CONFEDERATES come in all COLOURS!!!!

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I challenge you to find evidence of widespread murders perpetrated by Union soldiers on Southern civilians.
While war breeds horrific tragedies, you will find nothing more than localized unauthrorized events that were the exception to the norm.

Furthermore, just because an invading army is destroying cities does not mean that the civilians will fight against that army. Italy in WW2 highlights this. Italy suffered over 145,000 civilian deaths in WW2, most coming from Allied bombing and in the crossfire over the Italian countryside that were caused by the Allied invasion. Yet the Italians welcomed the Americans as liberators, and even rebelled against the Nazis. Slaves in the Civil War could be just like Italians in WW2.

Sherman's march through the south.

My point was that if an army is burning down cities and murdering innocent people, there's good reason for those people to join the opposing army. That includes slaves.

 

[hopner33]

Sherman's march through the south.

My point was that if an army is burning down cities and murdering innocent people, there's good reason for those people to join the opposing army. That includes slaves.

Sherman's March to the Sea only demonstrates your assertion that the South's cities were burned. I never questioned that. One of the more interesting parts of the March to the Sea was that people were not targeted. Civilian causalities were low, especially in light of the infrastructural damage. Sadly I do not have access to my library and sources at the moment so I cannot post any excerpts. But if you have any sources claiming that Sherman targeted civilians (their person's, not property) I would like to see them.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Sherman's March to the Sea only demonstrates your assertion that the South's cities were burned. I never questioned that. One of the more interesting parts of the March to the Sea was that people were not targeted. Civilian causalities were low, especially in light of the infrastructural damage. Sadly I do not have access to my library and sources at the moment so I cannot post any excerpts. But if you have any sources claiming that Sherman targeted civilians (their person's, not property) I would like to see them.

The Real Lincoln by Thomas J. DiLorenzo goes into quite some detail on the subject.

 

[DiveCon]

Freed slaves were told they would be given land if they registered Republican, and of course they never were. They were also often intimidated or threatened if they tried to register as a Democrat.

why are you lying about this
thats not even remotely close to the truth

40 acres and a mule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[editec]

Sherman's march through the south.

My point was that if an army is burning down cities and murdering innocent people, there's good reason for those people to join the opposing army. That includes slaves.

Sherman ended up with a vast army of BLACKS following it to remain FREE from those poor White civilians who you claim (but will find difficult to actually prove) he and his army were slaughtering as war criminals.

YOu are so wildly overstating the support among Blacks, that's it would be amusing if I dind't think you actually believe it.

Please document for me the war crimes of Sherman, would you?

Was burning down Atlanta a war crime, in your opinion?

And if it was, then was firebombing Desden during WWII ALSO a war crime?

 

[we_ourselves]

Some freed slaves were given land, particularly in South Carolina, and to a lesser extent in Georgia and Mississippi, with the support of the Radical wing of the Republicans. Most of the land was taken away as the Democratic Party regained control of said states.

I would say the burnings of Atlanta and Dresden were crimes, and I don't doubt that some Blacks might have willingly joined the Confederate cause in response. It's also true that many more Blacks joined the Union Army or escaped to the Union side.

 

[Luissa]

Sherman's march through the south.

My point was that if an army is burning down cities and murdering innocent people, there's good reason for those people to join the opposing army. That includes slaves.

Giving the fact it was large debate in the south to even allow slaves to fight on their side, it wasn't really a case of the slave deciding they wanted to fight for the south. Most of the slaves who did fight for the south fought at the end and it had nothing to do with the mudering of innocent people. Like at the beginning of the thread only 13,000 african americans fought for the south to the unions 200,000. There was more then 13,000 probably more then double that in South Carolina alone at the time of the civil war.

 

[Sunni Man]

Black Confederates in the Civil War


Black Confederates? Why haven’t we heard more about them? National Park Service historian, Ed Bearrs, stated, “I don’t want to call it a conspiracy to ignore the role of Blacks both above and below the Mason-Dixon line, but it was definitely a tendency that began around 1910” Historian, Erwin L. Jordan, Jr., calls it a “cover-up” which started back in 1865. He writes, “During my research, I came across instances where Black men stated they were soldiers, but you can plainly see where ‘soldier’ is crossed out and ‘body servant’ inserted, or ‘teamster’ on pension applications.” Another black historian, Roland Young, says he is not surprised that blacks fought. He explains that “…some, if not most, Black southerners would support their country” and that by doing so they were “demonstrating it’s possible to hate the system of slavery and love one’s country.” This is the very same reaction that most African Americans showed during the American Revolution, where they fought for the colonies, even though the British offered them freedom if they fought for them.


It has been estimated that over 65,000 Southern blacks were in the Confederate ranks. Over 13,000 of these, “saw the elephant” also known as meeting the enemy in combat. These Black Confederates included both slave and free. The Confederate Congress did not approve blacks to be officially enlisted as soldiers (except as musicians), until late in the war. But in the ranks it was a different story. Many Confederate officers did not obey the mandates of politicians, they frequently enlisted blacks with the simple criteria, “Will you fight?” Historian Ervin Jordan, explains that “biracial units” were frequently organized “by local Confederate and State militia Commanders in response to immediate threats in the form of Union raids…”. Dr. Leonard Haynes, a African-American professor at Southern University, stated, “When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you’ve eliminated the history of the South.”


As the war came to an end, the Confederacy took progressive measures to build back up it's army. The creation of the Confederate States Colored Troops, copied after the segregated northern colored troops, came too late to be successful. Had the Confederacy been successful, it would have created the world's largest armies (at the time) consisting of black soldiers, even larger than that of the North. This would have given the future of the Confederacy a vastly different appearance than what modern day racist or anti-Confederate liberals conjecture. Not only did Jefferson Davis envision black Confederate veterans receiving bounty lands for their service, there would have been no future for slavery after the goal of 300,000 armed black CSA veterans came home after the war.

Black Confederates in the Civil War