It is with great pleasure that I welcome friend and fellow historian Peter Carmichael to Civil War Memory for a guest post on black Confederates and Confederate slaves. Professor Carmichael is currently the Eberly Professor of Civil War Studies at West Virginia University and has published extensively over the past fifteen years.
You can find Professor Carmichael's publications in both popular magazines and scholarly journals and he is the author of two well-received books, including Lee's Young Artillerist: William R.J. Pegram and, more recently, The Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War, and Reunion. He is currently working on a volume for the Littlefield History of the Civil War as well as a study of how the war altered and challenged the master-slave relationship. I have maintained in just about every post on the subject of black Confederates that we desperately need to move beyond an approach which takes the collection of anecdotal stories and an overly simplistic language of loyalty and service as a substitute for careful thinking that situates this issue within the broader context of the history of slavery and the antebellum South. It is with this in mind that I share Professor Carmichael's unpublished essay, which outlines what he takes to be the necessary interpretive approach needed on this subject. Professor Carmichael will respond to comments and questions.
"We were the 'men'": The Ambiguous Place of Confederate Slaves in Southern Armies
On August 6, 1861, the Richmond Enquirer ran an extended article, entitled “Ebony Idols,” on a camp slave named Sam who refused to leave his master during the battle of First Manassas. Sam received public acclaim for his stalwart behavior under fire, and the Enquirer recounted a boastful speech that he delivered to a group of Richmond slaves. Sam promised his black audience that “I wasn’t scared. I am not one of those kinds.” The story of Sam was intended to assure white audiences that slaves, even when the Yankees were shooting at them, would remain forever faithful. This claim of slave fidelity largely rested upon the Enquirer’s denying Sam his manliness, and utilizing antebellum stereotypes to describe black men as effeminate sambos.
Sam comes off as a child intrigued by the pageantry and sounds of battle but unable to grasp the seriousness of killing and death. His combat analogies, for instance, mainly consist of homespun references to life on the plantation. Sam describes bullets as “singing” around head “like mosquitoes in a big cypress swamp.” The paper even mocked the speech patterns of Sam to illustrate further his childlike state. “Ebony Idols” turns Sam’s performance into a veritable minstrel show for white entertainment. Sam admits that while under Union fire that his kinky air was standing straight up, but that as soon as the Confederates fired it returned to its natural state. The comedic intent of the author does not diminish the powerful psychological and political value of Sam’s purported actions for white readers who were nervous about black fidelity. Sam only joins the fight when he sees abolitionists killing white men. He does so, not for himself, but out of an uncontrollable rage toward the very people who were trying to free him. Sam, before picking up a musket, admits that “I didn’t kere nuffin for myself, case dis chile ain’t wuf much, no how; but to dee de nice white gemmen shot down by dem abolitioners, wur too bad.”
“Ebony Idols” emasculated male slaves like Sam and thus it depoliticized them, but this created nearly insurmountable intellectual and political risks for Confederate writers who needed to show the world that slaves could be aggressive defenders of the South and devoted enemies of abolition. To claim that slaves would rather make war on the abolitionists and not on their masters, whites had no choice but to acknowledge, at least to some degree that slaves were also men. The end of “Ebony Idols,” reveals this critical and jarring contradiction that surfaced when Confederates at least partially conceded that slaves were also men. “Gentlemen,” continued Sam, “do any of you know why we call that place Men—asses Junction? Well I’ll tell you; the abolitionists met us there and we were the men and they were the asses.”
Confederates slaves, which I will use interchangeably with the specific historical term “camp servants,” served a number of practical, political, and psychological purposes for the men in the ranks (The use of Confederates slaves rather than black Confederates is a critical distinction that I make. The former accurately conveys the role of coercion in the master slave relationship, which was also present in the Confederate army, even among white and black men who were emotionally close and shared the dangers of battle. Black Confederates obliterates the status and social reality of enslaved men and racializes them beyond any recognition as to their true function in Southern society). This paper will focus on how slaves created intellectual and practical dilemmas for a slaveholding class that needed slaves to be both subordinate and politically assertive. There were camp servants who picked up a musket in battle or rescued a wounded white soldier, but these acts were not patriotic expressions of Confederate loyalty as wartime Southerners and Lost Cause advocates have claimed. Patriotism is a purely voluntary act. The presence of coercion in slavery, moreover, creates an insurmountable challenge for those who want to describe slaves as Confederate heroes. In reality, many Confederate slaves capitalized upon the masters’ need for black political action to demonstrate a sense of self-worth that they had long repressed. While Confederate slaves successfully challenged popular conceptions of what it meant to be a black man, these “victories” did not earn them the public recognition they sought, nor did it insulate them from the brutality of an institution that was even more unpredictable and volatile within the setting of a Southern rebel army than it was on the plantation.
In 1861 white Southerners initially expected their slaves to contribute only their physical labor to the cause. They could not imagine nor did they desire that their camp servants would act like independent men who functioned outside the master’s realm. Although Confederates envisioned a dependent role for their slaves, they unwittingly expanded slave autonomy by requiring their camp servants to serve as both caretakers and comrades. To be sure, cleaning and cooking were the primary duties of camp servants, but white families, before sending their boys off to war, asked male slaves to act as the guardians of their young masters. It was common for the family matriarch or patriarch to tell a slave that they were responsible for protecting their sons from the moral and physical dangers of army life. Visual evidence further demonstrates that Confederates desired more than labor from their slaves. They needed to believe that a shared purpose existed between black and white, and early war photographs reveal this expectation. Many images show black and white men sitting together as brothers in arms, even though the slaves rarely carried a weapon. They are often touching, arms locked together. Camp servants were also forced to wear Confederate gray uniforms for the photographer. These images downplay hierarchy and coercion, and show how Southern whites imagined their slaves as Confederate companions and not just as someone to do laundry and cook.
Once a slave entered a Confederate camp, however, he quickly discovered that chores took precedence over comradeship. Living conditions were harsh and the work unrelenting. Confederate General Dorsey Pender complained in 1861 that “I am horrified to see how white men calling themselves gentlemen neglect their poor helpless negroes in this camp. They have free boys in most cases forced from home---and in several cases when they get sick they are allowed to die without any care on the part of those who are responsible for their well being.” Pender’s concern for the welfare of camp servants was rare. In fact, it is striking how little Confederate soldiers mentioned their camp servants by name in their correspondence. When they were identified, it was usually in regards to a task. The work routines and living patterns of camp servants goes beyond the scope of this paper, but this subject deserves greater attention from historians. There is no question that Confederate soldiers of all classes considered cleaning and cooking women’s labor. A number of scholars have made such an observation, but it is worth repeating that a Confederate’s basic comfort level and his sense of being a man depended upon having a camp servant. Soldiers of the slaveholding class were especially vocal in their need to have a camp slave to prove that they were gentlemen. Some Southerners even attributed military prowess to units that possessed scores of camp servants. Virginian John Wise, for instance, judged the 3rd Alabama to be an imposing military unit because it was followed by a train of slaves.
On a deeper, personal level, a white owner saw the camp servant as an extension of himself. Scholars like Eugene Genovese and Bertram Wyatt-Brown have brilliantly explored the interconnectedness between white and black identities, especially how white self-esteem and honor drew heavily from slave behavior. Confederate soldiers felt personally humiliated when their slaves ran off to the Federals. Most blamed the Yankees for stealing their “faithful servants,” but it was not always possible to deny the reality of black autonomy.
The battlefield stands out as a unique arena of political contestation where racial boundaries were extraordinarily fluid and slaves could show themselves to be brave, aggressive, and violent, just like any other white man. All of the emotions, bottled up from years of servitude could be released in combat without fear of white reprisals. As one might expect, slave reactions to combat were extraordinary varied. Many African Americans employed popular racial ideas to avoid danger. When a group of Georgia soldiers asked a slave why he always ran away from the enemy, he replied: “’You are white and I am a negro and can’t stand the racket.’” Some were willing to play the comedic sambo in order to earn a free pass behind the lines. The slaves who preferred strategies of self-preservation performed a vital psychological need for their masters. Not only did their actions confirm white notions about black manliness, but they also provided Confederate with an outlet to project their own fears in battle. North Carolinian Samuel Walkup, for instance, rarely divulged how his slave Hall felt about anything except when it came to combat. Walkup wanted the white and black folks back home to know that Hall stood by his side during the battle, but he also disclosed that his slave admitted to being “badly frightened” by the shelling. Hall was probably frightened, and chances are that Walkup and his white comrades were scared too, but Walkup used his slave to highlight his own courage, to hide his fears of battle, and to remind white folks that African Americans were incapable of acting like men.
To acknowledge that some slaves shouldered a musket in battle and fought next to their masters is not to validate the neo-Confederate perspective of black fidelity. The number of slaves who saw combat is impossible to determine and a distraction to a more critical and important lines of historical inquiry. Muster rolls and Compiled Service Records simply fail to convey the terms and motivations of slave military service. Anyone who reaches conclusions about black fidelity through crunching numbers cares little for complexity. For those who play the numbers game to demonstrate that legions of slaves were faithful Confederates do so, I believe, because it allows them to overlook the social context of bondage and the vast primary and secondary literature on slavery. In other words, they can purport to make scientific claims though numbers without ruffling their ignorance.
I urge us to put aside the numbers game and focus on the experience of slaves and Confederates soldiers. A critical issue I believe is how Confederates tried to reconcile black valor in battle to antebellum assumptions that slaves were not and could never be real men. Confederates never overcame this challenge during the war, unable to find a consistent way to explain slave behavior in battle. In most cases they invented comedic episodes to construe slave bravery as an aberration that still conveyed the inherent loyalty of slaves. Camp servant “Uncle Freeman,” for instance, left his master and worked a number of odd jobs in Richmond before rejoining his Mississippi regiment. He was portrayed upon his return as the “dutiful slave,” bringing molasses, bread, and sausage for the men. A member of the unit was impressed that Uncle Freeman ventured to the picket line despite the warnings of the other soldiers. As soon as the enemy opened fire, the slave disappeared with all the food. When he returned to the army a second time, Uncle Freeman told everyone how “the Yankees had blowed him plumb to Richmond.” The soldiers did not interpret his departure as an act of disloyalty to either his master or the Confederacy. In fact, the story of Uncle Freeman was employed to highlight common assumptions about black manliness----that blacks would always shirk from danger and that they were not trustworthy. Even when a slave performed like a veteran solder, his white comrades were quick to define him as an outsider. After slave Levi Miller fought with the Texas brigade at the battle of the Wilderness, the soldiers elected him to an honorary position. This position did not bring him advancement or authority, which would have been the case if Miller had been white. Instead, the honorary position essentially turned him into a beloved mascot, and he became a source of amusement and comfort to the Confederate rank-and-file. According to one Texan, Miller was a “pet with every man.” The ease with which Confederates classified their slaves as something less than men is hardly surprising. Simply calling a slave a boy or uncle after a bloody battle could effectively blunt a camp servant’s claim to real male power.
On a day-to-day level, it was relatively easy for Confederates to deny camp servants like Levi Miller status as men. Public representations of slave valor, however, proved more difficult to finesse, especially after the North’s successful employment of black troops. Confederates could not afford to ignore slave participation in battle. To do so would be squandering an opportunity to show that African Americans were willing to die for their masters as well as a Southern nation. A Richmond newspaper editor in 1864 succinctly captured the challenge to the Confederacy: “What troops of the enemy have advanced more determinedly upon our breastworks and fought more gallantly than their colored? Will they not fight for their masters and mistresses, for their homes and firesides, better than for their worst enemies---the Northern minions?” Camp servants had raised the troubling question of arming the slaves long before this Richmond editor or Patrick Cleburne’s 1864 circular calling for the Confederate enlistment of African American soldiers. This paper will not address the 1864 and 1865 controversies regarding the arming of the slaves, but early war explanations of camp servant bravery helped form the intellectual foundation of the pro-slave enlistment argument.
The issue of slave behavior in battle pushed Confederates to think more deeply about the “fixed nature” of African Americans, and this inquiry was inextricably tied to questions of white manliness and its compatibility with army life. Early in the war many Confederate writers wondered if Southern men could surrender their independence for the collective exertions demanded by the cause. Obedience seemed to be lacking among white soldiers who fiercely resisted the restrictions of a new military regime. Battle-tested camp servants were juxtaposed to white soldiers who seemed irretrievably undisciplined. A few Confederate writers immediately recognized that slaves exhibited disciplined bravery in battle. The idea of disciplined bravery enabled Confederates to acknowledge the fighting potential of black men while reaffirming slave subordination. Savagery, a trait long associated with male slaves, was also a valued characteristic of any fighting man, but such a quality was ridiculously dangerous when connected to gun-toting African Americans. Rather than applaud the raw aggression of camp servants in battle and run the risk of either alienating proud white soldiers or scaring naïve civilians, Confederate writers articulated a neutered expression of black manliness that was firmly rooted within the racial and class boundaries of human bondage. A writer for the Richmond Enquirer captured this perspective: “With the negro, his has been a life of discipline; this portion of a soldier’s duty will consequently fall naturally to him, and will prevent all insubordination which might otherwise be expected to arise.”
The complex and contradictory ideas that Confederates held toward slaves in combat created opportunities for camp servants to expand their physical autonomy, to enhance their reputation in the quarters, and to exercise male power. In the army white men were forced to serve a higher authority, and military duty constrained the master’s ability to rule over his slaves. The lack of constant white supervision freed camp servants to do a number of things, including to sell their labor to other Confederates. One Confederate general Dorsey Pender was amused and irritated by the entrepreneurial success of his camp servant. “The rascal seems to have plenty of money, but I have ordered him to allow me to be his treasurer. He has managed to dress himself in a nice gray uniform, French bosom linen shirt---for which he paid $4---has two pairs [of] new shoes.” The slave’s fine clothing signified to Pender that he was losing control, and that his slave was challenging the established order, for plantation slaves were always issued the coarsest dress. The sight of a slave wearing French shirts constituted an insubordinate act to Pender.
The fluidity of slave life in the army, although vexing to Confederate soldiers, actually served whites well once furloughs became scarce. Camp servants ironically had the freedom to serve as the vital link between the home front and the military. Many slaves essentially became surrogate patriarchs as they, not white soldiers, could move between camp and plantation with minimal restrictions on their movements. On the farm, slaves executed their masters’ demands, surveyed operations, and returned to camp to report on conditions back home. African Americans in the Confederate ranks were quick to exploit their newfound power. They reminded their masters that they were the only men who could observe life on the farm and represent the interests of the absent white patriarch. Within the realities of slavery, camp servants received privileges and freedoms that gave them an undisputed leadership role in the slave community. Their elevated status inflated the self worth of many camp servants and created distance from those other slaves whom they considered inferior.
The preferential treatment that many camp servants received was not lost on the nonslaveholder in the Confederate army. Anger and frustration led some white soldiers to humiliate and physically abuse camp servants. But racism did not dictate a uniform set of reactions among Southern soldiers. One non-slaveholder in the ranks, for instance, asked the War Department to give every soldier a slave to be “his servant in camp & in battle to be a soldier by his masters side.” Although not a privileged officer, this white man still wanted the services of a slave and was willing to stand in the ranks next to an African American. The varied responses of white soldiers to Confederate slaves remind us how racism as a universal explanatory device prevents us from appreciating the diversity of attitudes and actions among Confederate soldiers.
Lost Cause writers and neo-Confederates today have emphasized companionship between white and black as proof of slaveholder benevolence and slave fidelity. While professional historians have successfully demolished this ridiculous interpretation, scholars have not fully explored the intimate relationships between Confederate soldiers and their slaves. Intimacy does not deny the role of coercion, violence, and humiliation. If we are to unmask the inner-thoughts of slaves and uncover the complex reasons why some risked their lives in battle, then we need to explore the emotional ties that existed between white and black men. Take for instance, the story of Georgia slave Neptune King, who ran a gauntlet of Union fire to recover the body of his owner, Henry King. The night before the fighting, King confided to Neptune his fears of the coming battle, of not returning to family in Georgia, and of his desire for a more spiritual life. Neptune was essentially King’s confessor, a fatherly role that Neptune had played since King’s youth. In fact, Neptune referred to King as “my young master.” The emotional ties of a lifetime elevated Neptune from a position of abject subservience to a place where he enjoyed the confidence of his owner. To be sure, this was not a partnership of equality, but a relationship of subordination that created voluntary and involuntary ties of dependence. Long after the war, Neptune still felt the emotional intensity of losing his owner. To a gathering of Confederate veterans, he recalled that the gunfire intensified when he found King’s body. Rather than go behind the lines, Neptune told the audience that he stood his ground, holding his owner’s lifeless body in his arms while shrapnel and bullets rattled around him. Neptune wanted his audience to know that he was never “afraid.”
We will never know all the reasons why Neptune remained with the Confederate army and ultimately risked his life for his dead owner. Fearing punishment for failing to bring home his master might have motivated Neptune. Maybe he had hoped for extra privileges for his black family back on the plantation or special recognition for such valorous behavior. It is possible that he accepted his position as a means of survival. What is clear, however, is that Neptune felt an emotional attachment to King, a bond that did not translate into a grand political act on behalf of the Confederacy as Southerners at the time insisted or some are deluded into believing today. Nor did Neptune take to the battlefield to demand rights and privileges reserved for white men. Rather, Neptune found the battlefield to be a racially neutral setting where he could show the world that he too was a man without risking a reprisal from Southern whites who saw him not as a comrade but as someone who was owned by another human being. Neptune’s proclamation of male power---that he felt no fear in battle---is fundamentally an assertion of self-worth and dignity in the face of a cruel system that either demeaned or demonized black men.
Unfortunately, Neptune’s story has been either co-opted by the neo-Confederate crowd as proof of black loyalty or quickly dismissed by some academics as white propaganda. Both groups need to stop sparring and start acting like historians. I am not hopeful that this will happen, as the political agendas of both sides will not allow either party to disengage. But for those who can put politics aside, who do not need to invent a mythical Confederate army of black and white brothers, and who do not need to demonize the white South for slavery, Neptune’s account might bring an end to this tiresome morality play. The combatants over this issue today, I might add, love to perform this play because it keeps the focus on them and not on the historical actors. If we put the spotlight on Neptune, however, his story reveals how little we know about the many and varied moments of emotional and physical intimacy that existed between males slave and their male owners. We must explore these complex encounters, which promise to reveal new insights into the master-slave relationship, African American manliness, and class divisions within the slave community as well as Confederate society as a whole.
Peter, -- Thanks for such a thought-provoking post. I appreciate your emphasis on focusing on the spectrum of experiences between master and slave rather than the tired generalizations that have traditionally passed for analysis. Your analysis specifically of Neptune towards the end of the essay emphasizes this point in terms of looking hard at how slaves perceived camp life and the battlefield.
The one theme that you did not touch on is how Confederates perceived the tens of thousands of fugitive slaves who swarmed into Union camps by the summer of 1862. It seems reasonable to suggest that camp servants would have been chosen because of the relationship forged before the war. So, I guess I am wondering how Confederates made the distinction between the motivations of fugitive slaves and those camp servant who ran away. To that point I want to share some excerpts from Capt. John C. Winsmith who served in the 5th South Carolina Infantry. Winsmith wrote quite a bit about his camp servant in his letters home to Spartanburg, South Carolina. Letters convey messages from Spencer and regularly inquire into the health of individual slaves. In the summer of 1862 Spencer ran off while stationed in Charleston and Winsmith struggles to explain the cause.
October 3, 1861 from Fairfax Court House
Spencer is well, and is invaluable to me. I do not believe there is a better servant in the Army than he is, and I do not have any fears of his being deceived by the Yankees.
July 28, 1862
Well I have learned very little additional in regard to Spencer. He went out on Sunday morning the 20th in company with another boy from the Regt, having obtained a permit from Lt. Nesbitt to go for potatoes near River’s house, which is not more than _ mile from the Stono River, in which there were some Boats. They did not return, and their absence being reported to Maj. Duncan, he sent out several companies to scour the surrounding words [etc], but nothing could be seen of them, nor of any trace where the Yankees had been. It seems to be a doubtful point whether they went off to the Yankees of their own accord, or were captured. Most of the men in the Co think Spencer was captured, as he took nothing away with him and went off in his shirt sleeves, and from his conduct nothing had occurred to make them suspect that he meditated on escape. The watch which he wished to take was a galvanized one. I hear, that he had bought in town, and wanted to dispose of it as I had told him he would go home soon. He brought all my things over right when our Regt moved, and I have missed nothing. If he was captured he will very probably make his escape at the first opportunity. But negroes are very uncertain and tricky creatures so it is difficult to tell what is the real truth in this case.
August 4, 1862
In regard to Spencer I have nothing more to write except that the boy who went off with him was a free boy from the city who was hired as a cook by one of the Cos. here. He carried off nothing with him and had not collected the money owing to him in the Regt. It may be that this negro persuaded him off after they left camp. The reason I asked you for Josh was that I could very easily train him here as a servant, and I only expected him to assist who-ever we hired as a cook. If you think he will not do me any good, and that I cannot train him in camp, then he had better not come. If the boy Fuller does not come, (and we will know in a few days) then you will please engage the free boy you spoke of (as a cook for Capt Sheldon) and we will pay him $15 per month or even $20. If we can’t get him, and you can spare Frank, then we will give him that amt. per month. But do whatever you think is best, which will be satisfactory to me.
Posted by: Kevin Levin | Monday, July 21, 2008 at 09:30 AM
I am not sure that Confederates made distinctions between camp servants who ran away to the Federals and other slaves who sought freedom. Winsmith's inability to acknowledge that Spencer acted upon his own initiative was the way that Southern whites perceived the run-away "problem." For our purposes, Winsmith's letters reveal how the master slave relationship prevented real intimacy between black and white (He shared similar material conditions in the army with Spencer but I doubt that the exchanges between the two men ever left that realm). That chasm is where the interpretive opportunity presents itself regading Confederate slaves, but I fear that the sources will not let us susain the inquiry. How do we capture the slave perspecive from Confederate documents poses practical and methodological challenges. I would be interested in knowing how your readers deal with this issue.
Posted by: Peter Carmichael | Monday, July 21, 2008 at 11:04 AM
Excellent post. My neo-confederate friend NEED to read this and ponder the history at hand.
Corey
Posted by: Billy Yank | Monday, July 21, 2008 at 02:41 PM
I agree that this is a very interesting post, but let's not make the mistake of framing this in terms of us v. them. My guess is that most people outside of the so-called "neo-Confederate" circles have not pondered many of the analytical points raised in this essay. In short, we all would do well to read it carefully.
Posted by: Kevin Levin | Monday, July 21, 2008 at 05:07 PM
True...well said!
Posted by: Billy Yank | Monday, July 21, 2008 at 05:42 PM
Peter, this is an excellent article! I think your points concerning the complexity of the relationship between slaves and their masters in Confederate army camps, and how these relationships impacted their social and individual identities, are so important for getting beyond the stereotypes. You also make important points about the difficulty getting at the motivation of camp slaves through the available sources. I've read it through twice relatively quickly, but plan to read it carefully in order to take in and think about all of your insights.
Kevin, I wrote to Cliff Harrington, who wrote the article in the Charlotte Observer that claimed documents showed Clyburn to have been a "special aide" to Lee, asking what the documents were and what they actually said. He responded: "It was a letter that was attached to his pension application written by the Clyburns. It said he was a 'special aide'." I wrote back pointing out that this did not constitute evidence documenting the claim, to which he replied: "This was the letter that was used to confirm that mr. clyburn would receive a pension and it was accepted as proof by the state of n.c." While it was very kind of Mr. Harrington to respond to my inquiry, it would appear that he hasn't exercised the critical skills of a journalist in this instance, and if Mr. Ijames is satisfied that such a piece of evidence proves that Clyburn was in fact an aide to General Lee then it is a travesty to refer to him as an "expert" on any subject of historical interpretation.
Marc
Posted by: Marc Ferguson | Monday, July 21, 2008 at 10:25 PM
I agree that we shouldn’t create a us vs. them mentality in discussing the subject of Confederate slaves, but I wonder if my piece, as a scholarly presentation, can open debate among people of various backgrounds and perspectives. I fear that my paper contains the stylistic and methodological barriers that divide the public from the academy. I suggest this because I am surprised that we haven't had a single post challenging my analysis or conclusions. It was my intent to create a forum where all sides could divorce this subject from the nasty politics of today, and that both parties could do a little soul searching about the language and tactics that they have employed. A little self-criticism would be refreshing in this contentious debate.
The so called-neo-Confederate crowd (a term that I hate but unfortunately employed when I delivered this paper) feels compelled to divorce black and white relationships from the social reality of slavery. Have we ever asked ourselves why they feel compelled to do this? What psychological and political purposes does it serve? Racism as an answer tells us virtually nothing about the time and place specific issues that confront these Southern romantics. They clearly feel under attack and understanding why they perceive the world from the perspective of being persecuted demands our serious attention. Unfortunately, the opposition's energies have been devoted to telling those who believe in Confederate slave fidelity that they are irretrievably stupid for making such historical claims. Even worse is the tendency to mock "sacred" gestures to the Confederate past as acts of buffoonery. A little civility might steer the debate back to history.
I think we can raise the questions above without surrendering any intellectual ground that slavery defined life in the Old South, that the master-slave relationship was grounded in violence, and that any attemt to diminish the importance of human bondage to the Confedercy's existence is a denial of history.
Posted by: Peter Carmichael | Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 09:47 AM
"I am surprised that we haven't had a single post challenging my analysis or conclusions."
=====================
They aren't allowed...
Posted by: border | Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 05:43 PM
You've had plenty of comments allowed through, but I have made the decision to delete a few. I only ask that you respond to the content of my posts. At times you share very little that is constructive. All I ask is that you take the time to lay out a coherent and well-articulated response and your comments will be allowed through. In fact, I am much more interested in hearing from people who disagree with me than I am with those who disagree. I mean no disrespect to you, but I would recommend that next time you have a problem with something I've said that you refrain from commenting immediately. Sketch out some ideas and take the time to be helpful by carefully showing me where I've gone wrong. That's all I ask.
Posted by: Kevin Levin | Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 05:55 PM
Pete,
Excellent points all the way through. In looking over the slavery debates on the various Civil War forums I frequent, I am always surprised by the tendency of some forum posters to deny the very clear link of slavery with secession.
I will welcome your book looking at the subject of "Black Confederates" in detail. With so much acrimonious debate occurring among various groups, I'm very surprised a book such as the one you are writing hasn't been published yet. Surely a nuanced look at the subject will at the very least begin to give us some very good ideas about how Blacks felt about their service in the Confederate armies and exactly what the true nature of that service was.
I have several questions on one point you brought up early on. You mentioned that counting numbers of slaves on Confederate muster rolls is a distraction from the more important points. I would tend to agree. However, allow me if I may to ask how one would even determine if a person listed on a Confederate muster roll was even black. I've only seen Union consolidated morning reports, so I'm curious as to how the ANV, for instance, might have reported slaves and free Blacks who accompanied the army as servants. Were Blacks listed as "slave" or "servant" on the rolls? I guess I'm wondering how those who claim some large army of "Black Confederates" can even back up that claim.
Thanks again for the thoughtful post and I look forward to your reply.
Posted by: Brett Schulte | Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 10:32 PM
Brett, -- I will leave Pete to respond to your question about the muster rolls, but you (and others) may be interested in this article by James Hollandsworth on black Confederate pension applications in Mississippi. As you well know pensions are regularly trotted out to demonstrate some of the more far-fetched conclusions about numbers.
http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/index.php?id=289
Posted by: Kevin Levin | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 07:16 AM
Brett:
The Compiled Service Record only lists those men who were receiving pay for their military service in Confederate armies. There are gaps in the CSR, but they are the foundational records for determining official service in Confederate armies. Those interested in numbers need to find slaves (not freed blacks) who have official records of their military service in the CSR. And I would be shocked to find any slave who was receiving a check from Uncle Jeff. I have only seen one black man listed on the rolls, and he was a free black. He served in the Letcher Artillery and was from North Africa. There are hundreds of microfilm CSR rolls at the National Archives, and it is possible that one could find a few slaves. Any claim of Confederate slave service must be based on a canvas of the CSR.
Pension records are a different animal and whites and blacks of questionable service made claims after the war. The politics of pension seekers, both black and white, would be an interesting study and it would help us understand not just individual motivation but the context in which white Confederate veterans worked with former slaves so the latter could get compensation and status for wearing the gray. I have only looked at pension records for white Confederates and as a source they contain the problems one would expect with postwar documents.
My skepticism of the numbers game stems from the records themselves. A slave who is listed on either a wartime or postwar source as performing a military function is still a slave. Even if a slave served as an aide or picked up a musket in battle and received both recognition and compensation for the act, I don't see how that makes that man any less a slave or implies that blacks and whites were loyal to each other. I appreciate your acknowledgment of our need to focus on the historical experience of Confederate slaves, which has been lost in all the political turmoil.
I am struck by white officers and how little they reveal about the exchanges between themselves and their camps servants. They have this invisible presence in the army, except for poorer soldiers who saw this as one of many inequities between officers and enlisted men.
Posted by: Peter Carmichael | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 07:28 AM
Excellent article Peter!
By the way, congratulations on the post at WVU - it's been a long road from our Virginia Regimental Histories days...
Nonetheless, I enjoy looking over the rosters that we made, and am busy these days reading between the lines. On that same line and in tune with this article, only by a fluke (a brief newspaper article from the early 1900s) was I able to identify a black Confederate from among Page County's Confederates. He started off as a mess cook for some officers in the Page Volunteers of the 10th Va. Inf., hired at some undisclosed rate (and I have no clue of he retained all of that money or sent some to his master back in Page). However, after the disaster at Spotyslvania, he actually enlisted in the 10th (June 1864), but that's as far as the records take him. I have no clue what came of him after that point or even if he carried a musket.
Incidentally, ever take a look in the "Virginia Servants' Pension Records" (the exact name of the group fails me right now, but close enough)? I took a look at the records group for Page County and found not one black - all were white workers with the furnace systems operating in Page during the war. I was just curious if any blacks are actually represented in the records.
Anyway, you are dead-on regarding the numbers game. This topic is far more complex than too many would care to admit.
Posted by: Robert Moore | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 06:40 PM
I should add... this black Confederate in the 10th Va. Infantry wasn't even identified in the rosters by race. He was Charles Brown. So, like I said, if it wasn't for the small newspaper article (really a snippit), one would have never known that he was black. Now, I can see where some might want to take this, but it really is some light data and not detailed enough for one to draw blanket-type conclusuions about blacks in the Confederate army.
Posted by: Robert Moore | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 06:57 PM
Hi Pete:
I don't have much additional to contribute here, but I will repeat part of what I mentioned to you in Philadelphia last month for the sake of others. I mailed my manuscript off last week, and in it is a brief discussion of "black Confederates." Having been misquoted before on this subject, I paid particular attention to the topic in my research, as well as looking at the bigger relationship between motivation and slavery. After examining the letters and diaries of 317 Confederates who enlisted after 1861, I didn't find accounts of any who weren't specifically referred to as--and treated like--slaves. Even J. Wallace Comer, who appears in one of the most reprinted photos of a white soldier with African-American body servant (both in uniform) made it clear that the man in the photograph was a family slave. I found many accounts of slaves in camp, slaves escaping, slaves being beaten and even occasionally lynched. I also found two second-hand accounts of slaves fighting for their masters. But those thousands of loyal black Confederate soldiers remain where Kevin's reprinted cartoon below placed them, largely in the Letters to the Editor section of North & South.
Ken
Posted by: Ken Noe | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 10:11 PM
I do not understand the sense of irrational ferver in which hostility has come to exist between northerners and Southerners with regard to the history of the conflict and the character of the contesting armies. Yet, the north seems to feel that they must swat down any sort of claims by the South which may contradict the "official" history of the conflict. Why is this?
Posted by: Jimmy L. Shirley Jr. | Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 11:31 PM
Ken, -- Sorry, but I had to take that image down owing to the size of the file. Those of you interested can find it here: http://bp0.blogger.com/_zaadoLt7gAs/R5FncnuzqOI/AAAAAAAAAB0/oEaoQbyzmqE/s1600-h/TheTruth.jpg
Mr. Shirley, -- Thanks for the comment. There is indeed a great deal of hostility over how to properly interpret and remember the Civil War. That said, I don't know if it is accurate to simply interpret this as a North v. South issue where the former is seen as some kind of culprit. If you are referencing historians who write about the war than your distinction breaks down immediately since many of the things you would probably agree are northern attacks are written by historians who were born and raised in the South.
Posted by: Kevin Levin | Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 06:26 AM
Mr. Shirley, Take a look at the Foreward in the book Apostles of Disunion. Charles B. Dew was born and raise a Southerner, but there was a breaking point and it troubled him a great deal to go against everything he was raised on. Personally, I love this introduction to the book and think that I encountered something very similar to what he did in the course of my research. I was a SCV member for over 20 years, but in the last three, I saw something that left me very unsettled, both as a historian and as an American. So, what may be talked-up as a North vs. South issue is misleading. Like Kevin points out, many of those who have brought forward flaws in the Lost Cause mythology are, in fact, Southerners. They aren't necessarily "attacks," but the information they have brought to light is perceived as such, by some.
Posted by: Robert Moore | Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 08:19 AM
All five of my Civil War ancestors fought in the Confederate army, four in the 16th Virginia Cavalry, and one in the 9th Virginia Cavalry. Ironically, I've never enjoyed riding.
Posted by: ken Noe | Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 08:40 AM
Note to Reader: This comment was received privately, but I have decided to post it to give Pete a chance to respond. The author is welcome to claim ownership if he chooses in a follow-up comment.]
Hey Kevin
I won't bother to post on your "blog" - my last two posts apparently never made it so I won't wear my fingers out typing. Suffice it to say that you appear to have found yet another "interpreter" friend for your "memory studies" (Peter Carmichael) and are quite pleased with yourself.
Hall was "probably" frightened? Is that what you call
"interpretation"? Walkup used his slave to highlight his own courage? Where does it say that? Oh! I forgot, you and your pals "interpreted" it.... I see.
Pender was "irritated" because a black man got himself some new clothes? Where does it say that? Whoops! I forgot...it's what y'all call "interpreting".....
Pardon my forthrightness. I have spent the better part of my life walking through bullshit and my bullshit boots are just about worn out. When I see bullshit it set off my "bullshit alarm" and Carmichael's "intepretation", and yours, are pure bullshit.
Be thankful that I don't have kids in your school. If I did you'd be getting frequent visits from me and you sure as hell wouldn't like those visits.
Posted by: Anonymous | Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 08:41 AM
Ha! Ken, good post! I'm directly descended from horsemen as well - out of my eight direct ancestors, three were in the 7th Va. Cav. and two in the 62nd Mtd. Va. Inf. Oh, and my Union relative, a distant uncle, was in Cole's Cavalry... and I'm allergic to horse hair!
Posted by: Robert Moore | Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 08:55 AM
So, I wonder if "anonymous'" "interpretation" of things is that all Southerners loved the Confederacy and that all Confederate soldiers enlisted voluntarily... Indeed, the very nature of "interpretation" is up for discussion in ALL circles when it comes to the war, and no less so among the "moonlight and magnolias" theorists.
Posted by: Robert Moore | Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 09:05 AM
Article-
"The lack of constant white supervision freed camp servants to do a number of things, including to sell their labor to other Confederates. One Confederate general Dorsey Pender was amused and irritated by the entrepreneurial success of his camp servant. 'The rascal seems to have plenty of money, but I have ordered him to allow me to be his treasurer. He has managed to dress himself in a nice gray uniform, French bosom linen shirt---for which he paid $4---has two pairs [of] new shoes.' The slave’s fine clothing signified to Pender that he was losing control, and that his slave was challenging the established order, for plantation slaves were always issued the coarsest dress. The sight of a slave wearing French shirts constituted an insubordinate act to Pender."
======================
"Amused and irritated" probably...
"Challenging the established order" and "constituted and insubordinate act" is a great stretch...
…unless you can read the minds of dead men
I believe Mr. Pender was a more complex character than the stereotype you offer.
Posted by: border | Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 09:51 AM
I would like to respond to the anonymous post regarding the bullshit alarm. I won't speak to the author's lack of civility as that would divert our attention from the important issues that he/she raises.
Pender makes it clear that he was more than irritated. He took over the funds of his slave when the slave started dressing better than most Confederate soldiers, an act that Pender would have never considered if the offending soldier had been white. The point of the example is to make clear that camp servants, although given a fair amount of autonomy in comparison to most slaves, were still subjected to the confines of the master slave relationship.
Your point about Walkup is a good one and I agree that I am reading deepl into the sources regarding Walkup's motivation. I respect the fact that you are comfortable with a more literal reading of the source. However, my reading of Walkup's letters and diaries revealed an interesting pattern that I tought deserved deeper exploration. He consistently juxtaposed his slave's behavior in battle to his own perfornace under fire. don't think this was by accident and I think Walkup was trying to make a statement about white courage an slave manliness. You are correct to point out that my I am being suggestive in the case of Walkup.
I would have you reconsider your handling of sources. If one were to take away a historian's ability to interpret documents, leaving us with the source itself as the only reflecton of reality, we would have an impoverished view of history. For insance, this is an excerpt from a speech by Charles Sumner:
"I am an American citizen,"may not be sent forth in vain against outrage of every kind. In just regard for free labor in that Territory, which it is sought to blast by unwelcome association with slave labor; in Christian sympathy with the slave, whom it is proposed to task and sell there; in stern condemnation of the crime which has been consummated on that beautiful soil; in rescue of fellow-citizens now subjugated to a Tyrannical Usurpation; in dutiful respect for the early fathers, whose aspirations are now ignobly thwarted; in the name of the Constitution, which has been outraged of the laws trampled down of Justice banished of Humanity degraded of Peace destroyed of Freedom crushed to earth; and, in the name of the Heavenly Father, whose service is perfect Freedom, I make this last appeal."
If we follow your approach, we should simply accept Sumner's word that his outrage against slavery animated from pure concens for the slave and moral outrage for the system as a whole. But I would not agree with such an assessment. This was a public docment, that had political purposes, and to explain it as a product of high ideas (as I assume you would since you refuse to interpret) would be missig the complexties of Sumner and the social and political context of the time.
Even though we might not resolve our interpretive differences about Confederate slaves (which is a good thing), I think it is useful to try to understand why we disagree and it appears that we have different conceptions how historians should handle sources. I also suspect that you are more comfortable with history that creates a grand narrative of factual history while I am more inclined to read and write intepretive history. Each approach has value as well as limitations.
I might add that I would welcome your kids to my classroom, and if they or any other student disagrees with my interpretations, I can promise you that I would never tell them that their opinions have registered on my bullshit meter.
I apologize for the typos but my keyboard is not functioning well for some reason.
Best,
Pete
Posted by: Peter Carmichael | Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 10:13 AM
Thanks for the comment Border. I'm sure Pete will have a response for you, but for now let me ask what you believe to be lacking in the analysis. In other words, based on your understanding what did that complexity involve?
I would also like to refer you to a very interesting report by Carl Schurz which came out of his time spent, I believe, in Charleston where he was reporting on the progress of Reconstruction for Grant. In it he emphasizes the aggressive stance on the part of white women against black women owing to the latter's dress. Apparently, they were offended by the sophistication of their dress as it seemed to them to be out of place for a black women and former slave. I reference this just to point out that dress is often interpreted as a political or social statement.
Posted by: Kevin Levin | Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 10:16 AM