Historian: Civil War tales are pure bunk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except for the fact that a lot of us were "exposed" to much different accounts by relatives who were actually there.

Let's see them.

There is no credible proof that more than a handful of blacks fought for the CSA.

Consider:

FRIDAY, February 10, 1865.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SECOND CONGRESS-SECOND SESSION

EMPLOYMENT OF NEGROES AS SOLDIERS

Mr. Wickham, of Virginia, moved the indefinite postponement of the bill. He was opposed to its going to a select committee. If it went to any committee it should go, in the regular channel, to the Committee on Military Affairs. He wished, however, this question of arming and making soldiers of negroes to be now disposed of, finally and forever. He wished it to be decided whether negroes are to be placed upon an equality by the side of our brave soldiers. They would be compelled to. They would have to camp and bivouac together.

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.-(Voice-That's so.)

The question being ordered upon the rejection of the bill, it was lost-ayes 21, noes 53. As this vote was regarded as a kind of test of the sense of the House upon the policy of putting negroes into the army, we append the ayes and noes-the question being the rejection of this bill authorizing the employment of negroes as soldiers:

Ayes-Messrs. Baldwin, Branch, Cruikshank, De Jarnette, Fuller, Garland, Gholson, Gilmer, Lamkin, J. M. Leach, J. T. Leach, McMullin, Miles, Miller, Ramsey, Sexton, Smith, of Alabama, Smith, of North Carolina, Wickham, Witherspoon, Mr. Speaker.

Noes-Messrs. Akin, Anderson, Barksdale, Batson, Bell, Blandford, Boyce, Bradley, H. W. Bruce, Carroll, Chambers, Chilton, Clark, Clopton, Cluskey, Conrad, Conrow, Darden, Dickinson, Dupre, Ewing, Farrow, Foster, Funsten, Gaither, Goode, Gray, Hartridge, Hatcher, Hilton, Holder, Holliday, Johnston, Keeble, Lyon, Pugh, Read, Rogers, Russell, Simpson, J. M. Smith, W. E. Smith, Snead, Swan, Triplett, Villere, Welsh.

If any number of black soldiers had been serving in the ranks of the CSA armies, how did it escape the notice of Congress? It also escaped the notice of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and others:

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.

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 [1865]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.":

Would Lee and Davis have had those points of view had there been any number of blacks in ranks?

The idea of black CSA soldiers is nothing but Soviet style misinformation.

It's a lie.

Walt

THE STORY OF JJ AND LEVI

It might come as a bit of a surprise to hear an historian say that one of the most important traits needed to become an insightful student of history is a good imagination. History is supposed to be the truth, to deal in facts, not in fiction. True, the line between fact and fiction is often blurred; there is certainly historical fiction and one often suspects that there is fictional history. Yet the goal and purpose of the historian remains: to tell the truth about the past.

So what then could be the role of imagination in history? Quite simply, it is needed to fill in the gaps in the factual record. We can often know what someone did, and when and where and to what effect; but we may never really know the “why” of it, even when our sources purport to tell us.

I’m going to tell you a story. It is really just the skeleton of a story; it still needs to be fleshed out. What I will tell you is the truth, based on reliable records. What I cannot tell you – what I’m hoping you may be able to tell me, or to help me imagine – is the real heart of the story, the motivations, the attitudes, the real nature of the relationship between two men.

The first man is my great great uncle, John J. McBride. He seems to have gone by the initials JJ, and that is what I will call him. JJ was born in 1818, the son of Colonel Isaiah McBride, who owned land and slaves in Rockbridge County, Virginia. About 1847, for health reasons, JJ moved to Texas where he became prominent and successful as a businessman. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, JJ became an officer in the Confederate Army, first a lieutenant and then the captain of C Company, 5th Texas Regiment. His regiment went to Virginia where it became part of the Texas Brigade in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. The Texas Brigade won wide renown as one of the very best units in Lee’s army.

One of the customs in nineteenth century armies was for officers to have servants. The British Army’s officers had “batsmen”; US Army officers had “orderlies”; the Confederates called them “body servants”. Whatever they were called, the duty of such servants was primarily to take care of the physical needs of their officer, attending to such chores as polishing boots, washing clothes, cooking, and the like. When JJ traveled to Virginia with his fellow Texans he was, of course, actually returning home, to the state of his birth. Upon arrival he asked his brother, owner of the family plantation in Rockbridge, to provide one of the family slaves to be his body servant in the army. And his brother obliged with a twenty-five year old slave, Levi Miller.

Here we come to the first several questions of the very many to which we would like to know answers. Can you think of what these questions might be?

Here’s one: did Levi have a choice in going off to war, or was he ordered or forced to go? Records of some other body servants indicate that they volunteered, and others were free blacks who were hired. Was this true also of Levi, or did he have to go?

Here’s another: did JJ and Levi already know each other? JJ was forty-three years old in 1862, and Levi was twenty-six. JJ moved to Texas in 1847, when he was twenty-eight and Levi was eleven. Prior to that time they had presumably lived on the same plantation, JJ as son of the master and Levi as slave. If they had a prior relationship, what was it?

Here’s a related question, somewhat farfetched but not beyond the bounds of possibility: were JJ and Levi kin? Levi is described as a mulatto, which in those days generally meant a white father and a black mother. Could Levi’s father have been the colonel, Isaiah, JJ’s father? Were they in fact half-brothers? Or, even wilder, is it possible that JJ was Levi’s father? JJ was about sixteen or seventeen when Levi was born.

(NOTE: new information is that McBrides owned only six slaves, three of whom were Levi, Levi’s mother, and his brother. This makes it virtually certain that JJ and Levi knew each other before 1847, and would suggest that it is unlikely that they were kin. The above two paragraphs need to be rewritten.)

Just how usual was it for Confederate officers to have body servants? Apparently it was very common. Consider the following account:
In the fall of 1862 Robert E. Lee invaded Maryland in the campaign that was to end with the battle of Sharpsburg (Antietem). The Texas Brigade was among the Confederate units, which marched through Frederick, Maryland, where they were observed by Dr. Louis Steiner, an inspector of the Union Sanitation Commission. His diary entry describes the large number of blacks in the Rebel army.

Wednesday, September 10: At 4 o'clock this morning the Rebel army began to move from our town, Jackson's forces taking the advance. The movement continued until 8 o'clock p.m., occupying 16 hours. The most liberal calculation could not give them more than 64,000 men. Over 3,000 Negroes must be included in the 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 they were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of generals and promiscuously mixing it up with all the Rebel horde.

It is worth noting that Civil War soldiers were normally issued new clothes once a year, generally in the spring; by September most soldiers, northern or southern, might be looking “shabby” or “seedy.”

Almost everything we know about Levi Miller’s Confederate service is based on two letters written in 1907 by J. E. Anderson, who replaced JJ McBride as captain of C Company after McBride’s wounding. One is to Miller; it was evidently written at Levi’s request to support his application for a Confederate pension from Virginia:

In accordance with your request I have this day written Mr. B. C. Shull, of Marlboro, Virginia, giving him a full account of your connection with our army. I told him of all the campaigns you were in, beginning with Yorktown, Fair Oaks, and seven days in front of Richmond, Maryland, Fredericksburg, Suffolk, Pennsylvania, Chickamauga, East Tennessee, the Wilderness ,and Spottsylvania Court House, where, on the morning of May 10, 1864, you ran across to us over an open field, and the Yankee sharpshooters fired several shots at you before you could get into our trench. You brought me some rations and you had to stay all day before you could get out, and how on that day the Yankees made a rushing charge on us, and you stood by my side and fought as gallant as any man in the company, and after we had driven the Yankees away, Jim Swindler made a motion that Levi Miller be enrolled as a full member of Company C, Fifth Texas Regiment. I put the motion and it was carried by a unanimous vote. I immediately enrolled your name on the roll of the company, and I still have that same roll.
Also how you nursed Captain McBride (when he) was wounded at Manassas and again when he was thought to be mortally wounded at the battle of the Wilderness, and how you nursed him until the fall of 1865, long after the war was closed, and in fact your nursing saved his life. Again you were never absent from the Company during the entire war, except when nursing Captain McBride when wounded. Again how good and kind you were to any of the men when sick in camp, and how much the boys thought of you. Yes, Levi, if there ever was a man deserving a pension you are one of them. I wrote four pages to Mr. Shull giving all in full. Of course, I could not mention everything. I was truly glad to hear from you, and anything I can do for you I will do with pleasure. I am in good health but feeling old age. My wife died in 1892, and I am living with my adopted son whom I raised from an infant. Write me again.

Your old friend and comrade,
J. E. Anderson,
Last Captain of Co. C. 5th Texas regiment

Captain Anderson’s letter to B. C. Shull, chairman of the Confederate Pension Board of Frederick County, gives more details of Miller’s service:

Levi Miller served as a servant for Capt. McBride and Capt. J. E Anderson, of Company C, Fifth Texas regiment, during the entire war from 1861 to 1865. When our company arrived in Richmond in September, 1861, Capt. J. J. McBride wrote his brother who lived in Rockbridge county, Va., to bring us one of his servants (slaves), and he brought us Levi Miller who was with us during all the fighting around Richmond in the year 1862, and in the Maryland campaign. Capt. McBride was wounded in the battle of Manassas August 31, 1862. Levi Miller stayed at the hospital and nursed the Captain until he recovered and both rejoined the company in time for the Fredericksburg fight December 1862. He was on the Suffolk campaign in the spring of 1863.

He was in the Pennsylvania campaign and at New Castle and Chambersburg he met several negroes whom he knew (I think some of them were related to him) and who had run away from Virginia. They tried to get Levi to desert but he would not. He went with us to Georgia and was in the battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, and in the campaign around Chattanooga, Tenn. He was with us during the severe cold winter of 1863-64 in the campaign of Knoxville and East Tennessee.

In the spring of 1864 we returned to Virginia and rejoined General Lee’s army. In the battle of the Wilderness, Va., where General Lee started to lead the Texas brigade in a charge and the men turned his horse and made him go to the rear before we would charge – for we would not see him killed – Capt. McBride, during the desperate fighting had both legs broken and was considered to be fatally wounded. This occurred in the early morning of May 6, 1864. Levi Miller was at that time with the wagon trains and did not know of the Captain being wounded until he got to Spotsylvania Courthouse where we arrived on the morning of May 8. On the morning of May 10 Levi Miller brought to me a haversack of rations and in order to get to me in our little temporary ditch and breastworks, had to cross an open field of about 200 yards and as he came across the field in full run the enemy’s sharpshooters clipped the dirt all around him. I told him he could not go back until dark as those sharpshooters would get him. I gave him directions where he could find Capt. McBride and as soon as it got dark for him to go and nurse the captain until he died and then return to me.

About two o’clock on that day I saw from the maneuvers of the enemy in our front that they were fixing to charge us and I told Levi Miller that he would get a chance to get in a battle. He asked for a gun and ammunition. We had several extra guns in our ditch and the men gave him a gun and ammunition. About 4 p. m. the enemy made a rushing charge. Levi Miller stood by my side and man never fought harder and better than he did and when the enemy tried to cross our little breastworks and we clubbed and bayoneted them off, no one used his bayonet with more skill and effect than Levi Miller. During the fight the shout of my men was ‘Give ‘em hell, Lee!’

After the fight was over one of the men made a motion that Levi Miller be enrolled as a full member of the company. I put the motion and of course it passed unanimously and I immediately enrolled his name as a full member of the company, which roll I have yet in my possession.

As soon as dark came Levi Miller went to Capt. McBride who was taken to a hospital at Charlottesville, Va., and Levi Miller stayed and nursed him until October, 1865 which was some time after the war closed. Capt. McBride returned to Texas and died there in 1880. He owed his life to Levi Miller’s good nursing.

Levi Miller was never absent a day from the army except when nursing Capt. McBride. No better servant was in General lee’s army. If anyone was sick in camp he was always ready to wait on them. He was a pet with every man in the company. Thousands of faithful and generous acts I could write to you if space and time would permit.

My company was Company C, Fifth Texas Regiment, Texas Brigade, Hood’s Division, Longstreet’s Corps, Army of Northern Virginia. Out of a company of 142 men I had but nine left to surrender with me at Appomatox, Va.

It seems from Capt. Anderson’s letters that Levi Miller did not normally fight with Company C; rather, he remained with the supply trains, as servants typically did. Each company would have had its own wagon, or a part of a wagon load, to carry items needed in camp but not carried in battle, such as tents and cooking utensils. Levi was probably responsible for watching the company’s possessions and possibly for driving the wagon – a necessary if not particularly glamorous (but generally safe) job.

How Levi came to fight, and JJ to be wounded, is recounted in historian Gordan C. Rhea’s books. The battle of the Wilderness began on May 5, 1864, as Grant’s Army of the Potomoc began its drive towards Richmond. Lee’s army met Grant’s in the heavy woods of the Wilderness where the Federal advantage in artillery would be minimized. The Rebels stopped the Yanks in fierce fighting, but by the morning of May 6 the superior numbers of the Union army were making the difference, and Lee’s army was on the brink of collapse and General Lee desperate. At that moment Longstreet’s corps arrived on the battlefield, led by the Texas brigade under General Gregg: (I grew up in Gregg County, Texas.)

Gregg’s troops swept past the batteries where Lee was standing. Gregg was a stranger to Lee, having served in the Confederacy’s western armies before joining the 1st Corps during the Tennessee campaign. Flushed with excitement, Lee eased his horse next to Gregg and shouted above the din, “General, what brigade is this?”
“The Texas Brigade,” came the answer.
“I am glad to see it,” cried Lee. “When you go in there, I wish you to give those men the cold steel – they will stand and fight all day, and never move unless you charge them.” Pausing to study the approaching blue line, Lee added by way of encouragement, “The Texas brigade has always driven the enemy, and I want them to do it now. And tell them, General, that they will fight today under my eye – I will watch their conduct. I want every man of them to know I am here with them.”
“Attention Texas Brigade,” Gregg boomed for all to hear. “The eyes of General lee are upon you. Forward. March.”
Lee could not contain his excitement. He raised high in his stirrups. Emotion transformed his face. Tearing his hat off and waving it high, he shouted, “Texans always move them!”
“A yell rent the air that must have been heard for miles around,” recalled a Texan near Gregg’s front ranks, “and but few eyes in that old brigade of veterans and heroes of many a bloody field was undimmed by honest, heartfelt tears.” Leonard Gee, one of Gregg’s couriers, summed up the feeling. “I would charge hell itself for that old man,” he swore in a voice chocked with emotion.
The Texans continued on, eight hundred strong, straight at the Federals. Still agitated, Lee spurred his horse through the cannon and advanced with Gregg’s soldiers. At first the Texans did not notice that Lee was with them. Part way across the field, however, it became apparent that he intended to lead the charge himself. That would never do. Ahead was death, especially for a man on horseback.
“Go back, General Lee. Go back!” came the cry, spreading across the entire column. But Lee would not stop. The Texans slowed their pace, looking over at the bareheaded man. Lee’s gray hair splayed in the breeze. His eyes were fixed on the front. “We won’t go on unless you come back,” the troops shouted, but he ignored their pleas. Several soldiers attempted to lead the general’s horse to the rear, and a particularly tall Texan seized his rein. It appeared to one onlooker that “five or six of his staff would gather around him, seize him, his arms, his horse’s reins, but he shook them off and moved forward.”

At this point General Longstreet arrived and was quickly informed of Lee’s suicidal impulse:

Riding over to Lee, Longstreet assured the gray-haired general that he could restore the Confederate line if given a free hand. But if not needed, he would like to leave, “as it was not quite comfortable where we were.” As Longstreet recalled it, Lee was “off his balance.” Reluctantly the Virginia rode to the rear, leaving the immediate details of the fighting to his trusted subordinate.

Rhea then describes the Texans’ attack:

“North of Orange Plank Road, Gregg’s brigade sprinted ahead. Yankee sharpshooters began picking off the men in the fore. Brushing aside a cloud of blue-clad skirmishers, Gregg’s soldiers plunged toward the far woods. A galling fire thinned their ranks. But onward they charged, into the first line of Federals. That line broke; another awaited just ahead. “The storm of battle became terrific,” a Confederate survivor wrote home. The Texas Brigade was alone; no support on our right, and not only none on our left, but a terrible enfilading fire (flank shots) poured on us from that direction.” Straight into the main Federal battle line streamed the Texans. “There was a terrible crash, mingled with wild yells,” recalled a rebel participant, “which settled down into a tremendous roar of musketry.” Severely outnumbered, Gregg’s brigade exchanged a brutal, stand-up fire with an enemy no more than twenty yards away. "“Death seemed to be our portion,” thought one of Gregg'’ soldiers.
Gregg’s Confederates charged again. This time the Union line bowed back. But the Federals were too numerous for the lone rebel brigade. Face-to-face fighting continued, with neither side willing to retreat. “For twenty-five minutes we held them steady,” boasted a Confederate who lived through the carnage, “and at the expiration of that time more than half our brave fellows lay around us dead, dying and wounded, and the few survivors could stand it no longer.” So severe was the combat that many Federals fired without finishing loading. Later, a rebel recalled ramrods driven into trees so deeply that he could not pull them out. Gregg was nearly killed, and blood flowed from several bullet wounds in his horse. His seasoned troops could not withstand such punishment. At his command, they grudgingly gave ground. The brigade had been diminished to a skirmish line. Of 800 men who went into action, fewer than 250 returned unharmed. The 5th Texas lost its commander, its officers, and nearly two-thirds of its troops. . . . The price had been high, but Gregg had accomplished his goal. He had rocked the Union assault column back on its heels.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this JJ McBride went down, shot through both legs and not expected to live.

Two days later what was left of the Texas Brigade was dug in as part of the Confederate defenses around Spotsylvania Courthouse. It was at this time that Levi Miller joined and fought with Company C. No record tells specifically how many men were in Company C at that point, but it is unlikely to have exceeded a dozen. There were only 250 men left in the brigade after the Wilderness. The 5th Texas was one of four regiments in the brigade, so would have averaged sixty or sixty-five; but the 5th was also the hardest hit of the four, so may have had only thirty or forty. There are ten companies in a regiment. So when Levi Miller jumped into Company C’s “little temporary ditch” with Captain Anderson, the company might have consisted of four or five men; it might have been a little ditch indeed, possibly no more than a foxhole.

What was Levi Miller’s feeling about all of this? How did he feel towards JJ? Towards the Confederacy, or at least towards the Confederate Army? We have no direct expression by Levi of his attitudes, but the record does allow us to make some good guesses.

One of the most intriguing episodes concerning Levi, about which one would most like to know more, is Captain Anderson’s report of his refusal to desert during the Gettysburg campaign:

He was in the Pennsylvania campaign and at New Castle and Chambersburg he met several negroes whom he knew (I think some of them were related to him) and who had run away from Virginia. They tried to get Levi to desert but he would not.

One’s first reaction is that this sounds like Confederate propaganda. Almost as quickly one realizes how unlikely – small world or not – it would be for a slave accompanying his master on an invasion of the north to “meet” several runaway slaves whom he knew – not once but twice! (New Castle is 12 miles from Chambersburg.) Is this story at all believable?

It may be. For one thing, it is evident that Levi must have had plenty of opportunities to run away, not just during the Gettysburg campaign but before and afterward. He moved back and forth between the supply wagons and the company, and between the company and the hospital.
He was clearly brave and resourceful and vigorous, and he wouldn’t have had to go far to freedom, particularly after the Emancipation proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. Even more telling, perhaps, is the fact that Levi stayed with JJ at Charlottesville, nursing him, until months after the war ended, although conceivably this might have been a simple matter of JJ hiring Levi to continue to care for him after the peace. Still, the facts that Levi joined a Confederate veterans’ organization and, even more, had “C.S.A.” put on his own tombstone indicate a pride in his status as Confederate soldier that is consistent with a refusal to desert.

But what about such an unlikely encounter with old friends? The encounter is only unlikely if one assumes that it was accidental. Is it possible, instead, that some former slaves who had escaped to the north took the opportunity of Lee’s invasion to try to undermine the Confederate war effort, or the institution of slavery, by contacting blacks among the Confederate columns and urging them to run to freedom? That would have been a daring business, but one can imagine abolitionists or even Federal authorities trying such a tactic. Were there free blacks shadowing Lee’s army who tried, first at New Castle and then at Chambersburg, to persuade Levi and other blacks to join them? If so, it must have been a difficult temptation to resist, an easy escape to freedom in a place where one already had friends or family for support.

The Pennsylvania campaign account leads naturally into the broader question of Levi Miller as loyal Confederate; the evidence is pretty strong that he was proud of his relationship to the Confederate Army, but we are largely left to speculate and to try to imagine why this was so. Certainly Levi benefitted from his status as a Confederate veteran; it undoubtedly enhanced his status among whites, and he received a Confederate pension from Virginia during the last fourteen years of his life. (Levi’s enrollment as a member of an infantry company after being in combat with them is rather unusual; but records show hundreds of body servants who got Confederate pensions.) On the other hand, Levi seems to have been highly respected among blacks as well as whites, judging from his obituaries; he was a Methodist lay preacher and an honored “uncle” to many blacks. Levi also left a personal estate of $5000, quite a respectable sum in the 1920’s, so he did not need the pension just to stay alive.

Finally, one would like to know what contact Levi and JJ kept up with one another after the war. They remained together until October of 1865 when JJ recovered from his wounds; JJ then returned to Texas and stayed there until his death in 1879. JJ had a successful business career and was also an officer in the Texas Brigade’s veterans organization, which was a power in Texas politics during the 1870’s and later. JJ’s major interest seems to have been the Masonic Temple; his very large and elaborate tomb monument is covered with Masonic symbols and information and does not mention his Confederate Army service at all! Levi outlived JJ by forty-two years, and seems to have stayed active in Confederate veterans’ organizations. But did they write letters to one another? One hopes so, and wishes they were available. It is hard to imagine two men living three years together in – literally – life-and-death circumstances and then having no further contact for the next fifteen years; but we can only guess.

So at last the historian is left with the skeleton of a relationship and an outline of a story. Beyond that one can only speculate. But, if one were to write a historical novel about JJ and Levi, consistent with the known facts but filling in the gaps with believable personalities, what would those personalities be? What words would one use to describe their relationship?

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