Posted on 01/05/2018 12:07:18 PM PST by DoodleDawg
Two South Carolina lawmakers want to erect a monument on the State House grounds to African-Americans who served the state as Confederate soldiers. But records show the state never accepted nor recognized armed African-American soldiers during the Civil War.
“In all my years of research, I can say I have seen no documentation of black South Carolina soldiers fighting for the Confederacy,” said Walter Edgar, who for 32 years was director of the University of South Carolina’s Institute for Southern Studies and is author of “South Carolina: A History.”
“In fact, when secession came, the state turned down free (blacks) who wanted to volunteer because they didn’t want armed persons of color,” he said.
Pension records gleaned from the S.C. Department of History and Archives show no black Confederate soldiers received payment for combat service. And of the more than 300 blacks who did receive pensions after they were allowed in 1923, all served as body servants or cooks, the records show.
Confederate law prohibited blacks from bearing arms in the war, records show, until that edict was repealed in 1865 at the very end of the conflict.
That repeal resulted in a handful of African-American units in states such as Virginia and Texas. But there were none in South Carolina, which prohibited African-Americans from carrying guns in the state’s service throughout the war for fear of insurrection, according to the archives.
(Excerpt) Read more at thestate.com ...
The white slave owners, not the black slaves.
Likely the source that inspired these two legislators.
This article is about South Carolina, not the entire confederacy.
Nope. A lot of them were spawned by Woodrow Wilson and FDR.
There were multiple reports at the time. Look at the case of the Richmond Howitzers who fought at 1st Manassas.
I haven't seen any evidence that blacks served as soldiers with the Richmond Howitzers, and Bull Run or anywhere else.
If a story ceases to be true, it ceases to be history.
You clearly have no clue what most people consider "part of the army". Support staff of all kinds (cooks, drivers, laborers (e.g. weapons loaders), office clerks, etc etc etc) are reflexively considered "part of the military". You wear the uniform, you are part of the team.
I'm betting you did not serve.
‘Nope. A lot of them were spawned by Woodrow Wilson and FDR.’
please don’t disabuse people of their fantasies; we must be kind...
Okay. I’ll try to be more nice in the future...
;-)
I'm more curious about what the Confederate government considered "part of the military." And by all accounts, black cooks, drives, laborers, cooks, servants, etc., etc. were not considers soldiers by the Davis government.
Confederate Ambulance service was basically an all black service.
In 1861 Frederick Douglass was a journalist and newspaper/magazine publisher. Once the war started he served as a recruiter of black soldiers for the Union Army. I’m guessing he had many sources throughout the U.S. and the confederacy.
I have a lot of respect for Frederick Douglass. He was a major bad-ass.
I've never seen any documentation about them. But as has been pointed out before, the Confederate army used slaves as teamsters throughout much of the war and they could well have driven some of the ambulances too.
I call cultural appropriation on this one. <<<< crickets >>>>
There was one. His name was Aleck Kean. He came to the Howitzers with his master John H. Vest. Vest was killed in 1863. Kean remained with the Howitzers, evidently as a cook.
In a 1912 article in the magazine Confederate Veteran, Judge George L Christian states about Kean “I affirm that he was the most faithful and efficient man in the performance of every duty pertaining to his sphere that I have ever known. His whole mind and soul seemed bent on trying to get and prepare something for his mess to eat; and if there was anything to be gotten honestly, Aleck always got the share which was coming to his mess, and he always had that share prepared in the shortest time possible and the most delicious way in which it could have been prepared in camp. The comfort of having such a man as Aleck around us in those trying times can scarcely be described and certainly cannot be exaggerated.”
I would say that it was doubtful if Aleck Kean ever served on gun crew with the Richmond Howitzers.
I’m betting none of us served in the Confederate army, which is the army that is being discussed.
The Union didn't officially enlist blacks until after the Emancipation Proclamation. The quote in question was made by Douglas in September of 1861, when he had no way of knowing who the Confederate were enlisting. But it was a good story to shame the Lincoln administration into enlisting blacks themselves.
And has been pointed out, the Confederacy used blacks in a number of supporting roles, including as cooks and servants. That didn't make them soldiers, and the Confederate army didn't consider them to be soldiers.
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