muskets were issued-out to Blacks...and a great deal of difference to the Blacks they caught so armed. The Richmond Blacks drilling in Richmond in March, 1865 were doing so without arms. And General Patrick Cleburne was not exactly rewarded for mooting the suggestion of arming Confederate Blacks. I'm on vacation, alas, and am without books to cite, but I believe it was Robert Toombs who opined something about the whole basis of Southern society being invalidated if Blacks could be trained and disciplined as fighting soldiers.

[Johan Steele]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18604&highlight=Black+Confederates

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18924&highlight=Black+Confederates

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11410&highlight=Black+Confederates

[Johan Steele]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

If there were legions of black confederate soldiers why didn't Cleburne just order up a bushell of them to fill his ranks? Simple, they weren't there in any appreciable numbers.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Blacks in the CS Ranks?

Here is some more praise of black soldiers by Northerners:

"During our war of 1861, ex-slave Frederick Douglass observed, '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...and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government.'" Also reported by this source: "Horace Greeley, in pointing out some differences between the two warring armies said, 'For more than two years, Negroes have been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They have been embodied and drilled as rebel soldiers and had paraded with white troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union.'
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/

I can find that exact excerpt from Frederick Douglass quoted all over the net, but is the whole letter available anywhere, for context? Some sources say it's from a letter he wrote to Lincoln in 1862. I suspect that he was pushing for the acceptance of black soldiers in the Union army and to achieve that end, he was making the point that the other side was using them, but the full letter would show the context.

The Greeley quote is in context here. He's criticizing the hypocrisy of the Confederacy for its special (worse) treatment of captured US officers and soldiers in black regiment compared to white regiments, when they themselves used black soldiers. He footnotes his own remark to page 522 in that same book, to a report of one regiment of free colored men in New Orleans in 1861. More of his specific evidence for CS black soldiers is on page 521, and gives a good idea of what specifically he was referring to, most of which is the use of slaves and free blacks to build fortifications.

In other words, taken out of context, it sounds as if two abolitionists were praising the equality of blacks in the Confederacy. But in context, I suspect that their main focus was something else, and they were merely mentioning black CS soldiers as an arguing point. (The full Douglass letter would show what he was talking about.)

Of course that doesn't mean their facts about black CS soldiers were incorrect, but as David Fox said, neither of them were reporting from first-hand knowledge, and it may have fit both of their agendas to claim it was true without necessarily skeptically investigating it, or in Greeley's case to consider slaves armed with picks and spades equal to armed combat soldiers because they were both helping the war effort.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com