""Black men in the Confederate army": what the..." Topic

… newspapers said – 1861-1865.

"With all the discussion about whether black men served as armed soldiers in the Confederate Army, I wanted to start researching contemporary accounts from the war years, 1861-1865, and see what made the newspapers. Thanks to the Library of Congress, there are huge amounts of old papers online, with a pretty good search engine, so it's not hard to find what the papers of the day said. So far I've found rumors, eyewitness accounts, editorials and random references. There was a range of opinion about the topic, just as there is today.

The purpose of this thread is not to necessarily prove or disprove anything, it's to explore what the news of the day said about the concept. If you want to debate the existence of black Confederates, there are numerous other threads dedicated to that topic. While here, please confine discussion and commentary to posted articles and any observations you may have about them. Any supporting information that tells us about people, places or battles mentioned in an article is also welcome.

With all the discussion about whether black men served as armed soldiers in the Confederate Army, I wanted to start researching contemporary accounts and see what made the newspapers. Thanks to the Library of Congress, there are huge amounts of old papers online, with a pretty good search engine, so it's not hard to find what the papers of the day said. The point of this is not to necessarily prove or disprove anything, it's to explore what the news of the day said about the concept. So far, in a very short time, I've found rumors, eyewitness accounts, editorials and random references. There is a range of opinion about the topic, just as there is today. I plan to update this thread regularly as I find stories of interest…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Its not even a link to an article. Its a link to another forum.

Yes… so what?… if the info is good… I don't see a problem with that…

Amicalement
Armand

This is TMP. People often get annoyed with silly stuff!!

Only 70 pages of discussion.
So what is the critical piece of information we need to know?
Is there a pattern here (other than linking to other people's work or opinions)?

Nobody said that this is a "critical piece of information you need"… point me which are those please… (smile)

You enjoy or not the thread… that's simple… not big deal…

Amicalement
Armand

Tango my friend. This is a time bomb waiting to happen. We've beat this dead horse into the dust…..Please let's not do it again…

You are right my good friend….

Let's put a cloak of piety … (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Murphy is right Tango.

Shelby Foote, James McPherson, and Gene Genovese, all excellent and eminent historians have dealt with this topic extensively,

All of them have noted that the debate convulsed the South at the end of the war, the reception among the blacks was lukewarm, and there is no evidence that ANY unit became operational. It remained more or less in the notion stage. The sticking point was that the Southern leaders recognized that to make the back man a soldier set the whole reason behind the confederacy on its head- That is, that if the black man was not a man, how could be be a soldier. The whole scheme further depended on emancipation, which the south never embraced and which was handled as if from afar under the phrase "some alteration of their basic status."

and there is no evidence that ANY unit became operational.

We're not talking "units" Otto….

Murphy and Otto are right. This subject is very much old news. We have discussed it for decades in the history and gaming venues. I even included examples in a talk that I gave at a DoD school back in 1982.

There are records of a Nashville black businessman in Tenn. he financed an artillery battery and an infantry unit. It was not unusual when the draft occurred that a rich man would send his slave as a substitute for his service.