The Native Guard in Louisiana mustered, but basically ended up serving on the side of the Union. And then at the very end of the War, Lee, in desperate straits, consented to raising a black regiment. But they never fought either. Moreover, there are scattered reports of black slaves doing things like fighting in defense of their master, but certainly nothing approaching the USCT.
If I have this wrong, please correct me.
More interesting to me is why the myth holds so much sway. I think it's an extension of the Lost Cause theology--if there were black regiments fighting for the Confederacy, the War couldn't have been about slavery.
Meanwhile, in the open thread, Brucds links the Mississippi Declaration of Secession, which begins as follow:
In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
TNC wrote:
More interesting to me is why the myth holds so much sway. I think it's an extension of the Lost Cause theology--if there were black regiments fighting for the Confederacy, the War couldn't have been about slavery.
Yes, that and more generally, supports the argument that the Confederacy wasn't fundamentally a racist construct. ("Heritage, not Hate!") The myth that blacks voluntarily fought for the Confederacy in large numbers was a very popular discussion topic with the SCV a few years back, about the same time they got all in a lather about so-called "heritage" issues involving public display of the Confederate Battle Flag. As far as I can tell -- and I honestly haven't looked to hard at it -- the "scholarship" supporting the myth is very suspect at best.
It holds sway because, even though states of the South seceded to keep slavery, the remainder of the country did not enter the war to abolish slavery. Yes, later, and presented more as a war expedient than anything else (there were slave states in the union). Then there were southern apologists after the war's conclusion who did their very best to present the war as simply "another American Revolution".
Speaking of which, the British seem to have had the temerity to recruit slaves in the Revolutionary War, and I think 1812.
Many of these black Tories were resettled to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Absolutely correct. The myth of the black confederates gets pulled out when you start proving the war WAS about slavery. "But, blacks fought for the south too!"
Secondarily, it raises gauzy images of happy organic communities on the plantation, where all were bound by duties and responsibilities, as one extended family. When the arrogant north threatened to destroy this way of life, all answered the call to arms, black and white, slave and free, because they all valued it.
Exactly so.
More interesting to me is why the myth holds so much sway. I think it's an extension of the Lost Cause theology--if there were black regiments fighting for the Confederacy, the War couldn't have been about slavery
I guess this would be the generous explanation.
The less generous explanation would be that they are committed to the idea that black people liked being slaves.
Peep:
The less generous explanation would be that they are committed to the idea that black people liked being slaves.
That notion manifests itself pretty explicitly, as well.
Geez. How could this have been an official state Declaration.
I guess because it was Mississippi in 1861.
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have turned too many white heads in 1961...
... or in 1992 when Mississippi finally ratified the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery
Wiki, not reliable but a lot of fun gives the states to ratify after it wasn't necessary in order. Found it interesting.
Oregon (December 8, 1865)
California (December 19, 1865)
Florida (December 28, 1865, reaffirmed on June 9, 1869)
Iowa (January 15, 1866)
New Jersey (January 23, 1866, after having rejected it on March 16, 1865)
Texas (February 18, 1870)
Delaware (February 12, 1901, after having rejected it on February 8, 1865)
Kentucky (March 18, 1976, after having rejected it on February 24, 1865)
Mississippi (March 16, 1995, after having rejected it on December 5, 1865)
The last 3 are interestig, Delaware, Kentucky, Mississippi. The time gap is interesting too on Kentucky and Mississippi.
@ Sorn
Kentucky is interesting, because I've had ppl swear up and down that KY isn't the south -- despite the fact that they were a slave state.
I recall being at my grandparent's house over a holiday and noticing that no one watched local college sports. When I asked my mom and her brothers why we don't root for UK...They said was because the basketball program had racist policies back in their day
the local paper also provided questionable coverage of the civil rights movement as in "neglected to cover it"
@cocomala, when your number one (legal) cash crop is tabacco...
Just looked up that Wikipedia page on ratification of the 13th Amendment. An interesting side note: Virginia ratified the amendment on Feb. 9, 1865, whereas Lee did not surrender in Virginia until April 9. Was there a shadow Virginia government at the time loyal to the Union? (West Virginia, which split off from the rest of Virginia in 1863 is listed as a separate ratifier.)
hey, as a ky bluegrass, i won't knock tobacco or bourbon!!
moderation y'all!
as for the #1 illegal cash crop in KY...what do you think is going on between all those conveniently tall tobacco plants? should a farmer let all that soil and sun go to waste?
have you seen the state flag? I was just down there this morning and the number of trucks with confederate bumper stickers is almost as suprising as the fact that no one has followed through with the urge to throw the occasional brick through their windows in the Walmart parking lot.
An interesting side note: Virginia ratified the amendment on Feb. 9, 1865, whereas Lee did not surrender in Virginia until April 9. Was there a shadow Virginia government at the time loyal to the Union?
Found it . . .
"In Virginia, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified by a “rump” legislature, which had begun meeting in Alexandria shortly after the Civil War began, claiming to be the legitimate and loyal representative of the state in the Union. It had earlier approved the creation of the state’s western counties into the new state of West Virginia."
The CSA black troops were only raised when the Confederacy was almost out of men. It was a desperation move pushed by Lee.
Lee was a rascist of the highest order. He just needed more bodies to feed into the grinder.
The black regiments never went into any action, thank God. Lee would have almost certainly sacrificed them to save the white soldiers.
"Lee was a rascist of the highest order."
Not of the highest order, no. There are statements and actions taken by Union Generals Sherman and McClellan that were arguably much worse than Lee. Keep in mind we are talking about 19th century American racism here. I think that there was alot more variance around peoples beliefs and the ceiling for racism was something that I at least have a pretty hard time coming to terms with.
I'm not sure any were as bad as "returning" the Northern freedmen to Virginia during Lee's two invasions. Sherman was pretty bad, though.
No? Really?
How about this,
"In 1859 future Confederate general Robert E. Lee ordered whippings for three of his slave, Wesley Norris and his sister and a cousin, for attempting to flee to Maryland. After their capture and return to Arlington, Lee demanded to know why they had absconded; Norris replied that they considered themselves entitled to freedom. Enraged by this answer, Lee ordered them to be stripped to the waist and given fifty lashes apiece and their backs washed in salt brine. Seven years later Norris stated his reason for telling this story: to dispel myths masquerading as history of Lee as a kindly, humane slave owner. Although the general's biographers have denied that he ever had slaves whipped, Norris knew better: the proof was on his back."
-Pg 162, Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia by Ervin L. Jordan
Sound like a kindly old white man to you?
Not sure too what degree it effects the discussion, but whipping was still in use as a punishment for non-slaves in the South in those days. As far as I know, it was also a standard punishment for crimes committed by the white soldiers in Lee's army.
Making Lee out to be a plaster saint is ridiculous, but, in the 19th Century, you would not be disqualified for "kindly old man" status just because you had people whipped.
Seems like a non-sequiter. Even if this notion of African-Americans fighting actively for the confederacy were true (and except for conscripted labor which isn't the same thing it isn't) it wouldn't mean the war wasn't about slavery.
It's like saying that because the U.S. Calvary in the Indian Wars had Indian scouts the policy of U.S. government wasn't designed to completely destroy a people and a way of life.
Though the idea of 'false consciousness' can be abused as a way of denying the validity of individual, idiosyncratic, choice, at some point it's a useful and valid concept: just because some people are complicit in systems that oppress them or their close relatives, but that doesn't mean that it's in the best interest of most of the members of their group.
Gonna go out on a limb here and guess that all these "someone"s are white, and most, if not all, are Southerners. Am I warm?
I could envision some black folks who think they're being non-conformist, contrarian and deep, saying something along those lines, in that situation.
Teknontheou wrote:
I could envision some black folks who think they're being non-conformist, contrarian and deep, saying something along those lines, in that situation.
The SCV has, IIRC, a handful of African American members who claim descent from black Confederates. They are celebrities of a sort within the group, as they nominally validate exactly the rationale Charlieford articulates above. Whatever their own geneaology actually is, or whatever their ancestors did or did not do, I cannot begin to think what goes through these mens' minds.
I'm gong to guess most of those guys are the descendants of white confederate soldiers and they are proud of their family history just like most other people are. The SCV isn't the Klan.
A possibility that those people were the ancestors of Alan Keyes and Thomas Sowell?
Damnit - I was just about to make a joke about an Armstrong Williams joke...
cut one of those "jokes" - made absolutely no sense
"These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization."
Slavery -- the original "too big to fail" industry.
That declaration would be funny if it wasn't so gross... though that may be why it seems so funny.
I am reminded of my cousin (by marriage!). A good ole southern boy, "Real American" and hard core conservative. He is full to the brim with Confederate alternate histories.
One Thanksgiving about five years ago he started going on about how the institution of slavery wasn't as bad as union propagandists and modern liberals make it out to be. The slaves got their food and shelter taken care of in exchange for honest labor...
I don't know where he was going to go from there. As my sister and I both opened our mouths to engage him in sure-to-be-furious debate my Dad said, very firmly, "Shut up Leon you're pissing me off".
In a way I wish my Dad had let the argument rage. That was one I would have enjoyed picking apart. But I know Dad was right. No reason to fuck up a family feast by refighting the Civil war in my Aunt's living room.
And that goes back to what you wrote about Buchanan's goofy advice on using race baiting to win elections. Just because people are white doesn't mean the respond well to bigotry. Even 65 year old Reagan Democrats like my Father.
I would have offered him a 1 year stint on a cotton farm, reproducing for him all that a slave would endure.
Would he do it himself? That would end the convo pretty qucikly I would imagine.
A cane plantation was reportedly much worse.
Right, perhaps a six month stint on a Caribbean cane plantation would do. We don't have to tell him how many were worked to death down there.
Actually the argument I would have went with is something along the lines of "Would you really think it would be fine if you had a job you couldn't quit and if the boss decided to send your wife and kids to another state there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it, nor would you have the freedom of movement to ever see them again?"
Or
"What if your boss could do what he wanted to your daughters and you had absolutely no recourse to stop him."
I probably wouldn't have used that last one. Speaking, even hypothetically, of someone's daughters getting raped during Thanksgiving dinner is too much for me.
interesting. i seem to recall reading an interview with huey newton when he lived in cuba for a few years. he said that he had volunteered to work in the cane plantations, and the people told him that he just would not be able to endure it. having grown up in a different climate, it would just be too much for him.
man--i read that decades ago. did i read that?
anyhow--yeah, cane plantations are tough. even for non-slave workers.
Sold down the river -- "The phrase originated in the Mississippi region of the USA during slave trading days. Domestic slaves were sold to plantation owners lower down the river where they usually suffered harsh treatment."
Because "down the river," in the heat of the delta they grew cane instead of cotton, and working with cane killed people pretty quickly.
For the health and well-being of individual slaves, I don't think that there's any question, the Caribbean sugar plantations were a good deal worse.
The difference in treatment, of course, was tied up in the differing economics of slavery. Importation of slaves was prohibited in the United States as of the late 18th century, which sharply increased the value of owned slaves as capital -- especially because slaves would reproduce. In the Caribbean, slaves were expendable.
And, of course, first response to these facts is "Southern Slavery wasn't that bad." And it is true, Southern slavery may have been comparatively humane; that is, discounting the realities of systematized rape, a commodification of sexuality, and the fact that your descendants were condemned to slavery as well.
As an institution it was far more pernicious than the Caribbean slave systems. Again, leaving aside the social and psychological distortions arising from owning your half-brother or half-sister, southern slavery became a far more stubbornly entrenched social system for the same reason that the slaves were treated comparatively well -- slaves were high-value investment vehicles for their owners... with the result that these owners were unlikely to accept movement to any other economic system.
And, indeed, some of the stubborness of our peculiar institution can be seen in the fact that ideologies of white supremacy -- the ideological underpinnings of the slavery in has persisted so long.
I'm trying to reply to Carrington- I'm curious about whether there was a wide disparity between the Caribbean islands as to the treatment of slaves. I worked on a paper back while I was in law school that suggested that, at least in the French caribbean, the slaves had it much better than in the mainland US, legally speaking. They could save up and buy their own freedom, marry each other, marry their masters, their masters would be punished for intentionally physically injuring them, etc. As far as I know, marriage between slaves and slaveowners was not uncommon- Alexandre Dumas pere was the grandson of a French Haitian colonist and his wife, a former slave. I'm wondering whether the dutch, english and spanish islands were in fact much worse, or whether the french situation in practice was not as good as it was in law.
Wow.
I remember a gal who checked groceries at a store I worked at when I was in High-school. Her grandparents owned a small tobacco farm. She said she never worked harder than she never worked harder than she did on that tobacco farm. She also said the worms were the ugliest things she ever saw in her life.
I also remember having a conversation with a cab driver in Augusta Ga. when I was stuck down there. He said that Tobacco was a man killing crop.
I don't know about your cousin, and I mean no offense,(here I go generalizing again I shouldn't, but I can't help myself) but many people who talk about the benefits of honest labor haven't done any honest labor.
My dad is fond of telling the story about when he went to Basic training in 1967 at Fort Polk. He said there were something like 15 uncomfortable Montanans, 11 uncomfortable North Dakotans, 8 Miserable Alaskans but the people who passed out from the heat were the white members of the Louisianna National Guard.
I know a lot of people that believe in the benefits of labor and how hard work builds character. However, usually, they call it work, and don't go around talking about labor unless it's to quote the bible on how "the laborer is worthy of his hire."
Generalize away my friend. He is an office manager for some kind of farm equipment sales company. Perhaps there is some hard work involved but I can't imagine he's breakin' rocks in the hot sun.
Uhhh...if it can be done by robots, it shouldn't be done by humans. It really _is_ terrible to waste minds.
I've done boring, repetitive, occasionally (but not usually) hard manual labour. I'll admit, when I was 11, I was proud of my callouses, and that I was able to help out my family in a minor way (but much more than any of my classmates)...but still, it's a tragedy that my father was stuck doing that most of his life.
And, of course, whether or not the labour is alienated really matters: I believe that the philosopher-turned-mechanical who is rounding the books circuit lauding manual labour is actually more speaking to the benefits of working for yourself---it can be much better being ordered around by Necessity than by middle management.
Wow, talk about timing. Speakingof myths. I just got this obit from the NYT.
Kenneth Stamp, a pioneering Civil War/Slavery historian just died at 96.
The most shoicking thing about the obit is that until his two most famous books the MYTH o fthe happy, stupid, docile, happy slave was still the dominant historical record on slavery. And that was in the middle of the 20th century.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/arts/15stampp.html?hpw
My question to anyone who brings up the "Black Confederate Soldiers" canard is "Why weren't any of them killed or captured in Confederate uniform?"
If these black CSA enlistees existed (which of course they didn't) they'd have had to be super-soldiers of Captain American intensity, able to mow down the enemy without ever being defeated. Which of course would lead to their having been mentioned more by their foes.
However, one other possible explanation may be found here:
http://obab.blogspot.com/2008/01/blog-post.html
That comic is great! Thanks for linking to it!
Dude that cartoon is awesome. I'm posting it tomorrow.
Private R.M. Doswell was hastening back to his unit after carrying an order when something attracted his attention. The young Virginian had just spotted one of the new Confederate companies of black soldiers, "a novel sight to me." the black Confederates were guarding a wagon train near Amelia Court House on the retreat from Richmond.
Doswell reined in about 100 yards to the rear of the wagon train and watched in fascination as a Union cavalry regiment formed up to charge. The black Confederates fired their weapons like veterans and drove back the overconfident Federals. The horse soldiers re-formed for another charge. This time they broke up the wagon train and scattered the defenders. The black soldiers were captured and disarmed. Doswell suddenly realized his own danger and rode away without being noticed. The date was April 4, 1865. (Article by Charles Rice, America's Civil War, November 1995)
The following is a list of 4 soldiers captured at Ft. Fisher when it fell to Union troops
in January 1865:
Charles Dempsey, Private, Company F, 36th NC Regiment, Negro. Captured at Ft. Fisher
and confined at Point Lookout, Md., until paroled and exchanged at Coxes Landing, Va.
14-15 Feb 1865. (Taken from North Carolina Troops, Volume I)
Henry Dempsey, Private, Company F, 36th NC Regiment, Negro. Captured at Ft. Fisher
and confined at Point Lookout, Md., until paroled at Coxes Landing, Va. 14-15 Feb 1865.
(Taken from North Carolina Troops, Volume I)
J. Doyle, Private, Company E, 40th NC Regiment, Negro, Captured at Ft. Fisher and
confined at Point Lookout, Md., until paroled at Boulware’s Wharf, Va. On 16 Mar 1865.
(Taken from North Carolina Troops, Volume I)
Daniel Herring, Cook, Company F, 36th NC Regiment, Negro. Captured at Ft. Fisher,
and confined at Point Lookout, Md. Until released after taking Oath of Allegiance June
19, 1865. (Taken from North Carolina Troops, Volume I)
Captain William C. Oates, later governor of Alabama and Congressional Rep, went to the Confederacy's capitol a few weeks after Lincoln signed the Proclamation and lobbied that the Confederate army's shortage of soldiers would be solved if slaves were allowed to enlist, with a promise that they would be given their freedom after the war.
As Glenn LaFantasie wrote in the definitive biography of Oates, Gettysburg Requiem, "Oates journey to Richmond produced shock, disbelief, and impolite sneers."
Evidence that the South was approaching the war from a fundamentally frivolous perspective.
CSA general James Cleburne did present a proposal to admit blacks into the CSA army, and was clear that this would involve freeing them and their families
See A Proposal For Negro Enlistments In The Confederate Army (http://www.civilwarhome.com/proposal.htm).
That said, it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere, other than putting a stop to Cleburne's CDA career (he was quite talented - on a par with Stuart in the East).
It does seem clear that this was the one thing the Confederates could have done that might have won the war.
Patrick Cleburne, I think you mean.
Yeah, this is total "lost cause" denial. I've heard a number of people make the same argument now and then.
It's even in the movie "Gone With the Wind" -- towards the end of the war the loyal, smiling slaves telling Scarlett, "we're going to fight for the South, miss". Or words to that effect. It always rang false to me.
If I remember my history, Lee wasn't as opposed to arming slaves as Davis and the Confederate government. Lee wasn't crazy about the idea, but he needed the men, and he was a realist. By that time they were throwing the VMI students into the front lines, there was nothing left. There was a quote in "Battle Cry of Freedom", some Confederate Senator protesting that if slaves could make reliable soldiers it would prove that the entire slave culture was wrong. Deep down, even those guys knew it was all catching up to them.
Let me go crazy here, but ...
because you can only defend the antebellum South through creating a mythologized alternate reality? And the actual history is too hard to examine faithfully?
I'm reminded of the episode of 30 Rock where Twofer, the only black writer on staff, is very proud of his ancestor who fought for the Union (as an officer no less), only to look closer at the picture and see that he was pictured with Robert E Lee and that he had fought for the Confederacy.
You know, I was doing some googling on something I saw on PBS - because I was sure I'd seen some descendants of a black confederate solider - and...
Well to heck with it, just follow the link, I won't try to summarize. Weary Clyburn's family briefly appeared on PBS's "Looking for Lincoln"
http://civilwarmemory.typepad.com/civil_war_memory/2008/07/another-black-confederate.html
Ta-Nehisi,
I think you are more or less correct. There are examples of slave owning free blacks in Louisiana and South Carolina trying to get commissions as officers in the CSA. Like you said, they were refused a commission. Clearly they had a vested interest in seeing the South win (at least initially) because their livelihood was invested in slaves, i.e., they were plantation owners.
I'd also like to not that myriad Confederate officers and politicians urged the CSA government to allow the conscripting of blacks into the army. A notable general a part from Robert E. Lee to do so was Patrick C. Cleburne an Irish immigrant who had resided in Arkansas prior to the War.
Regards,
Lyle
Bottom line, as has been pointed out, is that the Confederate government banned blacks from serving until a month before the war ended. If slavery was a good life, they wouldn't have fled in such large numbers to Sherman's lines as soon as he came through.
Lee, Grant, and Sherman probably shared the same personal views regarding black Americans. But the bottom line is one side was fighting to end slavery and the other was fighting to preserve it. Logically, which side would you be rooting for if you were a slave working under the lash all day in the fields? Confederate doesn't necessarily equal Nazi, but some facts are just facts.
Bert,
I didn't make a judgement call on the Confederacy or slavery or anything. I agree with Ta-Nehisi. I just wanted to add to what he initially wrote.
The facts is is that a handful of free blacks were plantation owners and owned a number of slaves. This is fact. This is history. I can't think of the men's names of the top of my head, but a free black slave owner in North Louisiana helped the Confederacy and tried to become an officer. Another free black plantation owner in the New Orleans vicinity tried to do the same thing. As id a man in the Colubmia, SC environs. None of these men fought for the Confederacy, but they did try to and, like Te-Nehisi wrote they were refused commissions.
If this doesn't jive with your view of history, so be it, but it is fact.
This is no way buttresses any "lost cause" argument either.
"More interesting to me is why the myth holds so much sway. I think it's an extension of the Lost Cause theology--if there were black regiments fighting for the Confederacy, the War couldn't have been about slavery."
I think you hit the nail on the head there. Its an attempt by the apologists to cover up the guilt over slavery and pretend things weren't all that bad. I think they do it because something in them longs for resolution with blacks, but they are unwilling to take the painful step of admitting how messed up slavery was.
Which just seems so ridiculous on the part of the apologists because the thing speaks for itself. So next questions: is it not accepted and understood how messed up slavery was; why the hangup on admitting that something that happened four generations ago was wrong?
I was alerted to this thread because my Google alert hit on "Mythology" of which I am a fan - both Greek and Roman.
Regardless, after having read the above, I will offer this...
In my experiences of reading historical books. I have from time to time seen references to Black Confederate Soldiers in numerous literature.
My mother had bought the entire Time Life series of the Civil War back in the 80s, of which I have read. I do remember some quotes it gave from soldier reports where they saw and gave accounts of black confederates shooting at them (Union)
I remember A QUOTE (SORRY MY CAPS ARE STUCK OPEN) ATTRIBUTED TO FREDERICK DOUGLAS SOMETHING TO THE EFFCT OF BLACKS IN THE CONFEDERATE ARMY HAVING BULLETS IN THIER POCKETS AND MUSKETS AT THE READY.
I HAVE ALSO SEEN SOME OF THE PLACES IN THE OFFICIAL WAR OF THE REBELLION THAT UNION SOLDIERS MENTION BLACKS BEING IN CONFEDERATE RANKS.
I AM NO STUDENT OF THAT TIME PERIOD, BUT I BELIEVE I HAVE SEEN ENOUGH WITH MY OWN EYES FROM ENOUGH CREDIBLE SOURCES TO MAKE ME STOP AND SAY - HEY!
T-N C has been writing about looking at people of this period in context. Louisiana examples should mandate a pause. Can you think of a place where race was a more complicated construct than New Orleans in 1860?
It would also seem false that there were the 60-90K "Black Confederates" that some people say there were. But could there have been 60-90K slaves compelled to serve in some capacity in the Confederate Army and Home Guards? And could a few thousand of those have been given rifles and told to lead the charge up yonder hill towards those big guns?
The South had a slave based economy...why wouldn't a large part of their war effort rely on slave labor? But the modern effort to recast slaves as Black Confederate Soldiers reeks Lost Cause. It's like saying Jews in WWII work camps were actually Reich supporters.
I can't imagine the set of mental and historical blinders these people have to construct to strip all context from these topics. The entire thing for these Lost Cause folks is THEIR troops fighting against INVADING troops between 1861-1865 and that's the end of it. Heavy on the magnolia trees, light on context. What compels someone to do that 145 years after the fact? And how many of these folks are walking around? Are we talking isolated nutters or is there a mess of these guys? That might be one of the more interesting things to figure out from talking about all of this.
I don't know if you already know about this blog, but over at Civl War Memory, Kevin Levin has done a lot of blogging about the myth of Black Confederates.
Lee wrote (above; don't have a button to reply directly to his post):
I'm gong to guess most of those guys are the descendants of white confederate soldiers and they are proud of their family history just like most other people are. The SCV isn't the Klan.
Agreed -- the SCV isn't the Klan. I have friends who are members, and I've been invited to present historical talks to the local SCV camp on several occasions.
But some of them are astonishingly tone-deaf when it comes to how they're perceived by others, particularly at the time I had closest contact a decade ago, when the national organization of the SCV seemed to be pretty much run by neo-secessionists. As an organization, they've completely and utterly bought into the "Lost Cause" theology, which I find a little nauseating.
I have Confederate ancestors myself, and I still haven't sorted out how I feel about them and their military service. It's difficult for me to separate their personal motives, feelings and beliefs -- which they undoubtedly saw as patriotic and noble -- with the larger, political cause they served, which was shameful. I'm reluctant to give a blanket condemnation to the actions of relatives I never knew, but then I can't praise them, either, and being proud of one's ancestors simply because they're one's ancestors seems kinda dumb.
I disagree with you Andy. You don't have to think the South was righteous in its cause to respect your ancestors who happened to be Southerners at the time and went to War against the Union for whatever reason/s. In fact I think most people probably respect their ancestors just for being their ancestors. The farther back, the leastt ashamed one becomes, I'd argue. I'm much more concerned with relatives having been segregationists, than slave owners or Confederate soldiers.
Furthermore, what would you have done if you had been a slave owner or yeoman white farmer in the South in 1861? Would you have fought? Would you have been slavery is wrong, hell no? Would you have felt compelled to enlist out of not being perceived a coward by your neighbors (the only people you probably know)?
You and I, nor any of us, were alive in 1861. I think it is unfair to apply our own feelings and reasoning on to ancestors who lived in a completely different world. You and I, and everyone else, would not have had the wisdom of the near 150 years of life that have passed since then to make the judgments we make today.
"You and I, and everyone else, would not have had the wisdom of the near 150 years of life that have passed since then to make the judgments we make today."
Here I am, stuck in my modern "widsom", and I can't figure it out. Say cotton, sugar and tobacco are the most important things in the world, like the proclamation says. Let's say that, in fact, the black race is, in fact, the only people who can cultivate them under the hot sun. Okay. Blacks have to grow cotton, sugar, and tobacco. Now why is it, again, that we have to steal the fruits of their labor from them?
I know it doesn't make sense to try to analyze a hoary old argument from my modern perspective, but I can't resist trying.
I respect the point about looking at your ancestors with some complexity, but this is a cop-out. Nazi war criminals lived in a different world than today. Moreover, it's quite likely that some of us, had we lived in Germany, would have lent, at the very least, our silent support. History has to teach you something. Some people were right and some people were wrong.
It's not like Frederick Douglass wasn't alive. It's not like there weren't people who believed that slavery was evil--a significant portion of the country actually did. Again, I understand the dilemma. But the CSA fought for a wholly evil cause. And many, many people knew it to be evil then. Re-read that Mississippi Declaration of Seccession.
I have no idea what I'd done if I were in their shoes. It doesn't much matter, either. Even if I'd done the wrong thing, I'd still have to stand in judgment before the God of History. Frederick Douglass and Robert E. Lee are not moral equals. One man escaped from slavery and tried to push the country down the right moral path. The other man, as chivalrous as he may have been, fought a war premised on white supremacy, and kidnapped, and sold free black (during his Northern campaigns) into slavery. You can't wash that away.
Also, it wasn't as if the abolitionist movement was in its infancy. Slave trading had already been banned decades prior. These were viewpoints that had been scrutinized for a long time, and required active upkeep on the part of the people holding onto them.
This is probably part of a bigger discussion on whether or not there is some sort of inherent morality in humans. If all moral reasoning is strictly culturally based, then we can't argue for one action being better than others. I personally think that there is something within us that guides our moral thinking beyond our cultural training. Lee, when ordering Norris to be whipped, still had roughly the same set of mirror neurons we all carry. I believe he was properly equipped with the neurological potential to realize that what he was doing was wrong.
I agree that the right side won the civil war; but I don't think history boils down to an easy good vs. evil dialectic. For instance, our ancestors might criticize us that we weren't more active in righting our environmental pillage or our indifference to the ills of the developing world. When Thoreau was arrested for refusing to pay taxes that would support the Mexican War, Emerson visited him in jail and said "What are you doing in there?" Thoreau responded "What are you doing out there?" I'm essentially Emerson. Sure, I vote liberal and try to recycle; but there is way more I could do to make the world a better place. Therefore, I'm weary of casting harsh judgments on past generations lest I be judged myself. I'm not a Confederate apologist by any means. I just don't think my own society is perfect.
I disagree Ta-Nehisi. The Nazi comparison is not apt because there are Nazis still alive today. They live amongst us. Just like people who voted for George Wallace and plenty of other segregationists do (Strom Thurmond even fought against the Nazis on D-Day... oh the complexity of life!). That was why I said I'm much more worried about family members having been segregationists, in the Klan, or a part of a White Citizens' Council.
One doesn't have to look down on their ancestors to know they were wrong or did wrong. I don't need to hate them to understand that the South was wrong or that waving the Confederate battle flag around is ignorant. Clearly the South was wrong to secede and slavery was an abomination. However, it was a legally and socially accepted abomination at the time (enshrined in America's holiest of hollies, our Constitution --- written by a slave owner no less) . Northern Democrats in 1861 weren't even that interested in freeing the slaves. As many Northerners cared about ending slavery as there were Southerners who cared about remaining loyal to the Union. Lincoln himself initially tried to stop the war by telling the South that he would not end slavery if they just would stay in the Union. Draft riots in the North in 1863 had mobs running around murdering any black person they could find on the street. All were wrong, but they all helped to make America what it is today. I'm just not going to spit on them for having existed whenever they existed (not being in my lifetime excepted).
Should we re-name everything named after Thomas Jefferson just because he didn't free all of his slaves cause they were to valuable to manumit? That's the point I'm getting at, I guess. Our animosity towards our ancestors can be take too far, and even made personal when it shouldn't be, in my opinion.
Thanks for the response man.
Lyle
Yeah....and they might be right.
I think this is the key right here. No one's asking you to hate your ancestors. No one's asking you to look down on them. I think that you process it that way, says quite a lot.
I think it is unfair to apply our own feelings and reasoning on to ancestors who lived in a completely different world. You and I, and everyone else, would not have had the wisdom of the near 150 years of life that have passed since then to make the judgments we make today.
Nuh-uh. History is about making judgments -- occasionally harsh moral judgments when the evidence requires them -- and that's true whether the subject is one's own ancestors or the whole, broad sweep of a conflict like the Civil War. People don't get a pass just because they've been dead a long time.
I agree entirely with the notion that the historian (formally trained or otherwise) has an obligation to try to understand the attitudes, words and actions of the past in the context of their place and time -- no argument there. And I also understand that those who fought for the Confederacy did so for a whole host of reasons that, to them, justified their actions. It's very complex stuff, which is why I myself have very conflicting views on my own family. But none of that changes the fact that, at the end of the day, the Confederacy itself was about preserving an odious and wicked institution. That doesn't change.
I don't want to agree with this statement Andy, "History is about making judgments". Why is history about making judgments? History is history, i.e., its whatever happened before now. It is what it is, good, bad, or ugly. At best we only really judge our own personal immediate history, like celebrating Anne Frank and never wanting anything like the Holocaust to happen ever again. I'm pretty comfortable in thinking slavery won't ever happen again in America, not so much about genocide.
We who are alive today make judgments. We can look back and say, ooh that was wrong, and live our lives differently which we do or don't do. I wasn't even born in a segregated South. That is how far the South has come today. It is hard to even fathom how bad it was at times. It happened though and we all need to recognize that, but recognizing what happened doesn't need to be a personal, self-flagellating experience. We don't need to get all iconoclastic on our ancestors (at least those we never knew cause it was nearly 150 years ago).
Do I still hate Scandinavians today? Those barbaric illiterates raped and pillaged my ancestral English home way back when. Killed most of my family. Raped all the women. Ate some of the children. Took all the gold.
Should I be mad about that today? Should I give those bastards a pass next time I'm in Copenhagen?
Arguably the residue of slavery still blights America today. So the genocidal Viking story is not really that germane, but hopefully you see where I'm going with this.
Meh. I have an ancestor, who I happen to share in common with President Obama, who was expelled from Plymouth Colony for arson, public nudity, and shooting someone's dog. I'm proud of him (Way to stick it to those stuck up pilgrim fuckers, gramps!). Maybe it's "kinda dumb," and maybe I'd be prouder to be descended from Gandhi or something, but I'm not, and family is family.
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery..."
That pretty much says it all. What's curious to me is that, being born and raised in the North, I've found rural towns where a lot of cars boast confederate flags. If you drive through the backwoods of western MA or northern NY, you can even find them hanging from the flagstaffs of houses. More than can reasonably be southern transplants displaying their 'heritage'. Why is that?
I think it's a not-too-subtle dig against all sort of folks. For instance, there's a car parked in the driveway next to the entrance of the synagogue my wife and I go to on occasion with a confederate flag on it. I'm too much of a cynic to see that as mere coincidence. Then again, I question how much of the Lost Cause theology is really sincere confusion, and how much is used intentionally used to cover up racist ideas.
Zaph wrote:
Then again, I question how much of the Lost Cause theology is really sincere confusion, and how much is used intentionally used to cover up racist ideas.
And then some Confederate flag displays (particularly of the bumper-sticker-and-ball-cap variety), have no more thought or intent behind them than an attempt at being contrarian, in the fuck-you-I'm-a-rebel-too sense. Not so much David Duke, as the Dukes of Hazzard.
Well that's true too. Like I said, I'm a bit of a cynic.
The Lost Cause theology has force in large part because it has great appeal on a deep, personal level for many, or most, of its adherents. Most of its followers I've encountered are heavily invested in the genealogy thing, and derive much of their own self-identity from their personal family history -- who their ancestors were, what they did, etc., even when they never knew them personally, or knew anyone who did. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, but it gets very dicey when those ancestors fought (for whatever reason or rationalization) for a cause that was, in the grand scheme, utterly indefensible morally. For those folks, there's great appeal in buying into the notion that there actually were tens of thousands of black Confederate soldiers, slavery wasn't really all that bad, and the history books are all just part of the larger Northern conspiracy to cover up the "truth." For many of these folks, I believe, the Lost Cause isn't so much about maintaining their ancestors' reputations -- it's about protecting their own.
"For many of these folks, I believe, the Lost Cause isn't so much about maintaining their ancestors' reputations -- it's about protecting their own."
I'd say this is largely true, but it's worth noting that these folks don't usually have much of a 'reputation' to begin with - we're talking poor, rural, and white. At least in Mass., nobody in the suburbs slaps a confederate flag bumper sticker on their mid-sized sedan. I think perhaps non-Southern displays of the confederate flag are more about having solidarity with people who are like oneself socioeconomically, regardless of the fact that their ancestors, if they fought, probably fought for the union. I get the feeling it's about ascribing some worth to oneself when no one else seems to. I'm not excusing it; I suspect the folks in question have some racial hangups as well.
"It's true, in the early stages of the War, some regiments made up of free blacks tried to form, but they were promptly refused."
It looks as though there were blacks willing to fight for the Confederacy. Are there any letters or diaries about why they tried?
My assumption is that they knew, just as well as the whites who refused them, that if blacks were soldiers, it would be much harder to deny blacks the status of human beings.
It wouldn't have been obvious at the time (especially to southerners) that the Confederacy was going to lose.
It looks as though there were blacks willing to fight for the Confederacy. Are there any letters or diaries about why they tried?
No doubt they were protecting their property. The concept of slaves as property, as opposed to human beings, had to be pretty powerful in the minds of slave owners by 1860, regardless of their ethnic background. The cultural tradition enforcing this belief had been rationalized and re-inforced by a relentless propaganda campaign dating back several decades.
One of the Nathan Bedford Forest quotes I haven't heard in recent discussion: "I went to war to keep my n******s, and would not have gone otherwise."
One of the scholarly books I was told about, but never had a chance to read, was a Phd thesis that traced the evolution of a German pacifist sect that moved to North Carolina back in the 18th Century. In Germany, they were fervently anti-war, anti-violence, anti-slavery. The book describes how, over the course of three or four generations, the people of this pacifist congregation became successful farmers, acquired slaves, and merged with the bellicose, righteously violent planter social class that took North Carolina out of the Union.
TNC,
I live in S.C. and can tell you that the Confederate Flag is a very big issue here at home. Even today, if you take a look at The State Newspaper's editorial section you will several Opinion articles discussing the NAACP's boycott of the Confederate flag. The ACC baseball tournament was pulled out of Myrtle Beach, SC just a few weeks ago because of the flag continuing to fly on statehouse grounds and folks lost their minds. Today's letters to the editor focus on the NAACP boycott and the Confederate flag. Some of us here in SC simply can't let it go.
The "States Rights" argument is how the "Heritage, not hate" folks typically defend the Confederacy. Here's just an example post from the discussion boards:
"Most of men that died for the Confederacy never directly profited from slavery and saw theirs as a fight for States Rights."
Yeah, right.
First, one must ask, "Uh, sir, what right, specifically, is it that your state is willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of its finest young men for? It wouldn't have anything to do with the right to hold other human beings as property, now would it?"
As for the average Confederate grunt, they were rarely fighting explicitly for slavery or for Constitutional principles. They were more often fighting, as one put it when asked why by a Union officer, "because you're down here." For the theory behind that, see David Kilcullen's book on counter-insurgency, THE ACCIDENTAL GUERRILLA.
Second, that whole "never directly profited" is a bit of a sleight of hand, as indirectly profiting is still, well, profiting. The psychological esteem gained by belonging to "the master race" *, the possibility and hope of entering the slave-owning class (or having a son do so), the system of race-control slavery made possible, and the wealth generated by cotton, all made up a way of life that the non-slave-owners were deeply implicated in and protective of.
* Btw, you may wish to make room on your list for The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders, by James Oakes.
If one makes an assumption that the war of 1861-1865 was fought for slavery, then we must assume the Revoluntary War was also fought for slavery, because the British didn't have the institution of slavery and the American colonies did. So therefore, the American colonies must have been fighting to protect the institution of slavery.
If you celebrate or support the 4th of July, then you sir are also supporting the institution of slavery. Do you understand my logic?
When you see someone burning you're house or you're barn down, it makes you want to fight. That's where the phrase started, "Because you're down here" came from.
Many Southern people today feel that their defenders were the least unappreciated people in our Nation's history. Many Southern men rallied to the colors because they, like their neighbors and friends, were bothered by Lincoln’s invasion. They showed up when they heard the summons of the fife and drum, and they eventually found themselves locked in that terrible four-year ordeal. They persisted to the finish, or to their deaths, out of a sense of duty & devotion they cherished more than life itself.
I cannot judge the Southern men by defending their homes and firesides, as their grandpa's had also done in 1776. Were the Patriots of 1776 during the British invasion not labeled as guerrilla's as well?
TNC,
Read, assuming you haven't already, Du Bois' essay "The Propaganda of History."
He discusses the history of the Reconstruction and touches on the point you made here.
You ARE wrong. There is, of course, the 54th Massachusetts action at Fort Wagner, depicted in the movie Glory. There was also the Fort Pillow Massacre in 1864. Black soldiers fought on both sides at Petersburg, and the only reason the black regiment did not lead the Union charge at the Crater is because the commanding officer feared racial blowback should the attack fail. A number of records of participation in the war vanished with the advent of Jim Crow around the turn of the 20th century. You can find records where "soldier" is crossed out and "body servant" written in its place.