The legend of black Confederate soldiers

Did Southern African-Americans fight for Jefferson Davis and the slaveowners Republic he led?

Historian James McPherson did an anthology back in 1965 of contemporary documents on The Negro's Civil War - How American Negroes Felt and Acted During the War for the Union. (I'm working from the 1991 edition.) One section addresses the issue of African-American Confederate soldiers, which has become one of the sillier pieces of neo-Confederate pseudohistory with claims that large numbers of African-American Southerners fought for the Confederacy.

The kernel of reality in the neo-Confederate scam is that the Confederate Congress passed and Confederate President Jefferson Davis signed a law that would allow the enlistment of black troops to the Confederate Army. Davis signed it on March 13, 1865; Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses Grant at Appomatox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, less than a month later.

McPherson writes, "The 'Negro Soldier Law' was the dying gesture of a crumbling nation," the "nation" in this case being the Confederate States of America.

Some advocates of enlisting black soldiers had suggested that they be promised their freedom in return for serving in the Confederate Army. But the law that was passed specified that slaves who became Rebel soldiers could not be emancipated "except by consent of the owners and of the States in which they may reside."

Not surprisingly, it came to nothing. McPherson notes, "A few companies of black soldiers were enrolled in Richmond and elsewhere, but before any regiments could be organized Richmond had fallen and the war was over."

McPherson includes two statements advocating inducting slaves into the Confederate Army, one from Gen. Patrick Cleburne of the Army of Tennessee, the other from Judah Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of War. Both of them advocated granting freedom to any slave who agreed to enlist, a course rejected by eventual Negro Soldier Law past in the last weeks of the war.

McPherson cites a letter from Gen. Howell Cobb from January 8, 1865, that expressed why a slaveowners republic looked so dimly on the idea:

... the proposition to make soldiers of our slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began. ... My first hour of despondency will be the one in which that policy shall be adopted. You cannot make soldiers of slaves, nor slaves of soldiers. ... The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the [Confederate] revolution. If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong. (my emphasis)

As McPherson points out:

But even as late as January 1865, there was still considerable opposition in the South to the idea of arming the slaves. After all, the Confederacy had gone to war to defend a social and political system based on slavery, and to accept [Judah] Benjamin's proposal would be to subvert the very cause for which the South was fighting. (my emphasis)

Yep. That's sums it up well.

What is particular intriguing to me about the pleas from Benjamin and Clebourne is their recognition of how effective the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union's arming of black soldiers had been. Benjamin wrote in December of 1864:

The negroes will certainly be made to fight against us if not armed for our defense. The drain of that source of our strength is steadily fatal, and irreversible by any other expedient than that of arming the slaves as an auxiliary force.

Once word about the Emancipation Proclamation got out to the slaves in the South, large numbers of them began deserting their former plantations. Even before that times, slaves in the vicinity of the Union Army would come acroos the Federal lines to seek refuge with the American troops.

When large numbers of slaves started leaving the plantations, that in itself was a severe blow to the Confederate economy, which was heavily dependent on slave labor.

Clebourne's report is even more specific, and it was considerably earlier than the plea from Benjamin (Dec. 1964) and Robert E. Lee's recommendation of it as a desperation measure (Jan. 1865). Clebourne's report was from January 2, 1964:

... slavery, from being one of our chief sources of strength at the commencement of the war, has now become, in a military point of view, one of our chief sources of weakness. ...

Apart from the assistance that home and foreign prejudice against slavery has given to the North, slavery is a source of great strength to the enemy in a purely military point of view, by supplying him with an army from our granaries; but it is our most vulnerable point, a continued embarrassment, and in some respects an insidious weakness. ... All along the lines slavery is comparatively valueless to us for labor, but of great and increasing worth to the enemy for information. It is an omnipresent spy system, pointing out our valuable men to the enemy, revealing our positions, purposes, and resources. ... (my emphasis)

For once, this wwas not just chronic Southern white paranoia asserting itself. Slaves did act as Union spies.

He further wrote of the virtues of his proposal to enlist slaves with a guarantee of freedom if they serve in the army:

The measure will at one blow strip the enemy of foreign sympathy and assistance, and transfer them to the South; it will dry up two of his three sources of recruiting; it will take from his negro army the only motive it could have to fight against the South, and will probably cause much of it to desert over to us. ... It would instantly remove all the vulnerability, embarrassment, and inherent weakness which result from slavery. The approach of the enemy would no longer find every household surrounded by spies. ... There would be no recruits awaiting the enemy with open arms, no complete history of every neighborhood with ready guides, no fear of insurrection in the rear. ... Apart from all other aspects of the question, the necessity for more fighting men is upon us. We can only get a sufficiency by making the negro share the danger and hardships of the war. ... (my emphasis)

The General even recognizes the fighting abilities of African-American Union soldiers, though his praise isn't what you would call wholehearted: "the experience of this war has been so far that half-trained negroes have fought as bravely as many other half-trained Yankees."

Tags: civil war, neo-confederate, us civil war