The Touchy Subject of Black Confederate Soldiers

[Zincwarrior]

Here we see more white racist dishonesty. Slaves fought for the Confederacy. There were not all that many. Why? Because their masters made them.

Again, there were more free blacks fighting for the Union, then all the CSA armies combined.

 

[22lcidw]

My grandfather fought for the Kaiser in WWI.

I'm not terribly proud of that, given what an absolutely useless war that was.

I've never gotten this love people in the South have for the Confederacy. That sounds more like something you should be embarrassed about.

The then globalists wanted war. Consolidation of their power was the goal. WW1achieved the framework from their work before it. The suffering globally from WW 1 to the end of WW 2 just alone was of hell. In 1945 the globalists forged their permanent foundation no matter what happens. What was bequeathed to the citizens of the United States was abridged and potentially given to others on the planet. We did not notice since we were the power of a disrupted world and suffered through a great depression before the war. For a quarter century after the war things were bright as the planet retooled. And we helped it along as magnanimous conquerors. Then the changeover happened in the early 1970's.

 

[Correll]

Blacks serving as soldiers would show that blacks are equal to whites.
No way the Confederacy would allow that

Well, lord knows that no government has every done a pragmatic thing that clashed with their stated ideology.

 

[IM2]

Again, there were more free blacks fighting for the Union, then all the CSA armies combined.

That is a fact that gets left out when people choose to write sentences to take things out of context to start a dishonest conversation..

 

[Correll]

Again, there were more free blacks fighting for the Union, then all the CSA armies

combined.

How is that relevant?

 

[mikegriffith1]

Please to provide muster rolls/official unit designations of black CSA troops in any branch of CSA service.....Other than one-offs you can't because blacks serving on the unit level for the CSA are nonexistent.

Let's revisit this silly dodge. You make no effort to address a single item of evidence presented in my article (I suspect you didn't bother to read it--if you did, then your dodge is even more inexcusable). Instead, you make the vacuous, evasive argument that muster rolls/unit designations must record black Confederate soldiers or else they must not have existed. One of your fellow liberals added the equally silly argument that black Confederate soldiers would have been mentioned in Confederate records in the Official Records if they had existed.

As I've already noted in previous replies, there are far, far fewer Confederate records than Union records in the Official Records. This is due to several factors: the destruction of many Confederate records toward the end of the war, the increasingly severe paper shortages that plagued the Confederacy, and the battlefield realities that made it hard for Confederate units to produce reports the way Union units did.

But there is another key point about Confederate records and black Confederate soldiers: there would be no national Confederate government records on black Confederates because the national government did not authorize the recruitment of blacks until early 1865. Until then, the recruitment of black soldiers was done by states and by individual commanders.

For example, in June 1861, the governor of Tennessee authorized the enrollment of free Black men aged 15-50 for service, and some appeared in Tennessee regiments by September. And, starting in 1861, free blacks in New Orleans formed the Louisiana Native Guards, which was accepted into state service in 1861 before the city fell to Union forces.

I don't mention these two facts in my article because my article specifies that it presents "some" of the evidence that several thousand blacks voluntarily fought for the Confederacy. Presenting all the evidence on this point would require a book, and in fact several books have been written on the subject, such as the following:

-- Dr. Phillip Thomas Tucker's book Blacks in Gray Uniforms: A New Look at the South's Most
Forgotten Combat Troops 1861-1865, America Through Time, 2018.

-- Charles Barrow, J.H Segars, and R.B. Rosenburg, Black Confederates, Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, 2004.

-- Richard Rollins, editor, Black Southerners in Gray: Essays on Afro-Americans in Confederate Armies, Southern Heritage Press, 1994.

-- Ervin Jordan, Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia, University of Virginia Press, 1994. I might add that Ervin Jordan is black and is a professor of history at the University of Virginia.

See also chapter 5 in Isaac Bishop/Jeb Smith's book Defending Dixie's Land: What Every American Should Know about the South and the Civil War, Shotwell Publishing LLC, Kindle Edition, pp. 165-185. I should add that I disagree with many of the author's arguments, especially his attacks on Lincoln and the North, but his chapter on black Confederate combat troops is solid.

 

[JoeB131]

Why should the South be forced to live with Lincoln. He wasn't even on the ballot in ten Southern States. He got no votes, ZERO, ZIPPO, from those states. I mean today the right gets riled up because Biden won with so many million votes, imagine if he had won with ZERO votes from the South.

Uh, he won the election. The North didn't secede when Slave-rapists because president. (Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, to name a few.)

And yes, the election of 1860 was kind of a circus but damn, look into the Republican Convention of 1860. There was some bigtime back room negotiation going on.

Um, that's how all parties did it back then.

Evidently, it was much harder to beat those bunch of inbreds than Lincoln and his generals thought, let alone the ignorant Northern public. In the end, it came down to railroads, production capacity, and cannon fodder.

Well, no, it was only because McClellan was a chicken-shit

Now you are just being ignorant. The Astors, Vanderbilts, Jay Cook, the Baldwins, there was far more wealth in the North. And look at the policies of the time. Tariffs provided the bulk of financing and who paid the bulk of those tariffs? Those railroads that were so instrumental in the Northern victory, they were massive wealth extracting devices specifically targeting the plantation society of the South.

Yeah, but where did that wealth come from in the North? It came from entrepenuership and free labor.

And ironic, you mention tthe English Civil War and Incest in the same paragraph. Prior to the Civil Wars there were 30 "degrees" of incest. Afterwards, it was cut to eleven. Sorry, but the Puritans of New England don't get a free pass on incest.

I mean right off the bat, the first question, why could America not have endured as a loose federation of mostly independent states? In no small way we had already solved that problem with the Constitution. That is as far as I am willing to push federal power. The expansion after the Civil War is unacceptable. Taxing power, the Federal Reserve, even the immigration issue.

Nope. America only became a great country when we strengthened the Federal government.

But, did some young son of a plantation owner show up, immediately granted a commission, with a slave Aide-de-Camp? You damn skippy they did. That is what the OP is explaining, blacks riding with Generals? Well yeah, damn skippy. Did the General "own" them? Probably. Were they promised freedom for their service? Well yes, just like during the American Revolution.

Except those people weren't freed, either.

The OP isn't talking about some house negro who carried his massa's laundry. He was claiming there were whole units of black people

 

[JoeB131]

The then globalists wanted war. C

Sorry, I can't take anyone who says the word "Globalist" seriously.

 

[Zincwarrior]

How is that relevant?

It shows that the OP's argument is utterly meaningless.

 

[Winston]

Uh, he won the election. The North didn't secede when Slave-rapists because president. (Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, to name a few.)

Come on, were all those slave-rapist presidents on the ballot in all the states?

Um, that's how all parties did it back then.

No, actually the Republican Convention of 1860 was especially replete with back door meetings.

Well, no, it was only because McClellan was a chicken-shit

You think? Or maybe all that back room dealing, all those government contracts, led to some poor use of financial resources.

Yeah, but where did that wealth come from in the North? It came from entrepreneurship and free labor.

And none of it came from slave labor? How disillusioned can you be? It has been estimated that a full 40% of all cotton revenue went to New York City. Shipping charges, insurance companies, and financial firms.

Nope. America only became a great country when we strengthened the Federal government.

Except those people weren't freed, either.

The OP isn't talking about some house negro who carried his massa's laundry. He was claiming there were whole units of black people

It is not the government that made this nation great. It is the people. Too many people have forgotten that and now take our freedoms for granted, or worse, are willing to trade them away.

 

[IM2]

Let's revisit this silly dodge. You make no effort to address a single item of evidence presented in my article (I suspect you didn't bother to read it--if you did, then your dodge is even more inexcusable). Instead, you make the vacuous, evasive argument that muster rolls/unit designations must record black Confederate soldiers or else they must not have existed. One of your fellow liberals added the equally silly argument that black Confederate soldiers would have been mentioned in Confederate records in the Official Records if they had existed.

As I've already noted in previous replies, there are far, far fewer Confederate records than Union records in the Official Records. This is due to several factors: the destruction of many Confederate records toward the end of the war, the increasingly severe paper shortages that plagued the Confederacy, and the battlefield realities that made it hard for Confederate units to produce reports the way Union units did.

But there is another key point about Confederate records and black Confederate soldiers: there would be no national Confederate government records on black Confederates because the national government did not authorize the recruitment of blacks until early 1865. Until then, the recruitment of black soldiers was done by states and by individual commanders.

For example, in June 1861, the governor of Tennessee authorized the enrollment of free Black men aged 15-50 for service, and some appeared in Tennessee regiments by September. And, starting in 1861, free blacks in New Orleans formed the Louisiana Native Guards, which was accepted into state service in 1861 before the city fell to Union forces.

I don't mention these two facts in my article because my article specifies that it presents "some" of the evidence that several thousand blacks voluntarily fought for the Confederacy. Presenting all the evidence on this point would require a book, and in fact several books have been written on the subject, such as the following:

-- Dr. Phillip Thomas Tucker's book Blacks in Gray Uniforms: A New Look at the South's Most
Forgotten Combat Troops 1861-1865, America Through Time, 2018.

-- Charles Barrow, J.H Segars, and R.B. Rosenburg, Black Confederates, Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, 2004.

-- Richard Rollins, editor, Black Southerners in Gray: Essays on Afro-Americans in Confederate Armies, Southern Heritage Press, 1994.

-- Ervin Jordan, Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia, University of Virginia Press, 1994. I might add that Ervin Jordan is black and is a professor of history at the University of Virginia.

See also chapter 5 in Isaac Bishop/Jeb Smith's book Defending Dixie's Land: What Every American Should Know about the South and the Civil War, Shotwell Publishing LLC, Kindle Edition, pp. 165-185. I should add that I disagree with many of the author's arguments, especially his attacks on Lincoln and the North, but his chapter on black Confederate combat troops is solid.

Your claim is dishonest, and just because you cite from a black professor doesn't change the dishonesty. Several thousand blacks did not volunteer, and most of the blacks in the Confederate army were in service details such as cooks and other non combat jobs. Also, as slaves, they were forced to serve; there were more contrabands than blacks who fought for the Confederacy. These are facts not some white --- fiction made up to try making it look like blacks fought to remain slaves.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Once again, we see resident liberals refusing to deal with facts they can't explain. 1srelluc (who views the obscene and fringe "Hitler wasn't the problem" JoeB131 as a credible critic of the OP), Zincwarrior, Seymour Flops, IM2, and rightwinger have all summarily dismissed my article--probably without even reading it--and have not addressed a single item of evidence presented in the article.

Here is some of the evidence documented in my article that the liberal replies have refused to address:

* An official report by Lewis Steiner, the chief of the U.S. Sanitary Commission for the U.S. Army of the Potomac. Steiner said he saw about 3,000 black Confederate combat troops in Stonewall Jackson's army while it marched through Frederick, Maryland.

* A battle report by Colonel Peter Allabach, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 131st Pennsylvania Infantry. Allabach reported that his forces encountered black Confederate soldiers during the Battle of Chancellorsville.

* A battle report by General David Stuart, commanding officer of the Fourth Brigade and Second Division in General Sherman's army. Stuart noted that black Confederate soldiers had caused considerable casualties among his soldiers. He even identified the Confederate army units to which the black soldiers belonged.

* Frederick Douglass, a former slave and a leading Northern abolitionist. He warned that there were “many” blacks in the Confederate army who were armed and “ready to shoot down” Union soldiers. He added that this was "pretty well established."

* A book by Christian A. Fleetwood, who had been a sergeant-major in the 4th U.S. Colored Troops. He acknowledged that the South began using blacks as soldiers before the Union did.

* Diary entries by Union soldiers and letters from Union soldiers written to family members or newspapers reporting that their units had encountered black Confederate combat troops.

* Northern newspaper accounts stating that some blacks were serving in the Confederate army as combat soldiers.

Again, not a single liberal in this thread has addressed even one of these items of evidence. The only argument that two of them have put forward is the lame and disingenuous argument that since Confederate records in the Official Records do not mention black soldiers, they must not have existed. Right, never mind that the Confederate records in the Official Records are fragmentary at best, that a huge amount of Confederate records were destroyed toward the end of the war, that the Confederacy suffered from an increasingly severe paper shortage starting in June 1861, and that battlefield factors made it hard for Confederate units to produce reports the way the Union unit were able to do (even if they'd had an abundant supply of paper).

As for JoeB131, I don't list him among the liberals because few serious liberals would consider him to be one of them, and because his views are so nutty and bizarre that they embrace sleazy claims made by extremists from both ends of the spectrum. Some of his views are neo-Nazi and Jihadist, while some of his other views come straight out of Soviet and Communist Chinese propaganda.

For example, JoeB131 has argued in this very forum that "Hitler wasn't the problem" (that's an exact quote), that the Nazis had valid reasons for hating the Jews, that the Jews sabotaged Germany after WWI (the Nazis invented that lie, and JoeB131 knows it but keeps repeating it anyway), that Israel purposely attacked the USS Liberty in 1967 (never mind that all U.S. Government investigations have concluded it was an accident), that Jews controlled the Navy Court of Inquiry investigation into the USS Liberty incident, that Mao was less brutal than Chiang Kai-shek, that there was no such nation as Free China, that Red China was a better place to live than Free China, that Stalin did not murder tens of millions of Russians, that Hamas is the victim and Israel is the aggressor, that Hamas-run Gaza is a better place to live than Israel, that there's an international Zionist conspiracy, that Jesus never existed, that U.S. intelligence was following and harassing the mentally disturbed pro-Chinese propagandist Iris Chang, and on and on I could go.

 

[Correll]

It shows that the OP's argument is utterly meaningless.

In what way?

 

[Zincwarrior]

In what way?

Small formations, potentially via draft, vs. several hundred thousand volunteers on the Union side, risking enslavement if captured.

 

[Correll]

Small formations, potentially via draft, vs. several hundred thousand volunteers on the Union side, risking enslavement if captured.

That was just you repeating the data, no explanation on how it was relevant....

Oh, you're playing dumb, you know that the data presented is irrelevant to this thread, and you are just pretending to be too stupid to realize that, so you can keep spamming .... your... point? Such as it is...


Got it.

 

[Zincwarrior]

That was just you repeating the data, no explanation on how it was relevant....

Oh, you're playing dumb, you know that the data presented is irrelevant to this thread, and you are just pretending to be too stupid to realize that, so you can keep spamming .... your... point? Such as it is...


Got it.

No. The size of the voluntary enlistments vs. slave impressment invalidates the argument that you are trying, that slaves supported the CSA too.

 

[Correll]

No. The size of the voluntary enlistments vs. slave impressment invalidates the argument that you are trying, that slaves supported the CSA too.

I've made no such argument. I haven't seen anyone make that argument.

Are you..Oh, you are just shit talking.

 

[JoeB131]

You think? Or maybe all that back room dealing, all those government contracts, led to some poor use of financial resources.

Nope, I put all the blame on McClellan, a guy who probably should have been shot for treason or incompetence.

And none of it came from slave labor? How disillusioned can you be? It has been estimated that a full 40% of all cotton revenue went to New York City. Shipping charges, insurance companies, and financial firms.

Um, so what?

It is not the government that made this nation great. It is the people. Too many people have forgotten that and now take our freedoms for granted, or worse, are willing to trade them away.

Got to disagree with you. America was a backwards country before Lincoln, and became a great one after him.

As for JoeB131, I don't list him among the liberals because few serious liberals would consider him to be one of them, and because his views are so nutty and bizarre that they embrace sleazy claims made by extremists from both ends of the spectrum. Some of his views are neo-Nazi and Jihadist, while some of his other views come straight out of Soviet and Communist Chinese propaganda.

Nope, I'm just not someone who buys propaganda as history. But it's nice to see I live in your head, rent free.

For example, JoeB131 has argued in this very forum that "Hitler wasn't the problem" (that's an exact quote), that the Nazis had valid reasons for hating the Jews, that the Jews sabotaged Germany after WWI (the Nazis invented that lie, and JoeB131 knows it but keeps repeating it anyway),

Yawn, guy, you keep whining about this statement, but you never really can debate it.

Yes, 70 million Germans just went crazy one day. There was no provoking incident at all.

If you want to understand why Germany turned on the Jews, just look at what is happening now with undocumented immigrants.

(the Nazis invented that lie, and JoeB131 knows it but keeps repeating it anyway),

The Nazis didn't invent that..

1919 Austrian Postcard.

Long before there was a single Nazi in sight. Germans saw what was done to them.

Wasn't just Hitler, it was Hindenburg and Ludendorff who stated that.

that Israel purposely attacked the USS Liberty in 1967 (never mind that all U.S. Government investigations have concluded it was an accident), that Jews controlled the Navy Court of Inquiry investigation into the USS Liberty incident,

Um, okay, if you really need to believe they don't run our government, then you are delusional.

that Mao was less brutal than Chiang Kai-shek, that there was no such nation as Free China, that Red China was a better place to live than Free China,

What was the infant mortality rate in Nationalist (not "Free" China)?
The literacy rate?
Life Expectancy?

What are those numbers now?

that Jesus never existed,

Quick, what year was Jesus born? Was it 4 BCE or 6 AD? Matthew says one, Luke says another.

that U.S. intelligence was following and harassing the mentally disturbed pro-Chinese propagandist Iris Chang, and on and on I could go.

We know that Bush spied on Americans; this isn't even in dispute.

 

[JoeB131]

Here is some of the evidence documented in my article that the liberal replies have refused to address:

* An official report by Lewis Steiner, the chief of the U.S. Sanitary Commission for the U.S. Army of the Potomac. Steiner said he saw about 3,000 black Confederate combat troops in Stonewall Jackson's army while it marched through Frederick, Maryland.

Because it's anecdotal. What you need are actual records of units.

* A battle report by Colonel Peter Allabach, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 131st Pennsylvania Infantry. Allabach reported that his forces encountered black Confederate soldiers during the Battle of Chancellorsville.

Um, again, anecdotes aren't evidence. People have claimed they've seen UFO's, Bigfoot, and Elvis working at the 7/11.

Again, not a single liberal in this thread has addressed even one of these items of evidence. The only argument that two of them have put forward is the lame and disingenuous argument that since Confederate records in the Official Records do not mention black soldiers, they must not have existed. Right, never mind that the Confederate records in the Official Records are fragmentary at best, that a huge amount of Confederate records were destroyed toward the end of the war, that the Confederacy suffered from an increasingly severe paper shortage starting in June 1861, and that battlefield factors made it hard for Confederate units to produce reports the way the Union unit were able to do (even if they'd had an abundant supply of paper).

Wow. So it was a lack of paper?

The confederates had plenty of paper to print up useless money, they most certainly would have kept records of black units if they existed.

Keep in mind, once the war had become a war to end slavery, the existence of a black unit would have been a propaganda coup for the South, which was so desperate for help it started floating an end to slavery to England and France in exchange for recognition.

But you forget the most important reason why there weren't black soldiers.

What kind of ******* idiot would fight to keep on being a slave?

 

[eagle7-31]

Once again, we see resident liberals refusing to deal with facts they can't explain. 1srelluc (who views the obscene and fringe "Hitler wasn't the problem" JoeB131 as a credible critic of the OP), Zincwarrior, Seymour Flops, IM2, and rightwinger have all summarily dismissed my article--probably without even reading it--and have not addressed a single item of evidence presented in the article.

Here is some of the evidence documented in my article that the liberal replies have refused to address:

* An official report by Lewis Steiner, the chief of the U.S. Sanitary Commission for the U.S. Army of the Potomac. Steiner said he saw about 3,000 black Confederate combat troops in Stonewall Jackson's army while it marched through Frederick, Maryland.

* A battle report by Colonel Peter Allabach, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 131st Pennsylvania Infantry. Allabach reported that his forces encountered black Confederate soldiers during the Battle of Chancellorsville.

* A battle report by General David Stuart, commanding officer of the Fourth Brigade and Second Division in General Sherman's army. Stuart noted that black Confederate soldiers had caused considerable casualties among his soldiers. He even identified the Confederate army units to which the black soldiers belonged.

* Frederick Douglass, a former slave and a leading Northern abolitionist. He warned that there were “many” blacks in the Confederate army who were armed and “ready to shoot down” Union soldiers. He added that this was "pretty well established."

* A book by Christian A. Fleetwood, who had been a sergeant-major in the 4th U.S. Colored Troops. He acknowledged that the South began using blacks as soldiers before the Union did.

* Diary entries by Union soldiers and letters from Union soldiers written to family members or newspapers reporting that their units had encountered black Confederate combat troops.

* Northern newspaper accounts stating that some blacks were serving in the Confederate army as combat soldiers.

Again, not a single liberal in this thread has addressed even one of these items of evidence. The only argument that two of them have put forward is the lame and disingenuous argument that since Confederate records in the Official Records do not mention black soldiers, they must not have existed. Right, never mind that the Confederate records in the Official Records are fragmentary at best, that a huge amount of Confederate records were destroyed toward the end of the war, that the Confederacy suffered from an increasingly severe paper shortage starting in June 1861, and that battlefield factors made it hard for Confederate units to produce reports the way the Union unit were able to do (even if they'd had an abundant supply of paper).

As for JoeB131, I don't list him among the liberals because few serious liberals would consider him to be one of them, and because his views are so nutty and bizarre that they embrace sleazy claims made by extremists from both ends of the spectrum. Some of his views are neo-Nazi and Jihadist, while some of his other views come straight out of Soviet and Communist Chinese propaganda.

For example, JoeB131 has argued in this very forum that "Hitler wasn't the problem" (that's an exact quote), that the Nazis had valid reasons for hating the Jews, that the Jews sabotaged Germany after WWI (the Nazis invented that lie, and JoeB131 knows it but keeps repeating it anyway), that Israel purposely attacked the USS Liberty in 1967 (never mind that all U.S. Government investigations have concluded it was an accident), that Jews controlled the Navy Court of Inquiry investigation into the USS Liberty incident, that Mao was less brutal than Chiang Kai-shek, that there was no such nation as Free China, that Red China was a better place to live than Free China, that Stalin did not murder tens of millions of Russians, that Hamas is the victim and Israel is the aggressor, that Hamas-run Gaza is a better place to live than Israel, that there's an international Zionist conspiracy, that Jesus never existed, that U.S. intelligence was following and harassing the mentally disturbed pro-Chinese propagandist Iris Chang, and on and on I could go.

Trying to discuss most anything with some of posters you listed is useless. They are in their own universe.