Truthmatters
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- May 10, 2007
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- #21
Slavery In The Civil War Era
The slave owners, for their part, were reluctant to send their bondsmen to the front for two reasons. First, they risked the loss of their most valuable property, and, second, because the men were usually overworked and mistreated, they frequently returned to their homes in very poor physical condition. Thus, the owners often contrived to send only their most unmanageable and therefore least marketable slaves to the army. During the war, threatening to send a slave to the front became the disciplinary equivalent of threatening to sell a slave farther South in antebellum days. Ironically, as the South's cause became more desperate, masters were increasingly reluctant to send their slaves to the military. Slavery was dying, yet those with the most to lose hung on tenaciously to their human property, thereby withholding the one remaining resource that might have saved their nation--and them.
The exigencies of war also finally settled the decades-old debate as to whether slaves could be used safely and efficiently in industry. The shortage of white manpower left the South with no other choice than to put slaves to work in its factories and mines. In the Tredegar Iron Works of Richmond alone, thousands of slaves were employed. The Augusta munitions plants of Georgia likewise were primarily staffed by bondsmen. Thousands of others labored in the ultimately futile effort to keep Southern rail lines operating. As with service on the front lines, this labor--especially in extractive industries like the coal mines and salt factories--was harsher than life on the plantation, and slaves resisted it if they could. Many made the long-delayed decision to run away when faced with such dire prospects.
The slave owners, for their part, were reluctant to send their bondsmen to the front for two reasons. First, they risked the loss of their most valuable property, and, second, because the men were usually overworked and mistreated, they frequently returned to their homes in very poor physical condition. Thus, the owners often contrived to send only their most unmanageable and therefore least marketable slaves to the army. During the war, threatening to send a slave to the front became the disciplinary equivalent of threatening to sell a slave farther South in antebellum days. Ironically, as the South's cause became more desperate, masters were increasingly reluctant to send their slaves to the military. Slavery was dying, yet those with the most to lose hung on tenaciously to their human property, thereby withholding the one remaining resource that might have saved their nation--and them.
The exigencies of war also finally settled the decades-old debate as to whether slaves could be used safely and efficiently in industry. The shortage of white manpower left the South with no other choice than to put slaves to work in its factories and mines. In the Tredegar Iron Works of Richmond alone, thousands of slaves were employed. The Augusta munitions plants of Georgia likewise were primarily staffed by bondsmen. Thousands of others labored in the ultimately futile effort to keep Southern rail lines operating. As with service on the front lines, this labor--especially in extractive industries like the coal mines and salt factories--was harsher than life on the plantation, and slaves resisted it if they could. Many made the long-delayed decision to run away when faced with such dire prospects.
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