Comments on: So What? An Observation on the Debate over Black Confederates

By: John Foskett

John Foskett — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:12:52 +0000

Is it a debate if one side has no facts or arguments? Photographs, orders of battle, unit rosters, OR, memoirs, correspondence, diaries, journals – find all of these missing Confederates. And why the Confederate government’s visceral reaction to Pat Cleburne’s proposal when all he was doing was formalizing the existing arrangements? Ethan touches on a telling point – it looks as though a lot of folks at the time simply passed on war-changing facts here….

By: Brett

Brett — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 14:53:06 +0000

<> Public school educator in various capacities for the last 26 years. <> I am well aware that this was done by women. I have four boys, all nursed by my wife. Obviously, it was the black males. The sentence was not phrased as well as it could have been. <> I doubt it. Slaves were too expensive. <> Definitely. <> How was the South able to maintain support for so long, if it did not have support from the population?
Anyway, I will defer to you and thank you for the info. I am just starting to study the Civil War, and am fascinated that as a country we still discuss, question, and even debate it.

By: Brooks D. Simpson

Brooks D. Simpson — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 05:35:52 +0000

I am curious as to your source of information as to what’s being taught in most public schools. I hear this assertion made all the time in certain corners, but I’ve never seen evidence to support it. As you’ve repeated the claim, what’s your evidence?

By: Brooks D. Simpson

Brooks D. Simpson — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 05:25:40 +0000

Given the number of planters who expressed surprise and outrage at the behavior of their slaves when freedom came (see James Roark, MASTERS WITHOUT SLAVES), I think you might want to explore what happened at the moment of emancipation. And, as you mentioned breast-feeding, unless there’s something you know no one else does, it’s safe to say that the blacks in question were women. A rather healthy percentage of white southern families did own slaves or benefited from slavery … and, of course, not all white southerners supported the Confederacy. A good book on how slaveholders persuaded nonslaveholders to support secession is Stephanie’s McCurry’s CONFEDERATE RECKONING. As for widespread retaliation … I think joining the Union army served as one way for blacks to retaliate. And as for black slaves sometimes being family … that’s certainly true in a biological sense.

By: Brett Hale

Brett Hale — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 23:59:36 +0000

The ‘Evil’ South/’Utopian and egalitarian’ North version is alive and well in most public schools. I also did not imply that black women would fight, just that blacks were entrusted with taking care of children. The phrase, “virtuous, culturally diverse South fighting for the right of self-determination” may be a bit of a stretch. While there were planters who dodged the ‘draft’ (nothing new under the sun), there were many that left home with only women to carry on. Additionally, the vast majority of Southerners never owned slaves. I am also under no self-imposed delusions that the slave owner-slave relationship even approached ‘family’. The fact that there are no accounts of wide spread retaliation on the part of slaves does raise the question of the relationships between owners and slaves. Could there have been ‘attachments’ that would have prompted blacks to serve in the Confederacy? I do like…“racist, hypocritical, empire-building, led by an evil dictator North.” That is good.

By: Brooks D. Simpson

Brooks D. Simpson — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 22:42:57 +0000

Brett, I’ve not come across the “evil South” versus “Utopian and egalitarian North” argument … except among folks who would prefer us to see a “virtuous, culturally diverse South fighting for the right of self-determination” versus a “racist, hypocritical, empire-building, led by an evil dictator North.”

As black women would have nursed babies, no, I haven’t seen any claims of black Confederate women soldiers. But I do note that the CSA’s conscription legislation included a draft exemption for families with 20+ slaves. Why was that?

By: Brett Hale

Brett Hale — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 22:20:52 +0000

I doubt very many blacks fought in Confederate ranks, if at all. To try to prove this is a side track to what many believe is the main issue and problem in discussing the Civil War; that of the ‘evil’ South and the ‘Utopian and egalitarian’ North. It is a good question, though, to ask if there were any blacks that would have fought for the Confederacy, or at least for the white families that owned them, for those white families that had them nurse maid their children, and trusted that they would not murder their women and children when they left home to fight. Intersting ‘what if’.

By: Ethan S. Rafuse

Ethan S. Rafuse — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:19:22 +0000

You also might think that, had in fact large numbers of African-Americans served in the Confederate army, that Democratic politicians in the north would have seized on the issue in some way to attack the Lincoln administration and its policies.

By: Robert Moore

Robert Moore — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 02:21:00 +0000

Well, that’s strange. My comment vanished.

Oh well. More or less, what I just wrote at length about was the other part of the argument from “that side of the fence”… that there are some descendants of Confederates who are trying to do what most Confederate soldiers refused to do… call those who “served” (and that being the majority without arms), “soldiers”. Of course, the odd part of this is that, well… the “they were right” argument begins to show flaws in the very words of those who advance the meaning of “Black Confederates”.

By: Robert Moore

Robert Moore — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 02:08:15 +0000

“That blacks fought to preserve a social, political, and economic order that enslaved them?”

Well, that’s one part of that side of the argument. The other part actually holds my interest much more… the descendants of Confederate soldiers who want to do what most Confederate soldiers wouldn’t do… salute “their service” by giving them the title “soldier”. I can’t help but find that somewhat curious and contradictory to the “they were right” argument.”