The Touchy Subject of Black Confederate Soldiers

[JoeB131]

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

You mean a universe where black people didn't fight to remain slaves.

 

[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.

Military history of African Americans in the American Civil War - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

An abbreviated history of what you posted.

 

[eagle7-31]

You mean a universe where black people didn't fight to remain slaves.

Never said that. Try again.

 

[mikegriffith1]

The liberal replies in this thread are a sad example of the dogmatic bias toward any evidence that does not demonize the Confederacy. Judging from the replies, you'd think my article argues that hundreds of thousands of blacks voluntarily fought for the Confederacy. That is the strawman argument that many academics cite, even though no serious pro-Confederate authors make such a claim.

I've actually had amateur Southern heritage defenders attack my article because I put the number of black Confederate soldiers at no more than 7,000.

Compared to the size of the Confedetate army, 7,000 was a drop in the bucket. At its peak, the Confederate army had about 400,000 men in uniform. This number dropped to about 200,000 by late 1864/early 1865. So 7,000 black Confederate combat troops constituted a very tiny minority of the Confederate army, even in early 1865. In contrast, about 180,000 blacks voluntarily fought for the Union.

The fact that 3,000 to 7,000 blacks willingly fought for the Confederacy does not prove that Abraham Lincoln was wrong in issuing the Emancipation Proclamation or that slavery did not need to be abolished—nor does it mean that slavery was not the main reason the seven Deep South states seceded. What it does prove is that not all Confederate officers were monsters who were fighting to preserve slavery, and that some blacks felt loyalty to the South and viewed Union forces as invaders.

But for the likes of James McPherson, Eric Foner, Bruce Levine and other neo-Radical historians, the idea that even just 7,000 blacks volunteered to defend the Conederacy is so disturbing and threatening to their narrative that they cannot bring themselves to analyze the evidence in a reasonable, objective manner.

 

[JoeB131]

The liberal replies in this thread are a sad example of the dogmatic bias toward any evidence that does not demonize the Confederacy. Judging from the replies, you'd think my article argues that hundreds of thousands of blacks voluntarily fought for the Confederacy. That is the strawman argument that many academics cite, even though no serious pro-Confederate authors make such a claim.

I've actually had amateur Southern heritage defenders attack my article because I put the number of black Confederate soldiers at no more than 7,000.

First, we don't demonize the Confederacy enough. They did a truly shitty thing, and they really don't deserve to be lionized for it.
Second, your argument lacks documentary evidence to support it. Quite the contrary, the Confederacy for most of it's accursed existence, banned arming blacks, because they were terrified of what blacks might do if they were armed.

In fact, the Confederacy threatened to summarily execute black Union soldiers, and they did exactly that at Ft. Pillow.

Compared to the size of the Confedetate army, 7,000 was a drop in the bucket. At its peak, the Confederate army had about 400,000 men in uniform. This number dropped to about 200,000 by late 1864/early 1865. So 7,000 black Confederate combat troops constituted a very tiny minority of the Confederate army, even in early 1865. In contrast, about 180,000 blacks voluntarily fought for the Union.

Maybe so. So why isn't there a record of such a unit? Oh, wait, they didn't have enough paper, that's the ticket, yeah.

The fact that 3,000 to 7,000 blacks willingly fought for the Confederacy does not prove that Abraham Lincoln was wrong in issuing the Emancipation Proclamation or that slavery did not need to be abolished—nor does it mean that slavery was not the main reason the seven Deep South states seceded. What it does prove is that not all Confederate officers were monsters who were fighting to preserve slavery, and that some blacks felt loyalty to the South and viewed Union forces as invaders.

Except, they were all monsters.
And the South took its officer corps from the slave-owning class.

But for the likes of James McPherson, Eric Foner, Bruce Levine and other neo-Radical historians, the idea that even just 7,000 blacks volunteered to defend the Conederacy is so disturbing and threatening to their narrative that they cannot bring themselves to analyze the evidence in a reasonable, objective manner.

Because all you've presented is "I thought I saw someone once", instead of documented evidence of the existence of black units in the CSA.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Here's an interesting, and credible, article on black Confederates published by the national HQ of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and authored by Scott Williams, a responsible neo-Confederate researcher. Williams puts the number of black Southern combat troops at around 13,000. I go with a max of 7,000. Anyway, Williams presents evidence that I do not include in my article--as I've mentioned, my article only discusses "some" of the evidence on this point.

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, which began around 1910.” Historian, Erwin L. Jordan, Jr...

scv.org

 

[mikegriffith1]

It's worth reading Lewis Steiner's entire statement about the black Confederate combat troops whom he saw in Jackson's force because he went on to note that the presence of those troops was "interesting" when considered "in connection with the horror rebels express at the suggestion" of having blacks serve as soldiers in the Union army ("the National defense"):

Wednesday, September 10. At four o clock this morning the rebel army began to move from our town, Jackson s force taking the advance. The movement continued until eight o clock r. M., occupying sixteen hours. The most liberal calculations could not give them more than 6i,000 men. Over 3,000 negroes must be included in this number. These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn bv white men in the rebel ranks. Most of the negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabres, bowie-knives, dirks, etc. They were supplied, in many instances, with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, etc., and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde. The fact was patent, and rather interesting when considered in connection with the horror rebels express at the suggestion of black soldiers being employed for the National defense. (pp. 19-20)

You can find Steiner's whole report here:

https://dn721604.ca.archive.org/0/items/reportlewissteiner00steirich/reportlewissteiner00steirich_bw.pdf

BTW, Steiner's report was one of the hundreds of documents that did not get included in the Official Records.

Steiner's account of about 3,000 black combat troops in Stonewall Jackson's army poses the biggest problem for neo-Radical historians who can't bring themselves to admit that a few thousand blacks willingly fought for the Confederacy.

Steiner's account is quite detailed. He described the clothing worn by the black Confederate soldiers, their weapons, their modes of transportation, and their distribution among Jackson's force.

There is no rational, credible reason to believe that Steiner fabricated his account or that he was wildly errant in his estimate of the number of black Confederate soldiers whom he saw. Steiner's account occupies two pages of his official report to the U.S. Sanitary Commission on the Maryland Campaign of the U.S. Army of the Potomac. His report was deemed informative and worthwhile enough to merit publication to the general public.

Steiner was a highly credible source. He was a medical doctor and later served in the Maryland legislature. He earned his medical degrees from Marshall College, Pennsylvania. He was a professor of chemistry and natural history at Columbian College in DC, and a professor of chemistry and pharmacy at the National Medical College in DC in 1853. He also lectured on chemistry and physics in St. James College, Maryland.

During the Civil War, he was employed as an inspector by the United States Sanitary Commission, and for a period was in charge of its operations in the Army of the Potomac as chief inspector. It was in his capacity as chief inspector that he was in Frederick, Maryland, when Stonewall Jackson's army marched through the city.

After the war, Steiner became president of the Frederick County School Board in 1865 where he helped develop school facilities for African-American children. In 1871 he was elected by the Republicans to the Maryland Senate, representing Frederick County for four years. He was re-elected for a like term in 1875, and again in 1879. He served until 1884. From 1855 until 1858, he wrote articles for and edited The American Medical Monthly. And, he was an elder in the Reformed Church.

In a Civil War forum, one neo-Radical critic speculated that Steiner was drunk when he saw Jackson's army march through Frederick and that therefore he just imagined seeing black Confederate soldiers. When I asked him for his evidence that Steiner was drunk, he admitted he was purely speculating. This is the kind of baseless grasping you do when you let your ideology overrule your reason and judgment.

 

[JoeB131]

Steiner's account of about 3,000 black combat troops in Stonewall Jackson's army poses the biggest problem for neo-Radical historians who can't bring themselves to admit that a few thousand blacks willingly fought for the Confederacy.

Steiner's account is quite detailed. He described the clothing worn by the black Confederate soldiers, their weapons, their modes of transportation, and their distribution among Jackson's force.

What were the names of these 3000 black CSA soldiers?

Where are the records of their units?

There is no rational, credible reason to believe that Steiner fabricated his account or that he was wildly errant in his estimate of the number of black Confederate soldiers whom he saw. Steiner's account occupies two pages of his official report to the U.S. Sanitary Commission on the Maryland Campaign of the U.S. Army of the Potomac. His report was deemed informative and worthwhile enough to merit publication to the general public.

The problem here is that in the fog of war, a whole lot of things get misreported.

In a Civil War forum, one neo-Radical critic speculated that Steiner was drunk when he saw Jackson's army march through Frederick and that therefore he just imagined seeing black Confederate soldiers. When I asked him for his evidence that Steiner was drunk, he admitted he was purely speculating. This is the kind of baseless grasping you do when you let your ideology overrule your reason and judgment.

It was the 19th century. Everyone was drunk.

 

[mikegriffith1]

What were the names of these 3000 black CSA soldiers? Where are the records of their units?

WIth the understanding that I'm answering your driveling only for the sake of others, I again note that I've already addressed this flimsy dodge, three times now. We don't even have the names of many white Confederate soldiers, due to the fragmentary nature of the Confederate records that survived the war.

The problem here is that in the fog of war, a whole lot of things get misreported.

Nonsense. There was no "fog of war" involved. Steiner calmly and safely observed Jackson's army for over half an hour while it peacefully marched through Frederick. There was no combat involved in the march through the town. It was a peaceful, uneventful movement. He was under no stress from any fear of harm. He had ample time to observe and to note details. That's one reason his account is so detailed.

It was the 19th century. Everyone was drunk.

Steiner was a medical doctor, an academic, a church goer, and later a member of the Maryland state legislature.

If Steiner had reported that the only blacks in Jackson's army were clearly unarmed slaves who were marched under guard in the rear of the army, neo-Radical historians would be trumpeting his account would be citing Steiner's education, academic standing, church membership, and legislative service as strong evidence of his credibility. But, uh oh, instead, he matter-of-factly described, in great detail, seeing about 3,000 black Confederate combat troops, so defenders of the orthodox version of the war must either ignore his account or offer lame excuses for dismissing it.

 

[JoeB131]

WIth the understanding that I'm answering your driveling only for the sake of others, I again note that I've already addressed this flimsy dodge, three times now. We don't even have the names of many white Confederate soldiers, due to the fragmentary nature of the Confederate records that survived the war.

But we have records of MANY of them, that's the point. Not to mention all the Confederate Units that kept having reunions for decades after the war ended.

Nonsense. There was no "fog of war" involved. Steiner calmly and safely observed Jackson's army for over half an hour while it peacefully marched through Frederick. There was no combat involved in the march through the town. It was a peaceful, uneventful movement. He was under no stress from any fear of harm. He had ample time to observe and to note details. That's one reason his account is so detailed.

If they were marching peacefully, how did he know they were "combat troops"?

It should also be pointed out that Maryland was a slave state that only stayed in the Union because they were blocked from seceding. So any account from a Maryland official should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

Steiner was a medical doctor, an academic, a church goer, and later a member of the Maryland state legislature.

If Steiner had reported that the only blacks in Jackson's army were clearly unarmed slaves who were marched under guard in the rear of the army, neo-Radical historians would be trumpeting his account would be citing Steiner's education, academic standing, church membership, and legislative service as strong evidence of his credibility. But, uh oh, instead, he matter-of-factly described, in great detail, seeing about 3,000 black Confederate combat troops, so defenders of the orthodox version of the war must either ignore his account or offer lame excuses for dismissing it.

"Neo-Radical Historians"?

The problem is his account doesn't make any sense. If there were any blacks marching through Maryland, they'd be running for freedom.

 

[JoeB131]

This scholarly work demolishes the crap of revisionists like Mikey.

Searching for Black Confederates

More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free ...

uncpress.org

More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Kevin M. Levin argues in this carefully researched book, such claims would have shocked anyone who served in the army during the war itself. Levin explains that imprecise contemporary accounts, poorly understood primary-source material, and other misrepresentations helped fuel the rise of the black Confederate myth. Moreover, Levin shows that belief in the existence of black Confederate soldiers largely originated in the 1970s, a period that witnessed both a significant shift in how Americans remembered the Civil War and a rising backlash against African Americans’ gains in civil rights and other realms.

Levin also investigates the roles that African Americans actually performed in the Confederate army, including personal body servants and forced laborers. He demonstrates that regardless of the dangers these men faced in camp, on the march, and on the battlefield, their legal status remained unchanged. Even long after the guns fell silent, Confederate veterans and other writers remembered these men as former slaves and not as soldiers, an important reminder that how the war is remembered often runs counter to history.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Another key fact to keep in mind is that the Confederacy began to move toward gradual emancipation in November 1864 when none other than Jefferson Davis himself began to publicly call for it. Robert E. Lee quickly went public with his support for the program, as did CSA Secretary of State Judah Benjamin. Following Davis's call for emancipation, Southern newspapers received numbers letters to the editor endorsing the idea.

As usual, the slaveholder-dominataed Confederate Congress dragged its feat and did not pass authorizing legislation until March 13, 1865. The order that implemented the bill specified that slaves could not be forced to serve but had to volunteer and that slaveholders of slaves who volunteered had to acknowledge in writing that the slaves would be freed in exchange for their military service.

I should add that the bill required that black soldiers receive the same pay and rations as other soldiers and that they would serve in integrated units, not in segregated units.

We should keep in mind that the majority of Confederate army officers were not slaveholders, and that the vast majority of enlisted soldiers did not come from slaveholding households.

 

[JoeB131]

Another key fact to keep in mind is that the Confederacy began to move toward gradual emancipation in November 1864 when none other than Jefferson Davis himself began to publicly call for it. Robert E. Lee quickly went public with his support for the program, as did CSA Secretary of State Judah Benjamin. Following Davis's call for emancipation, Southern newspapers received numbers letters to the editor endorsing the idea.

As usual, the slaveholder-dominataed Confederate Congress dragged its feat and did not pass authorizing legislation until March 13, 1865. The order that implemented the bill specified that slaves could not be forced to serve but had to volunteer and that slaveholders of slaves who volunteered had to acknowledge in writing that the slaves would be freed in exchange for their military service.

Um, okay. let's look at this.

The legislation didn't happen until March 13th, 1865.

Lee Surrendered to Grant on April 9th, 1865.

So you are trying to tell me that in the less than a month where the Confederacy was getting its ass handed to it on a plate, there were some black people saying, "Hey, you know what I need to do, I need to sign up for the Confederate Army so I can get the freedom the North is already going to give me when they win!"

Myths & Misunderstandings | Black Confederates Archives- American Civil War Museum

Myth: Thousands of enslaved and free African American soldiers fought for the Confederacy For several decades, the question of whether or not …

acwm.org

As historians continue to mine records for evidence for and against the existence of “Black Confederates,” we know that no significant numbers of enslaved or free African-American men served in the Confederate Army as soldiers – as defined by commonly accepted criteria. Certainly their numbers and their military service was nothing to compare with the 200,000 African-American men who served in the U.S. Colored Troops.

 

[JoeB131]

There Was No Such Thing as a “Black Confederate.” So Why Is the Myth So Strong?

A new book uncovers the history of “body servants,” neo-Confederate propaganda, and one of the internet’s favorite racist memes.

slate.com

Spend any amount of time talking about slavery on the internet, and you’ll eventually encounter the claim that there were “black Confederates” that fought for the South. “Over the past few decades, claims to the existence of anywhere between 500 and 100,000 black Confederate soldiers, fighting in racially integrated units, have become increasingly common,” writes historian Kevin Levin in his new book, Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth.

“Proponents assert that entire companies and regiments served under Robert E. Lee’s command, as well as in other theaters of war.” Look, believers say (directly or subtextually): The Confederacy can’t have been so bad for black people. Otherwise, why would they have defended it?

Levin’s book explains how this myth came about—while neatly dismantling it. We spoke recently about actual Confederates’ perspectives on black soldiers; why former “body servants” attended Confederate reunions during Jim Crow; and how the World Wide Web gave this story legs.

Fast-forward to the civil rights era. The “black Confederates” myth blew up when the web got ahold of it. But the narrative the web amplified, you argue, was already percolating in the ’70s.

Yes, that’s right. Just to reiterate an important point, there was no reference during the war or even in the postwar period, through the 20th century, to the idea of “black Confederate soldiers.” In the seventies was when you see this shift from referring to these men as “body servants” to actual Confederate soldiers.

Coming out of the civil rights movement, new scholarship was beginning to filter down, historic sites were beginning to address the issues of slavery and emancipation, Roots was a hit, and we were starting to learn a bit about the United States Colored Troops in the Union Army. Neo-Confederates saw it as a threat, and they wanted to make sure they could balance the scales, if you will—and how do you do that? Go out and find your own brave black Confederates. The myth was percolating through the ’80s, responding to the success of the movie Glory, and also Ken Burns’ Civil War series—which, as Lost Cause–y as it is, they saw as a threat because it was dealing with slavery. And the public was eating it up. So the Neo-Confederates needed to come up with a response.

 

[mikegriffith1]

While liberals and the schizophrenic Hitler-whitewashing, Jew-hating, Israel-hating, Hamas-loving, Mao-loving JoeB131 cite the far-left journal Slate and neo-Radical historian Kevin Levin, here is one of the better scholarly articles on the evidence of black Confederate combat troops, authored by Shane Anderson:

Black Confederates in Reconstruction Newspapers – Abbeville Institute

www.abbevilleinstitute.org

Anderson, a careful researcher, focuses on evidence from a surprising source: Reconstruction-era newspapers.

I'd bet good money that most of those who are criticizing my article on black Confederates still have not read it, even though it is linked and discussed in the OP. For convenience, here's the link to my article again:

Black Confederates, Political Correctness, and a Virginia Textbook: Black Soldiers in the Confederate Army

Finally, I should add that when the Confederate Congress passed the bill authorizing slaves to enlist in the army in exchange for their freedom on March 13, 1865, no one knew the war would be over in a month. The Confederacy still had over 200,000 soldiers in the field, and still controlled most of Texas and substantial areas of six other Confederates states. Also, keep in mind that Jefferson Davis tried to start Confederate emancipation in November 1864, but the stubborn Confederate Congress dragged its feet for four crucial months.

 

[JoeB131]

While liberals and the schizophrenic Hitler-whitewashing, Jew-hating, Israel-hating, Hamas-loving, Mao-loving JoeB131 cite the far-left journal Slate and neo-Radical historian Kevin Levin, here is one of the better scholarly articles on the evidence of black Confederate combat troops, authored by Shane Anderson:

So says the Nanking Massacre Whitewashing, Confederate-loving, JFK Conspiracy Nut, Cultist MikeGriffth1.

Your arguments are absurd on their face. The South went to war SPECIFICALLY to keep black people enslaved. The revisionism was the lost cause mythology.

Are you going to demonize Kevin Levin the way you demonized poor Iris Chang?

I'd bet good money that most of those who are criticizing my article on black Confederates still have not read it, even though it is linked and discussed in the OP. For conveniene, here's the link to my article again:

Again, compared to your claim that the CIA mind-controlled Sirhan Sirhan and the Rape of Nanjing wasn't that bad, this is only moderately crazy.

 

[JoeB131]

Henry Louis Gates and PBS Fall For Black Confederate Myth…Again

Update: Early on in the production of this episode a producer with Finding Their Roots reached out to a reputable historian about the ongoing research into Martin Lamotte. In an email exchange that I have seen the producer was told specifically that the Louisiana Native Guard was never accepted...

cwmemory.com

This is one of the most common mistakes made by people who fall for the black Confederate myth. It is true that the men of the Native Guard pledged their loyalty to the Confederacy and as Gates suggests many of these free blacks may have done so to protect their economic interests, but again they never were accepted into the Confederate army. The reason is because the Confederate government refused to accept black men into the service until the final weeks of the war.

This is not the first time that Gates has become seduced by the black Confederate myth. Why is not entirely clear. Gates has never done any serious research on the subject. He appears to believe that the black Confederate shows that African Americans cannot be easily labeled or their behavior predicted. He once told me following a talk at Harvard that the reason I deny the existence of these men is because I resist acknowledging that African Americans are complex or “complicated.”

This is another case of Gates allowing the shock value of the black Confederate narrative to take precedence over solid historical research. What is most disappointing is that his guests end up as the victim. Bryant Gumbel is now in possession of a fundamentally flawed account of an important moment in his family’s story.

 

[JoeB131]

However, the strangest claim made by Gates is that free blacks in North Carolina formed an entire regiment. This clip was just uploaded to YouTube earlier today, but the discussion was held back in 2009. If you begin the complete presentation at 1:25 mark you will hear Gates go on to cite the well known cover of Harper’s Weekly and Frederick Douglass’s reference to blacks serving in the Confederacy as evidence that these men existed.This is around the time that Gates was working on his documentary about Lincoln and memory. Filming took him to Raleigh, where he observed an SCV ceremony honoring the descendants of the slave, Weary Clyburn, for his honorable service in the Confederate army. At some point Gates spent time with Earl Ijames, who is a curator at the North Carolina Museum of History and is responsible for pushing the myth of the black Confederate soldier. Perhaps that explains it.

Henry Louis Gates on Free Blacks and the Confederacy

I am going to feature this video with just a little commentary. Some of what Gates says here is just bizarre. Free blacks were “unmolested” by the Confederacy. Tell that to historian Clarence Mohr. In addition, according to Gates, the “dirtiest little secret in African-American history is that a...

cwmemory.com

 

[JoeB131]

One more for those who laugh at Mikey's Revisionism. (Seriously, this is like proving water is wet, that black people wouldn't fight to continue their enslavement.)

https://s-usih.org/2018/01/the-myth-of-black-confederates-and-fake-racial-tolerance/

. The problem, of course, is that there were no Black Confederate soldiers. The Confederate government refused to allow Blacks to enlist until March 1865, when, desperate for manpower, the Confederate Congress passed a law allowing African Americans to serve in combat roles. Even with the war nearly lost, this move was extremely controversial, as it flew in the face of Confederate racial ideology. “In my opinion, the worst calamity that could befall us would be to gain our independence by the valor of our slaves, instead of own,” wrote Robert Toombs, the first Confederate Secretary of State and a General in the Confederate army, “The day that the army of Virginia allows a negro regiment to enter their lines as soldiers they will be degraded, ruined, and disgraced.” Two weeks after the law allowing their service was passed and before any Black troops could be enlisted, the war was over.

But in recent years, the myth of the Black Confederates has grown. Early Lost Cause ideology was often frankly racist. Works like D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation

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(1915), and the Thomas Dixon novels on which it was based, depicted the Confederacy as explicitly a white man’s cause. While neo-Confederate accounts of the Civil War and Reconstruction often displaced slavery as the cause of the conflict and depicted the South as fighting for “states’ rights” or even a lower tariff, there was at first no attempt to reimagine the Confederacy as a land of racial equality, especially since the vision of the Lost Cause was actively used as a defense of Jim Crow.

But after the rise of the modern Civil Rights movement, it became convenient to claim that the Confederate fight was an interracial one. On the basis of no evidence whatsoever, the myth grew. “The modern myth of black Confederate soldiers,” notes the Civil War Trust on their webpage devoted to this tale,

is akin to a conspiracy theory—shoddy analysis has been presented, repeated, amplified, and twisted to such an extent that utterly baseless claims of as many as 80,000 black soldiers fighting for the Confederacy (which would roughly equal the size of Lee’s army at Gettysburg) have even made their way into classroom textbooks. It is right to study, discover, and share facts about the complex lives of 19th century black Americans. It is wrong to exaggerate, obfuscate, and ignore those facts in order to suit 21st century opinions.

 

[mikegriffith1]

One more for those who laugh at Mikey's Revisionism. (Seriously, this is like proving water is wet, that black people wouldn't fight to continue their enslavement.)

More of your juvenile nonsense. The blacks who volunteered to fight for the Confederate army did so in exchange for their freedom. They weren't fighting to "continue their enslavement" but to end it. But you're so clueless and rabid that you can't even get this basic fact right.

"Revisionism"?! Wow! Umm, 99% of educated people would consider your obscene, fringe views to be "revisionism," such as your view that "Hitler wasn't the problem," that the Nazis had valid reasons to hate the Jews, that the Jews sabotaged Germany after WWI, that you "guess" the Holocaust was bad (rational people don't need to guess on this issue), that Israel knowingly attacked the USS Liberty in 1967, that Mao and Stalin were swell leaders who really didn't murder nearly as many people as scholars say they did, that Red China was a better place to live than Free China, that life under Hamas rule is better than life under Israeli rule, that the Israelis who were massacred on October 7 should have known better than to hold a concert so close to Gaza, that U.S. intelligence was targeting Iris Chang, and on and on and on and on and on I could go reciting your warped views.

Folks, I'm reviewing this litany of JoeB131's sickening, bizarre views to remind everyone what an obscene troll he is. Just keep his loony views in mind if you happen to read one of his replies. (I rarely read them anymore, and on the few occasions when I do read and answer one of his replies, I only do so for the sake of others.)

https://s-usih.org/2018/01/the-myth-of-black-confederates-and-fake-racial-tolerance/

. The problem, of course, is that there were no Black Confederate soldiers. The Confederate government refused to allow Blacks to enlist until March 1865, when, desperate for manpower, the Confederate Congress passed a law allowing African Americans to serve in combat roles. Even with the war nearly lost, this move was extremely controversial, as it flew in the face of Confederate racial ideology. “In my opinion, the worst calamity that could befall us would be to gain our independence by the valor of our slaves, instead of own,” wrote Robert Toombs, the first Confederate Secretary of State and a General in the Confederate army, “The day that the army of Virginia allows a negro regiment to enter their lines as soldiers they will be degraded, ruined, and disgraced.” Two weeks after the law allowing their service was passed and before any Black troops could be enlisted, the war was over.

But in recent years, the myth of the Black Confederates has grown. Early Lost Cause ideology was often frankly racist. Works like D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation

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(1915), and the Thomas Dixon novels on which it was based, depicted the Confederacy as explicitly a white man’s cause. While neo-Confederate accounts of the Civil War and Reconstruction often displaced slavery as the cause of the conflict and depicted the South as fighting for “states’ rights” or even a lower tariff, there was at first no attempt to reimagine the Confederacy as a land of racial equality, especially since the vision of the Lost Cause was actively used as a defense of Jim Crow.

But after the rise of the modern Civil Rights movement, it became convenient to claim that the Confederate fight was an interracial one. On the basis of no evidence whatsoever, the myth grew. “The modern myth of black Confederate soldiers,” notes the Civil War Trust on their webpage devoted to this tale,

Blah, blah, blah. None of this orthodox polemic lays a finger on the evidence I've presented, much less the evidence presented in the several books on the subject that I've discussed. All you ever do is go running to find whatever website supports what you want to believe.

It just so happens that on this issue you endorse the orthodox view, and you've done nothing but quote from orthodox sources, which make no effort to actually address the evidence that several thousand blacks volunteered to fight for the Confederacy in exchange for their freedom.

If we were talking about any of the many issues where you hold bizarre, fringe views, you would find it necessary to reject the orthodox position. Take, for example, your view that Israel knowingly attacked the USS Liberty in 1967. Virtually all respectable historians reject this view as baseless conspiracy theory--in fact, I can't think of a single reputable historian who does not reject the view. Or, take your view that the Jews sabotaged Germany after WWI. That is an old Nazi propaganda talking point that all historians reject as scurrilous and absurd.