Black Confederates, Political
Correctness, and a Virginia Textbook
Michael T. Griffith
2011
@All Rights Reserved
Second Edition
A couple months ago a
Virginia textbook titled Our Virginia: Past
and Present came under heavy criticism in the news because it
contains the claim that thousands of blacks fought for the Confederacy in the
Civil War. There are errors in that textbook, as there are in many other
textbooks, but this claim is not one of them.
There is credible evidence that thousands of blacks did in fact fight for the
Confederacy, quite possibly around 4,000, and maybe as many as 6,000 or
7,000. This is documented in Union army reports, in letters written by
Union soldiers, and in Northern and Southern newspapers, among other
sources. Slaves fought for two reasons: (1) they were offered freedom in
exchange for their military service, and (2) they were loyal to their masters
and/or to the South. Free blacks fought
for the South as well.
The Confederate government
did not officially authorize the recruitment of slaves as soldiers until early
1865, shortly before the war ended.
However, some Southern state governments and individual Confederate
commanders began using slaves and free blacks as soldiers early in the war.
Some of the evidence that thousands of blacks fought for the South is as
follows:
* The chief inspector of the
U.S. Sanitary Commission, Dr. Lewis Steiner, reported that he saw about 3,000
well-armed black Confederate soldiers in Stonewall Jackson’s army in Frederick,
Maryland, and that those soldiers were "manifestly an integral portion of
the Southern Confederate Army." Said Steiner,
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 P.M., occupying sixteen hours. The most liberal
calculations could not give them more than 64,000 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 by white men in 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. (Report of Lewis H.
Steiner, New York: Anson D. F. Randolph, 1862, pp. 10-11)
Anyone can Google Steiner's
report and read it for themselves (it's usually in PDF format). Some
critics note that Steiner was wrong about the total number of troops in
Jackson's army. Yes, but it's hard to estimate the size of a group
that numbers in the tens of thousands, whereas it's a lot easier to estimate
the size of a group that's only a few thousand in number. Even assuming
Steiner was off by 50%, that would still mean he saw around 1,500 black soldiers
in Jackson's army.
It should not be surprising that Stonewall Jackson would have had blacks
fighting in his army. Jackson was known for his respectful, courteous
treatment of slaves and free blacks alike. Before the war, Jackson
skirted the law and taught slaves how to read in his Sunday School class.
During the war, Jackson sent money back to his church to help fund the church's
black Sunday School class. And, Jackson was heard to voice the hope that
slavery would be abolished.
* Union colonel Peter Allabach, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the
131st Pennsylvania Infantry, reported that his forces encountered
black Confederate soldiers during the battle of Chancellorsville:
Under
this disposition of my command, I lay until 11 o'clock, when I received orders
from you to throw the two left regiments perpendicular to the road, and to
advance in line of battle, with skirmishers in front, as far as to the edge of
the wood bordering near the Chancellor house. This movement was explained to me
as intended to hold the enemy in check long enough for the corps of
Major-Generals Couch and Sickles to get into another position, and not to bring
on an action if it could be avoided; and, should the enemy advance in force, to
fall back slowly until I arrived on the edge of the wood, there to mass in
column and double-quick to the rear, that the artillery might fire in this
wood. I was instructed that I was to consider myself under the command of
Major-General Couch.
In
obedience to these orders, at about 11 o'clock I advanced with these two
regiments forward through the wood, under a severe fire of shell, grape, and
canister. I encountered their skirmishers when near the farther edge of the
wood. Allow me to state that the
skirmishers of the enemy were negroes. (Report of Col. Peter H. Allabach, 131st Pennsylvania Infantry, commanding Second
Brigade, in Official Records, Volume
XXV, in Two Parts, 1889, Chap. 37, Part I – Reports, p. 555, emphasis added)
Stonewall Jackson’s army played
a major role in the battle of Chancellorsville.
The black Confederate soldiers that Colonel Allabach
saw there may have been some of the same black Confederate soldiers that Dr.
Steiner saw in Jackson’s army in Maryland.
* None other than
African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass complained 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":
It
is now pretty well established, that there are at the present moment many
colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and
laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets
in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers
may. . . . (Douglass' Monthly,
September 1861, online copy available at http://radicaljournal.com/essays/fighting_rebels.html)
* In 1895 a former black
Union soldier, Christian A. Fleetwood, who had been a sergeant-major in the 4th
U.S. Colored Troops, acknowledged that the South began using blacks as soldiers
before the Union did:
It
seems a little singular that in the tremendous struggle between the States in
1861-1S65, the south should have been the first to take steps toward the enlistment
of Negroes. Yet such is the fact. Two weeks after the fall of Fort Sumter, the Charleston Mercury records the passing
through Augusta of several companies of the 3rd and 4th Georgia Regt. and of
sixteen well-drilled companies and one
Negro company from Nashville, Tenn. The
Memphis Avalanche and The Memphis
Appeal of May 9, 10, and 11, 1861, give notice of the appointment by the
"Committee of Safety" of a committee of three persons "to
organize a volunteer company composed of our patriotic freemen of color of the
city of Memphis, for the service of our common defense."
A
telegram from New Orleans dated November 23, 1S61, notes the review by Gov.
Moore of over 28,000 troops, and that one regiment comprised "1,400
colored men." The New Orleans
Picayune, referring to a review held February 9, 1862, says: "We must
also pay a deserved compliment to the companies of free colored men, all very
well drilled and comfortably equipped." (Christian A. Fleetwood, The Negro as a Soldier, Washington,
D.C.: Howard University Print, 1895, pp. 5-6, emphasis added)
* In a Union army battle
report, General David Stuart complained about the deadly effectiveness of the
black Confederate soldiers whom his troops had encountered. The “armed negroes,” he said, did “serious
execution upon our men”:
Col.
Giles Smith commanded the First Brigade and Col. T. Kilby Smith, Fifty-fourth
Ohio, the Fourth. I communicated to these officers General Sherman’s orders and
charged Colonel Smith, Fifty-fourth Ohio, specially with the duty of clearing
away the road to the crossing and getting it into the best condition for
effecting our crossing that he possibly could. The work was vigorously pressed
under his immediate supervision and orders, and he devoted himself to it with
as much energy and activity as any living man could employ. It had to be
prosecuted under the fire of the enemy’s sharpshooters, protected as well as
the men might be by our skirmishers on the bank, who were ordered to keep up so
vigorous a fire that the enemy should not dare to lift their heads above their
rifle-pits; but the enemy, and especially
their armed negroes, did dare to rise
and fire, and did serious execution upon our men. The casualties in the
brigade were 11 killed, 40 wounded, and 4 missing; aggregate, 55. Very
respectfully, your obedient servant, D. STUART, Brigadier-General, Commanding.
(Report of Brig. Gen. David Stuart, U. S. Army, commanding Fourth Brigade and
Second Division, of operations December 26, 1862 - January 3, 1863, in Official Records, Volume XVII, in Two
Parts. 1886/1887, Chap. 29, Part I - Reports, pp. 635-636, emphasis added)
* In a letter published in
the Indianapolis Star in December
1861, a Union soldier stated that his unit was attacked by black Confederate
soldiers:
A
body of seven hundred [Confederate] Negro infantry opened fire on our men,
wounding two lieutenants and two privates. The wounded men testify positively
that they were shot by Negroes, and that not less than seven hundred were
present, armed with muskets. This is, indeed a new feature in the war. We have
heard of a regiment of [Confederate] Negroes at Manassas, and another at
Memphis, and still another at New Orleans, but did not believe it till it came
so near home and attacked our men. (Indianapolis
Star, December 23, 1861)
* Union soldier James G.
Bates wrote a letter to his father that was reprinted in an Indiana newspaper
in May 1863. In the letter Bates assured his father that there were black
Confederate soldiers:
I
can assure you [his father,] of a certainty, that the rebels have Negro
soldiers in their army. One of their best sharp shooters and the boldest of
them all here is a Negro. He dug himself a rifle pit last night [16 April 1863]
just across the river and has been annoying our pickets opposite him very much to-day.
You can see him plain enough with the naked eye, occasionally, to make sure
that he is a "wooly-head," and with a spy-glass there is no mistaking
him. (Winchester Journal, May 1,
1863)
* A few months before the
war ended, a Union soldier named James Miles of the 185th N.Y.V.I. wrote in his
diary, “Saw several Negros fighting
for those rebels" (Diary entry, January 8, 1865).
*
A Union lieutenant colonel named Parkhurst, who served in the Ninth Michigan
Infantry, reported that black Confederate soldiers participated in an attack on
his camp:
The forces attacking my camp were the First
Regiment Texas Rangers, a battalion of the First Georgia Rangers . . . and
quite a number of Negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were
armed and equipped, took part in the several engagements with my forces during
the day. (Lieutenant Colonel Parkhurst’s Report, Ninth Michigan Infantry, on
General Forrest’s Attack at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, July 13, 1862, in Official
Records, Series 1, Volume XVI, Part 1, p. 805)
* In late June 1861, the Illinois Daily State Journal, a
staunchly Republican newspaper, reported that the Confederate army was arming
some slaves and that in some cases slaves were being organized into military
units. Interestingly, the newspaper also
said that the North was not fighting to abolish slavery, and that the South was
not fighting to protect slavery:
Our
mighty armies are gathering for no purpose of abolition. Our enemies are not in
arms to protect the peculiar institution [slavery]. . . .
They
[the Confederates] are using their Slave property as an instrument of warfare
against the Union. Their slaves dig trenches, erect fortifications, and bear
arms. Slaves, in some instances, are organized into military companies to fight
against the Government. (“Slaves Contraband of War,” Illinois Daily State Journal, June 21, 1861)
No wonder Frederick Douglass
said it was "fairly well established" that "many" blacks were serving in the Confederate army as combat troops,
as troops with guns and bullets who were ready to kill Union soldiers.
* Confederate general Nathan
Bedford Forrest had dozens of slaves serving in units under his command; he
offered them freedom in exchange for their service (Robert Selph Henry, ”First with the Most” Forrest,
Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill, 1944, p. 14). In an interview given
shortly after the war, Forrest said of them,
These
boys stayed with me . . . and better Confederates did not live. (Cincinnati Commercial, August 28, 1868;
cf. Richard Rollins, Black Southerners in
Gray, Redondo Beach, California: Rank and File Publications, 1994)
* After the battle of
Gettysburg, Union forces took seven black Confederate soldiers as prisoners, as
was noted in a Northern newspaper at the time, which said,
. .
. reported among the rebel prisoners were seven blacks in Confederate uniforms
fully armed as soldiers. (New York Herald,
July 11, 1863)
* During the battle of Gettysburg, two black
Confederate soldiers took part in Pickett’s charge:
Color Corporal George B. Powell (14th Tennessee)
went down during the advance. Boney Smith, a Black man attached to the
regiment, took the colors and carried them forward. . . . The colors of the
14th Tennessee got within fifty feet of the east wall before Boney Smith hit
the dirt ---wounded. Jabbing the flagstaff in the ground, he momentarily urged
the regiment forward until the intense pressure forced the men to lie down to
save their lives. (John Michael Priest, Into the Fight: Pickett’s Charge at
Gettysburg, White Mane Books, 1998, pp. 128, 130-131)
* During the battle of
Chickamauga, slaves serving Confederate soldiers armed themselves and asked
permission to join the fight—and when they received that permission they fought
commendably. Their commander, Captain J. B. Briggs, later noted that
these men “filled a portion of the line of advance as well as any company of
the regiment” (J. H. Segars and Charles Barrow, Black Southerners in Confederate Armies, Atlanta, GA: Southern Lion
Books, 2001, p. 141). Interestingly,
these slaves were organized by the personal servant of the regimental
commander:
One
of the last Confederate charges of the day included the Fourth Tennessee
Calvary, which participated dismounted in the assault. Among the troopers of the regiment were forty
African Americans who had been serving as camp servants but who now demanded
the right the participate in the last combat of the day. Captain J. B. Briggs gave his permission for
them to join his command on the front line.
Organized and equipped under Daniel McLemore, the personal servant of
the colonel of the regiment, the black troops had collected dropped weapons
from battlefields during the regiment’s campaigns. . . . (Steve Cottrell, Civil War in Tennessee, Gretna, Louisiana:
Pelican Publishing Company, 2001, p. 94)
* There are numerous accounts of slaves
assisting Confederate soldiers in battle and helping them to escape capture
afterward (see, for example, Francis Springer, War for What?, Springfield, Tennessee: Nippert Publishing
Company, 1990, pp. 172-183).
* After the war, hundreds of African Americans received Confederate veterans’
pensions from Southern state governments (Segars and Barrow, Black Southerners in Confederate Armies,
Atlanta, GA: Southern Lion Books, pp. 73-100).
* Photos of reunions of Confederate veterans show African Americans in
attendance (some of these can be seen in Segars and Barrow’s book, Black Southerners in Confederate Armies).
As politically incorrect as it may sound, and as strange as it may seem
to most people in our day, many Southern slaves and free blacks felt loyalty to
the South and viewed Union troops as invaders.
Says Civil War scholar Walter Brian Cisco,
Down in
Charleston, free blacks . . . declared that “our allegiance is due to South
Carolina and in her defense, we will offer up our lives, and all that is dear
to us.” Even slaves routinely expressed
loyalty to their homeland, thousands serving the Confederate Army faithfully. (Taking
A Stand: Portraits from the
Southern Secession Movement,
Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: White Mane Books, 2000, p. 112)
Christian Fleetwood, the above-mentioned black Union sergeant-major,
made an interesting comment about the loyalty of Southern blacks. After raising the issue of what would have
happened if the Confederacy had increased its use of black troops earlier, he
stated that, except for slavery, the heart of Southern blacks was with the
South:
It is not in the line of this paper to speculate upon what would have
been the result of the war had the South kept up this policy, enlisted the
freemen, and emancipated the enlisting slaves and their families. The immense
addition to their fighting force, the quick recognition of them by Great
Britain, to which slavery was the greatest bar, and the fact that the heart of the Negro was with the South
but for slavery, and the case stands clear.
But the primary [early] successes of the South closed its eyes to its
only chance of salvation, while at the same time the eyes of the North were
opened. In 1865, the South saw, and endeavored to remedy its error. On March 9,
1865, the Confederate Congress passed a bill, recommended by Gen. Lee,
authorizing the enlistment of 200,000 Negroes; but it was then too late. (The Negro as a Soldier, p. 6, emphasis
added)
In the July 1919 issue of The Journal of Negro History, Charles
S. Wesley discussed the issue of blacks in the Confederate army:
The loyalty of the slave in guarding home and family during his master’s
absence has long been eloquently orated.
The Negroes’ loyalty extended itself even to service in the Confederate
army. Believing their land invaded by
hostile foes, slaves eagerly offered themselves for service in actual warfare.
. . .
At the outbreak of the war, an observer in Charleston noted the war-time
preparations and called particular attention to “the thousand Negroes who, so
far from inclining to insurrections, were grinning from ear to ear at the
prospect of shooting the Yankees.” In
the same city, one of the daily papers stated in early January that 150 free
colored men had offered their services to the Confederate Government, and at
Memphis a recruiting office was opened.
In June 1861 the Legislature of Tennessee authorized Governor Harris to
receive into the state military service all male persons of color between the
ages of fifteen and fifty and to provide them with eight dollars a month,
clothing, and rations. . . . In the same
state, under the command of Confederate officers, marched a procession of
several hundred colored men carrying shovels, axes, and blankets. The observer adds, “they were brimful of
patriotism, shouting for Jeff Davis and singing war songs.” A paper in Lynchburg, Virginia, commenting on
the enlistment of seventy free Negroes to fight for the defense of the State,
concluded with “three cheers for the patriotic Negroes of Lynchburg.”
Two weeks after the firing on Fort Sumter, several companies of
volunteers of color passed through Augusta, Georgia, on their way to Virginia
to engage in actual war. . . . In
November of the same year, a military review was held in New Orleans, where
twenty-eight thousand troops passed before Governor Moore, General Lowell, and
General Ruggles. The line of march
extended beyond seven miles and included one regiment comprised of 1,400 free
colored men. (In Segars and Barrow, Black Southerners in Confederate Armies,
pp. 2-4)
Another
incident that suggests many slaves felt loyalty to the South involved the
Confederate president, Jefferson Davis.
During a trip through the western part of the Confederacy, Davis got off
his train at Griswoldville, Georgia, in order to meet with a group of slaves
who had gathered in the hope of seeing him. These men worked at a local pistol
factory and had come to the train station because they wanted to meet Davis.
Informed of the gathering, Davis got off the train and circulated among the
group, shaking each hand and speaking to each man individually (Jefferson
Davis, American, Vintage Books Edition, New York: Vintage Books, 2001, p.
494).
We
should keep in mind, too, that we have undeniable evidence that about 5,000
Hispanics and at least one brigade of Cherokee Indians fought for the
Confederacy (see, for example, John O’Donnell-Rosales, Confederates, Clearfield Company, 1999). The
Confederate Cherokee brigade was commanded by a Cherokee Indian named Stand
Watie, who was given the rank of general in the Confederate
army. These facts are additional reasons that, modern political
correctness notwithstanding, it should not be surprising that thousands of
blacks fought for the Confederacy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Michael T. Griffith holds a Master’s degree in Theology from The Catholic
Distance University, a Graduate Certificate in Ancient and Classical History
from American Military University, a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from
Excelsior College, two Associate in Applied Science degrees from the Community
College of the Air Force, and an Advanced Certificate of Civil War Studies and
a Certificate of Civil War Studies from Carroll College. He is a two-time graduate of the Defense
Language Institute in Monterey, California, in Arabic and Hebrew, and of the
U.S. Air Force Technical Training School in San Angelo, Texas. He has completed advanced Hebrew programs at
Haifa University in Israel and at the Spiro Institute in London, England. He is also the author of five books on
Mormonism and ancient texts and one book on the John F. Kennedy assassination.