Posted on 12/20/2001 4:01:19 AM PST by shuckmaster
Some reviewers have had a hard time with the present book. They imagine that there is a single historical thesis therein, one subject to definitive proof or refutation. In this, I believe they are mistaken. Instead, what we have here is a multifaceted critique of what must be the most central event in American history.
This is not Mr. Adams’s first book. His For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization (1999) lives up to its title and underscores the importance of a matter frequently ignored by conventional historians. Taxation and other fiscal matters certainly play a major role in Adams’s reconstruction of the War for Southern Independence.
Those who long for the simple morality play in which Father Abraham saved the Union (always capitalized) and emancipated the slaves out of his vision and kindness have complained that Adams has ignored slavery as a cause of the war. That is incorrect. Slavery and the racial issue connected with it are present; they do not, however, have the causal stage all to themselves.
In chapter one, Adams sets the American war over secession in a global context by instancing other conflicts of similar type. He plants here the first seeds of doubt that political separation is inherently immoral. Chapter two deals with Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s successful gamble to have the Confederacy “start” the war. Here one learns that the Fort was primarily a customs house – a nice bit of symbolism, especially since the South paid roughly four times as much in tariffs as the North did.
Given that, Lincoln was very concerned about his tariff revenues in the absence of the Southern states. After Fort Sumter, the (Northern) President unconstitutionally established a blockade of Southern ports on his own motion. Soon, Lincoln had robbed Maryland of self-government and was making other inroads on civil liberty – his idea of preserving the Constitution via his self-invented presidential “war powers” (of which there is not a word in the actual document).
In chapter four, Adams unfolds his revenue-based theory of the war. The shift from a pro-peace to a pro-war position by the New York press and key business interests coincided exactly with their realization that the Confederacy’s low tariffs would draw trade away from the North, especially in view of the far higher Northern tariff just instituted. There is an important point here. It did not automatically follow that secession as such had to mean war. But peace foretold the end of continental mercantilism, tariffs, internal improvements, and railroad subsidies – a program that meant more than life to a powerful Northern political coalition. That coalition, of which Lincoln was the head, wanted war for a complex of material, political, and ideological reasons.
Adams also looks at what might well be called Northern war crimes. Here he can cite any number of pro-Lincoln historians, who file such things under grim necessity. Along the way, the author has time to make justified fun of Lincoln’s official theory that he was dealing with a mere “rebellion” rather than with the decision of political majorities in eleven states.
Other chapters treat the so-called Copperheads, the “treason trial” of Jefferson Davis (which never took place, quite possibly because the unionist case could not have survived a fair trial), a comparative view of emancipation, and the problems of Reconstruction. The author’s deconstruction of the Gettysburg Address will shock Lincoln idolators. Adams underlines the gloomy pseudo-religious fatalism with which Lincoln salved his conscience in his later speeches. This supports M. E. Bradford’s division of Lincoln’s career into Whig, “artificial Puritan,” and practical “Cromwellian” phases – the last item pertaining to total war.
To address seriously the issues presented by Adams requires a serious imaginative effort, especially for those who never before heard such claims about the Constitution, about the war, or about Lincoln. Ernest Renan famously wrote that for Frenchmen to constitute a nation, they must remember certain things and were “obliged already to have forgotten” certain others. Adams focuses on those things which Northerners, at least, have long since forgotten.
What Adams’ book – with or without a single, central thesis – does, is to reveal that in 1860 and early 1861 many Americans, north and south, doubted the existence of any federal power to coerce a state and considered peaceful separation a real possibility. In the late 1790s, The Federalist Papers, for example, laughed down the notion that the federal government could coerce states in their corporate, political capacity. For much of the nineteenth century Americans saw the union as a practical arrangement instrumental to other values. That vision vanished in the killing and destruction of Mr. Lincoln’s war. Americans paid a rather high price for making a means into an end.
I suppose there is a point you are driving towards? Out with it.
Walt
You've got it!
It's all a lot of DS!!
Walt
You can babble around all you want but it's true.
There's no proof that more than a handful of blacks were in arms for the CSA.
"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 AND:
"There seems to be no evidence that the Negro soldiers authorized by the Confederate Government (March 13, 1865) ever went into battle. This gives rise to the question as to whether or not any Negroes ever fought in the Confederate ranks. It is possible that some of the free Negro companies organized in Louisiana and Tennessee in the early part of the war took part in local engagements; but evidence seems to the contrary. (Authors note: If they did, their action was not authorized by the Confederate Government.) A company of "Creoles," some of whom had Negro blood, may have been accepted in the Confederate service at Mobile. Secretary Seddon conditioned his authorization of the acceptance of the company on the ability of those "Creoles" to be naturally and properly distinguished from Negroes. If persons with Negro Blood served in Confederate ranks as full-fledged soldiers, the per cent of Negro blood was sufficiently low for them to pass as whites." (Authors note: Henry Clay Warmoth said that many Louisiana mulattoes were in Confederate service but they were "not registered as Negroes." War Politics and Reconstruction, p. 56) p. 160-61, SOUTHERN NEGROES, Wiley
AND:
History gives lie to myth of black Confederate soldiers
By TRUMAN R. CLARK
A racist fabrication has sprung up in the last decade: that the Confederacy had "thousands" of African-American slaves "fighting" in its armies during the Civil War.
Unfortunately, even some African-American men today have gotten conned into putting on Confederate uniforms to play "re-enactors" in an army that fought to ensure that their ancestors would remain slaves.
There are two underlying points of this claim: first, to say that slavery wasn't so bad, because after all, the slaves themselves fought to preserve the slave South; and second, that the Confederacy wasn't really fighting for slavery. Both these notions may make some of our contemporaries feel good, but neither is historically accurate.
When one speaks of "soldiers" and "fighting" in a war, one is not talking about slaves who were taken from their masters and forced to work on military roads and other military construction projects; nor is one talking about slaves who were taken along by their masters to continue the duties of a personal valet that they performed back on the plantation. Of course, there were thousands of African-Americans forced into these situations, but they were hardly "soldiers fighting."
Another logical point against this wacky modern idea of a racially integrated Confederate army has to do with the prisoner of war issue during the Civil War. Through 1862, there was an effective exchange system of POWs between the two sides. This entirely broke down in 1863, however, because the Confederacy refused to see black Union soldiers as soldiers -- they would not be exchanged, but instead were made slaves (or, as in the 1864 Fort Pillow incident, simply murdered after their surrender). At that, the United States refused to exchange any Southern POWs and the prisoner of war camps on both sides grew immensely in numbers and misery the rest of the war.
If the Confederacy had black soldiers in its armies, why didn't it see black men as soldiers?
By the way, all the Confederate soldiers captured by Union troops were white men. If there were "thousands" of black soldiers in the Confederate armies, why were none of them among the approximately 215,000 soldiers captured by the U.S. forces?
If there were thousands of African-American men fighting in the Confederate armies, they apparently cleverly did so without Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, the members of the Confederate congress or any of the white soldiers of the Confederacy knowing about it. (I can just imagine some former Confederate soldier, told in 1892 that hundreds of the men in his army unit during the Civil War were black, snapping his fingers and saying, "I knew there was something different about those guys!")
The South was running short of soldiers as the war dragged on, however, and some people began to suggest that it would be better to use slaves to fight than to lose. As late as three weeks before the Civil War came to an end, the members of the Confederate congress (and Lee and Davis) were hotly debating the question of whether to start using slaves in the Southern armies.
If, as some folks in the 1990s claim, there were already "thousands" of black troops in the Confederate armies, why were the leaders of the Confederacy still debating about whether or not they should start bringing them in?
The very accurate point made then by opponents of this legislation was, as one Georgia leader stated, "If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong." Southern newspaper editors blasted the idea as "the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down," a "surrender of the essential and distinctive principle of Southern civilization."
And what was that "essential and distinctive principle of Southern civilization"? Let's listen to the people of the times. The vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, said on March 21, 1861, that the Confederacy was "founded ... its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based on this great physical, philosophical and moral truth."
What was the "very doctrine" which the South had entered into war to destroy? Let's go to the historical documents, the words of the people in those times. When Texas seceded from the Union in March 1861, its secession declaration was entirely about one subject: slavery. It said that Thomas Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" -- were "the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color ... a doctrine at war with nature ... and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law."
But, by March 13, 1865, the Confederacy had its back against the wall, and by the less than overwhelming margin of 40 to 37 in the House, and nine to eight in the Senate, the Confederate congress approved a bill to allow Jefferson Davis to require a quota of black soldiers from each state. Presumably (although the bill did not say so) slaves who fought would, if they survived the war, be freed. Southerners who opposed using blacks in the army noted that this idea had its problems: First, it was obvious that the Yankee armies would soon free them anyway; and second, if slavery was so wonderful and happy for black people, why would one be willing to risk death to win his freedom?
The war was virtually over by then, and when black Union soldiers rode into Richmond on April 3, they found two companies of black men beginning to train as potential soldiers. (When those black men had marched down the street in Confederate uniforms, local whites had pelted them with mud.) None got into the war, and Lee surrendered on April 9.
Yes, thousands of African-American men did fight in the Civil War -- about 179,000. About 37,000 of them died in uniform. But they were all in the Army (or Navy) of the United States of America. The Confederate veterans who were still alive in the generations after the war all knew that and said so.
Finally, these modern nonhistorians say that slavery couldn't have been a main cause of the Civil War (never mind the words of Alexander Stephens and the various declarations of secession), because most of the Confederate soldiers didn't own slaves.
As modern historians such as Pulitzer Prize-winner James M. McPherson point out, the truth was that most white people in the South knew that the great bulwark of the white-supremacy system they cherished was slavery, whether or not they personally owned slaves.
"Freedom is not possible without slavery," was a typical endorsement of this underlying truth about the slave South. Without slavery, white nonslaveholders would be no better than black men.
The slave South rested upon a master-race ideology, as many generations of white Southerners stated it and lived it, from the 1600s until 1865. There is an uncomfortable parallel in our century with the master-race ideology of Nazi Germany. First, millions of the men who bravely fought and died for the Third Reich were not Nazis, but they weren't exactly fighting for the human rights of Jews or gypsies. And second, yes, as was pointed out in the movie Schindler's List, 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."
We can believe in the "black soldiers fighting" in the Confederate armies just as soon as historians discover the "thousands" of Jews in the SS and Gestapo.
Clark is a professor of history at Tomball College.
There is no proof of black CSA soldiers. The 189,000 soldiers who served in the Union Army, on the other hand, are well documented. President Lincoln said the armng of black soldiers was the heaviest blow struck at the rebellion. Tell 'em that in Detroit.
Walt
I should of said in debt instead sharecropper! Has anything really changed? Are we not enslaved to the taxes and the rules that the federal Gov. forces on us? To me all the war in 1860's did was to remove the right of the people to change the government. All that can be done now is to restrict the freedoms of the people!
Is there anywhere where freedoms have grown for the whole popultation?
Blue Zone States would be purged from the Union.
From Federal Official Records - (Official Records, Series I, Vol XVI Part I, pg. 805: - Lt. Col. Parkhurst's Report (Ninth Michigan Infantry) on General Forrest's attack at Murfreesboro, Tenn, July 13, 1862:
"The forces attacking my camp were the First Regiment Texas Rangers, Colonel Wharton, and a battalion of the First Georgia Rangers, Colonel Morrison, and a large number of citizens of Rutherford County, many of whom had recently taken the oath of allegiance to the United States Government. There were also quite a number of negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day."
Union Documentation of Black Confederates .
From Federal Official Records - (Official Records, Series I, Vol XVI Part I, pg. 805: - Lt. Col. Parkhurst's Report (Ninth Michigan Infantry) on General Forrest's attack at Murfreesboro, Tenn, July 13, 1862:
"The forces attacking my camp were the First Regiment Texas Rangers, Colonel Wharton, and a battalion of the First Georgia Rangers, Colonel Morrison, and a large number of citizens of Rutherford County, many of whom had recently taken the oath of allegiance to the United States Government. There were also quite a number of negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day."
"Indianapolis Daily Evening Gazette" 12 March 1863 refers to the 5 March 1863 fight around Thompson's Station, near Franklin, TN that ended in a Union fiasco and surrender of troops. The Nashville, Tenn. Union of Saturday [7 March 1863] speaking of the disastrous affair near Franklin, Tenn., on Thursday last [5 March 1863], says:
NEGRO REGIMENTS IN THE REBEL ARMY.--
Gen. Earl Van Dorn, CSA
"During the fight the battery in charge of the 85th Indiana [Volunteer Infantry] was attacked by [*in italics*] two rebel negro regiments. [*end italics*] Our artillerists double-shotted their guns and cut the black regiments to pieces, and brought their battery safely off. * * * * It has been stated, repeatedly, for two weeks past, that a large number, perhaps one-fourth, of Van Dorn's force were [*in italics*] negro soldiers [*end italics*], and the statement is fully confirmed by this unfortunate engagement. The Southern rebels have forced their miserable negroes to take up arms, to destroy this Government, and enslave us and our children."
"Indianapolis Daily Evening Gazette" - 26 Feb 63 edition quotes an item originally published in the "Savannah Republican" sometime between November 1862 - February 1863:
Are Negroes Enlisted in the Rebel Army?
Upon this point, which has already been conclusively established by indubitable evidence, the following additional bit of testimony is furnished by the advertising columns of the Savannah Republican. The rebels have no sort of scruples as to employing negroes in carrying out the murderous purpose of the rebellion:
I have heard on various FR threads over the years that there were , I believe, four States that were the last to outlaw slavery and that they were all in the North and that they didn't do away with slavery until after the civil war. I would swear one of them was Massachusetts but I really can't remember the rest. This seem to disagree with you assertions. Was there some related happening that I a getting confused with?
Vol. 6 House of Representatives.
Enlistment in the U.S. Army
1. 89-90 Feb. 10, 1863
Whereas information has reached this [CSA] congress of the passage by the Congress at Washington, District of Columbia, of a bill for the enlistment of negroes as soldiers in the armies of the United States, which armies are to be engaged in prosecuting the further invasion of the Confederate States of America; and
Whereas the constitutions, both of the Confederate States and the United States recognize Africans and their descendants as property; and
Whereas we can not consent to any change in their political status and condition:
Therefore,
Resolved, That the Committee of the Judiciary be instructed to inquire into the expediency of bring in a bill providing the proper forms for the disposition of all negroes or mulattoes who may be captured from the enemy in such manner that those of them who are fugitives from their masters may be restored to their right followers and those whom no masters can be found shall be sold into perpetual bondage for the purpose of raising a fund to reimburse citizens of this Confederacy who have lost their slave property by reason of the interference there with that of the enemy:
Which was read and agreed to:
2. 129 Feb. 21, 1863
"Mr. Colliers also offered the following resolution, viz.:
'Whereas the Congress of the United States has by law authorized the raising of negro troops, to be used in the present war in the attempted subjugation of the Confederate States: therefore,
Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary inquire into the expediency of providing by law that all negroes captured while so in the service of the United States shall, ipso facto, unless they be fugitive slaves, become the property of the captors, and shall thereafter be held and considered in all respects as slaves:'
Which was read and agreed to."
3. 486-487 May 1, 1863 Same subject as Senate pp. 386 April 30, 1863.
1. 'Resolved by the Congress of the Confederate States of America, in response to the message of the President transmitted to Congress at the commencement of the present session, That , in the opinion of Congress, the commissioned officers of the enemy ought not to be delivered to the authorities of the respective States, as suggested in the said message; but all captives taken by the Confederate forces ought to be dealt with and disposed of by the Confederate Government.
2. That, in the judgment of Congress, the proclamations of the President of the United States, dated, respectively, September 22, 1862, and January 1, 1863, and the other measures of the Government of the United States and of its authorities, commanders, and forces, designed or tending to emancipate slavers in the Confederate States, or to abduct such slavers, or to incite them to insurrection, or to employ negroes in war against the Confederate States, or to overthrow the institution of African slavery and bring on a servile war in these States, would, if successful, produce atrocious consequences, and they are inconsistent with the spirit of those usages which in modern warfare prevail among civilized nations. They may, therefore, be properly and lawfully repressed by retaliation.
3. That in every case wherein, during the present war, any violation of the laws or usages of war among civilized nations shall be or has been done and perpetrated by those acting under the authority of the Government of the United States, on the persons or property of citizens of the Confederate States, or of those under the protection or in the land or naval service of the Confederate States, or of any State of the Confederacy, the President of the Confederate States is hereby authorized to cause full and ample retaliation to be made for every such violation in such manner and to such extent as he may think proper.
4.That every white person, being a commissioned officer, or acting as such, who during the present war shall command negroes or mulattoes in arms against the Confederate States, or who shall arm, train, organize, or prepare negroes or mulattoes for military service against the Confederate states, or who shall voluntarily aid negroes or mulattoes in any military enterprise, attack, or conflict in such service, shall be deemed as inciting servile insurrection or who shall incite or cause to be incited a slave to rebel shall, if captured, be put to death or be otherwise punished, at the discretion of the court.
5. Every person being a commissioned officer or acting as such in the service of the enemy who shall, during the present war, excite, attempt to excite, or cause to be excited a servile insurrection or who shall incite or cause to be incited a slave to rebel shall, if captured, be put to death or otherwise punished, at the discretion of the court.
6. every person charged with an offense punishable under the preceding resolutions shall, during the present war, be tried before the military court attached to the army or corps by the troops of which he shall have been captured or by such other military court as the President may direct and in such manner and under such regulations as the President shall prescribe; and, after conviction, the President may commute the punishment in such manner and such terms as he may deem proper.
7. All negroes and mulattoes who shall be engaged in war or be taken in arms against the Confederate States or shall give aid or comfort to the enemies of the Confederate States shall, when captured in the Confederate States, be delivered to the authorities of the State or States in which they shall be captured, to be dealt with according to the present or future laws of such State or States.'
There were no black CSA soldiers. It is a myth; well, actually, it's a lie.
Walt
I guess all those northern newspaper reporters were lying when they wrote to their papers back home about black rebels.. Ohhh well, we know you're a cheap drunk. Need I say more.
Well, a very wise man said you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, and so forth.
CSA Senator Howell Cobb:
"I think that the proposition to make soldiers of our slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began. . . You cannot make soldiers of slaves or slaves of soldiers. . . The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong."
The Richmond Examiner:
"We have been accustomed to think in this Southern country that the best friends of the Negroes were their own masters. . . But now the President of the Confederate States opens quite another view of the matter. According to his message it is a rich reward for faithful services to turn a Negro wild. Slavery, then, in the eyes of Mr. Davis, keeps the Negro out of something which he has the capacity to enjoy. . . If the case be so, then slavery is originally, radically, incurably wrong and sinful, and the sum of barbarism."
Ask yourself why these folks were so upset, if as you say Negroes had been fighting as soldiers in the armies of the CSA all along? If black CSA soldiers were actually there all along, how did they miss it?
Page 246, Confederate Veteran, June 1915.
Official publication of the United Confederate Veteran, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the Confederated Southern Memorial Association.
CONFEDERATE STATES NEGRO TROOPS
BY JOHN C. STILES, BRUNSWICK, GA.
On account of the South's being practically drained of fighting men by the middle of the year 1864, the question of using the male slaves to reenforce the army was agitated. I shall give a few opinions on the subject taken from various sources.
As early as September 9 a gentleman from Augusta, Ga., signing himself a "Native Georgian," wrote to the department thus: "The idea may have been presented to you of employing the negroes as soldiers. They can certainly fight as well for us as against us. Let the negro fight negro, and he will show much more courage than when opposed to whites. Promise Freedom when the war is over and colonize them either in Mexico or Central America."
On December 21 the Hon. J. P. Benjamin, Secretary of State, expressed himself as follows: "It appears to me enough to say that the negro will certainly fight against us if not used for our defense. There is no other means of swelling our armies than that of arming the slaves and using them as an auxiliary force. I further admit that if they fight for our freedom they are entitled to their own."
Gen. Howell Cobb, an unbeliever in this expedient, wrote from Macon, Ga., January 8, 1865: "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. [Note General Lee on the negro as a soldier.] Better by far to yield to the demands of England and France and abolish slavery and thereby purchase their aid than to resort to this policy, which would lead to certain ruin and subjugation."
Samuel Clayton, Esq., of Cuthbert, Ga., wrote on January 10, 1865: "All of our male population between sixteen and sixty is in the army. We cannot get men from any other source; they must come from our slaves. Some say that negroes will not fight, but they fought us at Ocean Pond. Honey Hill, and other places. The government takes all of our men and exposes them to death. Why can't they take our property? He who values his property more than independence is a poor, sordid wretch."
General Lee, who clearly saw the inevitable unless his forces were strengthened, wrote on January 11 [1865] : "I should prefer to rely on our white population; but in view of the preparation of our enemy it is our duty to provide for a continuous war, which, I fear, we cannot accomplish with our present resources. It is the avowed intention of the enemy to convert the ablebodied negro into soldiers and emancipate all. His progress will thus add to his numbers and at the same time destroy slavery in a most pernicious manner to the welfare of our people. Whatever may be the effect of our employing negro troops, it cannot be as mischievous as this. If it ends in subverting slavery, it will be accomplished by ourselves, and we can devise the means of alleviating the evil consequences to both races. I think, therefore, that we must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves used against us or use them ourselves at the risk of the effects which may be produced upon our soldiers' social institutions. My own opinion is that we should employ tl1em without delay. I believe that with proper regulations they can be made efficient soldiers. They possess the physical qualifications in an eminent degree. Long habits of obedience and subordination, coupled with the moral influence which in our country the white man possesses over the black, furnish an excellent foundation for that discipline which is the best guarantee of military efficiency. We can give them an interest by allowing immediate freedom to all who enlist and freedom at the end of the war to their families. We should not expect slaves to fight for prospective freedom when they can secure it at once by going to the enemy, in whose service they will incur no greater risk than in ours. In conclusion, I can only say that whatever is to be done must be attended to at once."
President Davis on February 21 expressed himself as follows: "It is now becoming daily more evident to all reflecting persons that we are reduced to choosing whether the negroes shall fight for or against us and that all the arguments as to the positive advantage or disadvantage of employing them are beside the question, which is simply one of relative advantage between having their fighting element in our ranks or those of the enemy."
The question was argued and thrashed over in Congress, and on March 23 1865, the following order was issued from the adjutant and inspector general's office in Richmond: "The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact that, in order to provide additional forces to repel invasion, maintain the rightful possessions of the Confederate States, secure their independence, and preserve their institutions, the President be and he is hereby authorized to ask for and accept from the owners of slaves the services of such numbers of ablebodied negro men as he may deem expedient for and during the war to perform military service in whatever capacity he may direct. * * * That while employed in the service the said troops shall receive the same ration, clothing, and compensation as allowed other troops in the same branch of the service. * * * No slave will be accepted unless with his own consent and the approbation of his master by a written instrument conferring as far as he may the rights of a freedman. * * * The enlistment will be for the war."
On March 28 the following order was issued to various parties: "You are hereby authorized to raise a - of negro troops under the provision of Congress, and you are allowed sixty days' absence and will be detached from yot1r command for that purpose."
If there were any such troops enlisted, there is no official record of same. For two reasons the act was never accomplished: First, the experiment was tried too late in the game; secondly, the owners of the slaves were so reluctant to part with their property that the following letter was brought forth on the subject:
RICHMOND, VA, April 2, 1865.
"I have delayed writing in order to give you some information on the negro question. * * * If the people of the South only knew and appreciated General Lee's solicitude on this subject, they would no longer hold back their slaves. * * * Their wives, daughters, and the negroes are the only elements left us to recruit from, and it does seem that our people would rather send the former to face death than give up the latter. ."
In my opinion, if this method had been adopted earlier in the war, it certainly would have made a material difference in its duration; but I am not prepared to say that I think it would have changed the final result. I feel, however, that the negro would have fought as well for us as against us, and when they were properly officered the records show that they put up a pretty good opposition. Since that time the negro in the United States army has always given satisfaction as a fighter, as the records of our Indian and SpanishAmerican Wars will show, and also the records show that thirtytwo of these people are holders of medals of honor given for personal gallantry on the field of battle.
There is no record of any more than a handful of black CSA troops--maybe it Just escaped the notice of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and the CSA Congress.
Walt
Robert. E. Lee, Jan. 11. 1865
"But to be plain, you are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be free, while I suppose that you do not."
A. Lincoln 8/24/63
Hmmmm...quite a contrast.
Walt
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.