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Texas Defender
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ole-
I think we're pretty much in agreement. Most black men who contributed to the Confederate war effort in concert with the Confederate military were not soldiers. They were mostly teamsters, laborers, cooks, and servants of various kinds. If they are the ones we are counting, then they numbered in many thousands. Many times that number helped the war effort through their labors on the home front.
It has been pointed out that blacks could make more money as: "independent contractors" than they could as private soldiers. That to me makes those who were Confederate soldiers even more remarkable. They might have been a small number percentage wise, but they were there and they fought. As Johan says, they should be honored.
I also agree that you don't have to be a member of a combat branch to be a soldier. Many jobs that need to be done don't require combat skills. I was in a combat branch of the Army, and among those I most admired were medics. Some of them were conscientious objectors, but they went onto battlefields without weapons and saved the lives of soldiers. Thats all that mattered to me.
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HankC
Member
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Bama46 wrote: You claim to be the champion of the soldier. do you consider this man less of a soldier because he is not depicted as being armed? How many truck drivers do you suppose there in the armed forces today? Cooks? clerks? Technicians of various types? Are they not soldiers? Are they sort of quasi soldiers or full brothers in arms? when you were in the military (air force, correct), were you of combat arms or not this quite frankly disturbs me and I believe you owe one hell of a lot of soldiers an apology That is quite a straw man 
HankC
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HankC
Member
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Both Steiner and Douglass had agendas that did not mind twisting (or making up) facts to suit their purposes. The same is true of turn-of-the-century southern organizations who erected and planned monuments to the 'faithful slave', for example.
Anyone oragnized, mustered, trained, drilled, supplied, paid (and had the usual forms filed in triplicate) was certainly a soldier.
There is little reason to believe that southern blacks in partisan units *were not* soldiers, but neither is there much reason to think that their white comrades *were*.
Thousands of Union civilians erected fieldworks at Cincinnati and Harrisburg, among others, during emergencies. No one considers them soldiers...
HankC
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Bama46
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Hank et al...
seems to me that what is being said is that the definition of who was a soldier is whoever y'all say it is and eveyone else needs to be quiet and fall into line.
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Johan Steele
Life NRA,SUVCW # 48,Legion 352
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Bama46 wrote: Hank et al...
seems to me that what is being said is that the definition of who was a soldier is whoever y'all say it is and eveyone else needs to be quiet and fall into line.
That isn't true.
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Johan Steele
Life NRA,SUVCW # 48,Legion 352
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javal1 wrote:
Once again a promising thread is ruined. I'm not taking anyone's side, but if you people can't learn to discuss a subject without jumping to personal comments and demands for apologies, then don't discuss at all.
Pam, I apologize that another of your well thought-out threads got sidetracked. I can't tell you how fed up I am with this.
Javal and an extension of the apology to Pam, once again I apolgize. I said before that I would not reply to Bama. I backslid and did.
"Johan,
You claim to be the champion of the soldier. do you consider this man less of a soldier because he is not depicted as being armed? How many truck drivers do you suppose there in the armed forces today? Cooks? clerks? Technicians of various types? Are they not soldiers? Are they sort of quasi soldiers or full brothers in arms? when you were in the military (air force, correct), were you of combat arms or not
this quite frankly disturbs me and I believe you owe one hell of a lot of soldiers an apology"
I took offense at being accused of something that is a load of hooey, and not for the first time from him. Bama enjoys baiting me and I fell for it. My apologies to all; there are no excuses.
Last edited on Mon Nov 3rd, 2008 09:55 pm by Johan Steele
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pamc153PA
Member
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Apology accepted, but. . .
Do we have to give up this thread, or can we take a deep breath and continue? Because this has been one of the most informative ones I've read lately, and it's opened up more questions for me than answers. How about it?
Pam
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ole
Member
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It seems that only one official view is accepted on this thread.
Somebody ought to inform Javal, then. I'm reasonably certain he hasn't adopted an acceptable, official view. "Black Confederates" is one of those insoluble topics that simply will not go away. The discussion usually ends with the link you posted.
Until it starts again at another place in another time.
ole
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ole
Member
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Do we have to give up this thread, or can we take a deep breath and continue? Because this has been one of the most informative ones I've read lately, and it's opened up more questions for me than answers. How about it?
I vote for the taking a deep breath and continuing. It is an interesting subject and much discussed on all the CW boards (except those who have grown tired of watching the tread deteriorate into personal invective).
Us olders tend to forget that there are those who really want to explore the subject during which they can make up their own minds. Hang in there; this, too, shall pass. (Until it pops up again.)
ole
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HankC
Member
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pamc153PA wrote: Here's one to ponder and discuss. .
Should slaves have been allowed to/been drafted to fight for the South? What ramifications might this have had, for the South, for the North? Would it have made a difference if this had occurred earliy in the war, or later? Would it have changed the outcome of the war at all? Etc., etc.
Pam
Deep breath...
Pam, I can think of several impediments off the top of my head.
The south had a tremendous infrastructure in place to maintain the institution of slavery. Extending this to the military would tax already scarce resources and morale.
Shifting the stronger slaves to armed military service leaves the weaker ones in an even greater support role. Given the history of the last 150 years, I suspect many of the slaves would be denied ‘induction’ on medical grounds. IIRC, even during the great crisis of WWII, 25% of draftees were deferred on medical grounds, mostly due to the effects of the great depression
The idea of an armed slave was counter to many threads woven through southern society.
HankC
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CleburneFan
Member
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It seems that much of this discussion has devolved into how the word "soldier" is defined. How one does define that word would have a strong bearing on what the answer to Pam's question would be.
My original answer is written with the idea in mind of a uniformed soldier who holds official rank and is armed to fight in battles and skirmishes. I do believe that is what Cleburne had in mind when he suggested arming soldiers to fight because that was exactly what the Confederacy lacked--fighting men for infantry, cavalry and artillery.
The Confederacy was already using slaves and freedmen of color for teamsters, cooks, servents, and many other support functions. What Cleburne wanted was more fighting men. That this is true can be found in orders from Generals such as Lee, himself, who believed too many men were "hiding" in support functions as teamsters, for example, when they could be of far greater service at the front fighting.
That said, this discussion seems to have to come to the point at which some want to call the support men "soldiers." In contrast, I classify most of them as what the military uses today--civilians working for the military.
A soldier is one who wears a uniform, has a rank, is trained and drilled, belongs to a specific organizational unit, follows the chain of command, is committed to the military branch to which he belongs by a specified contract for terms and length of duty, is governed by military law, military justice and systems of courts martial. An exception to the uniform requirement would be soldiers engaged in covert ops. That is my amateur's definition.
One way to judge the numbers of slave-soldiers would be to read Confederate hospital records of injured Black uniformed soldiers. Another would be to examine pay records for companies and regiments. Especially valuable would be state Confederate pension records. How many Black soldiers qualified for a Confederate pension for their wartime service?
Last edited on Tue Nov 4th, 2008 02:24 am by CleburneFan
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ole
Member
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How many Black soldiers qualified for a Confederate pension for their wartime service?
I have seen verifiable evidence of 129 in one state. (But then, this recollection is old and I couldn't begin to point to the records. But you get the idea.) Those who might have actually been rifle-musket toting Confederates were at the time demoted to musicians, teamsters, orderlies or cooks. We're now engaged in trying to recreate all of them as loyal adherents. I'm going to figure that there were some, but not nowhere near as many as some would like us to believe.
Until someone has anything to add.
ole
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Bama46
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I have given a great deal of thought to the events of today and the comments I have made.
That I have let my disagreements with Shane interfere with the thread at hand, I apologize to all.
I have come to the conclusion that the difficulties I have with Shane can probably not be kept out of future discussions, and so I have decided to resign from this board.
Most of you, I will miss...one, I will not.
Ed
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Old Blu
Member
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In the book Retreat from Gettysburg by Kent Masterson Brown, he writes that the wagoners for the Confederate advance on Gettysburg were black and based his estimate of 7000 to 10000 slaves on the size of the wagon train.
I would say though, these wagoners were rented out by their masters for the job. My only question to this is why didn't huge numbers of slaves escape instead of going back South? There were some that escaped but there were also some Confederate white soldiers that stayed north.
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The Iron Duke
Member
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It was not unusual for slaves to aid the Roman army during their campaigns. Are these men "soldiers" too?
____________________
"Cleburne is here!" meant that all was well. -Daniel Harvey Hill
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