"The 'Other' Side of the Slavery Question" Topic

Do you know the argument in Plato's Euthyphro? Is something bad because the gods condemn it, or do the gods condemn it because it is bad? That was a big problem for the pagans, whose deities were human archetypes. ZEUS IS lustful and Ares IS murderous, etc. If Zeus can be a bully, why can't I?

Ethical monotheists (Jews, Christians, Islamics) avoid this by equating God and Good: "God is great, God is good" is profound theology. The metaphor John uses is that God is Light, and evil/sin is bacteria that cannot survive in the light; as soon as the two come into contact, the evil is extinguished.

Non-theists have attempted to construct morality without God, in, e.g., the "categorical imperative": no human can rightfully be treated as a means to another human's happiness or well-being." But I think this apparently non-theistic principle assumes something like imago dei. link

If we approach it from another angle, that of Creation: we do not belong to ourselves, because we did not make ourselves. Being born (first time or again) is not something you DO; it is something that HAPPENS to you. Plato argued (in CRITO) that we belong to our parents, to our city, and to our gods, each of which is a different sense created us. (This is PIETY, what the creature owes its creator.) I cannot rightfully harm you without just cause (e.g. self-defense) because we both belong to the same Common Superior who alone can rightfully judge between us.

But you mentioned the Golden Rule, and that is an excellent place to start and even stay. And it is an example of a "self-evident truth" whose validity is evident to anyone possessing reason.

There are two "self-evident truths" thta most of us learn from our mothers. One is "how would you like it if somebody did that to you? -- the Golden Rule.

The other is, "what would happen if everybody acted like that?" If you universalize a behavior and don't like what results, then you should not do it.

My first high school job was an expensive private school, in which kids routinely left bookbags with calculators and radios and such lying in the hall, unguarded. There was virtually NO theft, not because of the "Honor System" (which did not prevent cheating) but because everyone was equally vulnerable, and realized it, and thieves got reported and expelled very quickly. The EXACT SAME THING exists in the prison in which I mentored and taught for six years, which is a Character-and-Faith-Based prison, medium security. The felons respect each other's stuff, because the institutional culture is very strongly against it, because everyone is equally vulnerable and it is just better when everyone is honest.

Charge, do you think the South fought for a just cause during the Civil War?

No.

However, when I game the ACW, i never worry about it. Frankly, slavery in the USA as a stigma might be over and done with if it werent for elements keeping it alive. It should be an historical relic but it isnt; and it isnt because certain posterity wont let it heal and be at peace. They wont let it rest because they dont want to take the hit for being the bad guys and that denial makes the wound stay open.

That's why to some degree, I dont think it is the slavery itself that's so offensive (and it is offensive)so much as the dedication to combine it with race and then to persecute that difference to present times. If the after-behavior (like Jim Crow or even Northern racism) hadnt taken place, we might all be able to have a good laugh about it not dissimilarly to how we can enjoy a movie about Egyptian Queens and their slaves. But, the amount of psychic energy expended to make sure a specific people always feel like crap just makes the past so much more sickening.

To be more specific, I dont believe that the vast majority of Lost Causers know thing one about the history…at least the military history.

If you look at earlier slave systems, such as that of Rome -- which we know a great deal about -- you can see that very few objected to the idea of slavery in the abstract. Paul was indifferent to it, as a trivial distinction for Christians: we are all God's slaves, and we are all free in Christ, so don't worry about it if you are a slave -- but if you get a chance to become free, obviously you should grab it! Paul's letter to Philemon holds both master and slave to be brothers while also humanly remaining superior and subordinate. And of course Aristotle believed some races were natural slaves and others natural masters. (C.S. Lewis commented that, looking around, it wasn't hard to spot the natural slaves, but he couldn't see any natural masters!)

So the idea that slavery is really evil, and not just that you personally do not want to be one, but it is of course THE WAY THINGS ARE, was slow in developing.

As I have argued, right and wrong do not change, but human perceptions of them certainly do.

And Charge, yes, the racial component of North American slavery made something already very bad into something even worse.

Google "black slave owners" and you will see there were a good many; best explained, I think, as remnants of the old "IT'S JUST THE WAY THINGS ARE" philosophy.

How about a little fire, scarecrow!

William Ellison Jr. (c. April 1790 – December 5, 1861), born April Ellison, was a U.S. cotton gin maker and blacksmith in South Carolina, and former African-American slave who achieved considerable success as a slaveowner before the American Civil War. He eventually became a major planter and one of the medium property owners, and one of the wealthiest property owners in the state. According to the 1860 census (in which his surname was listed as "Ellerson"), he owned 63 black slaves, making him the largest of the 171 black slaveholders in South Carolina. He held 40 slaves at his death and more than 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land. From 1830-1865 he and his sons were the only free blacks in Sumter County, South Carolina to own slaves. The county was largely devoted to cotton plantations, and the majority population were slaves.

Ellison and his sons were among a number of successful free people of color in the antebellum years, but Ellison was particularly outstanding. His master had passed on social capital by apprenticing him to learn a valuable artisan trade as a cotton-gin maker, at which Ellison made a success. He took a wife at the age of 21. After buying his own freedom when he was 26, a few years later Ellison purchased his wife and their children, to protect them from sales as slaves. The Act of 1820 made it more difficult for slaveholders to make personal manumissions, but Ellison gained freedom for his sons and a quasi-freedom for his surviving daughter. During the American Civil War, Ellison and his sons supported the Confederate States of America and gave the government substantial donations and aid. A grandson fought informally with the regular Confederate Army and survived the war.

The Civil War was fought to maintain slavery and spread it.

Again, a reductionist perspective that oversimplifies a complicated set of forces that led the Civil War. The War was fought principally because the two sides had very differing ideas about the country, the economy and how both should be governed.

As I have argued, right and wrong do not change, but human perceptions of them certainly do.

It sounds like the people at the time possessed all the tools (religious and otherwise)to do the right thing and decided to double down on slavery.

Google "black slave owners" and you will see there were a good many; best explained, I think, as remnants of the old "IT'S JUST THE WAY THINGS ARE" philosophy.

I did, and the only "on point" article I found was this one on the AmericanCivilWar.com site

link

After reading some of the wishful statistics, I wondered who Grooms was and where the article came from. It isnt hard to find; it is written By and comes from:

Robert M. Grooms © 1997
(THIS ARTICLE IS COPYRIGHTED AND IS PROVIDED HERE COURTESY OF THE BARNES REVIEW)

So, I took a look at the Barnes Review website and it is selling books like:

Red Republicans and Lincoln's Marxists: Marxism in the Civil War

"Was Abraham Lincoln influenced by Communism when the Union condemned the rights of Southern states to express their independence? It's shocking to think so. But that's precisely what Walter D.Kennedy and Al Benson Jr. assert in this book…"

So, the Confederacy were early fighters against the Marxist Beast!

Confederate Monuments: Why Every American Should Honor Confederate Soldiers and Their Memorials

"Why is the Left targeting Confederate monuments for removal and destruction? Its sinister efforts to eradicate American history do more than just offend the living. They are an insult to the honor and memory of one of the most courageous and patriotic American servicemen the world has ever known: the Confederate soldier…"

The Confederate soldier is an American hero?

And this book:

Sobibor: Holocaust Propaganda and Reality

Which contains in its blurb:

"…Between 25,000 and 2 million Jews are said to have been killed in gas chambers in the Sobibór camp in Poland. This book investigates these claims and shows that they are based on the selective use of contradictory eyewitness testimony…

…The book also documents the general National Socialist policy toward Jews, which never included a genocidal "final solution."

I suppose when that Texas teacher recently said we should teach opposing views on the Holocaust, she'd just finished this "true history".

Or this gem:

White World Awake! Stopping the Planned Ex-termination of Our Volk. By Jurgen Graf

There's much more extreme content but I thought to spare people. It's hard enough to believe these books exist. However, this is not what I would call an unimpeachable pedigree on the subject of black slave ownership.

Shocking!
But not unexpected.

Why is it that sites like that always seem to sell "true histories" on both the Confederates AND the Nazis? Especially when they have absolutely nothing to do with each other…hmm

I suppose we can chalk it up to Koinkidink.

I have absolutely no doubt that the Holocaust occurred, or that slavery existed. Both were horrible.

But there were some thousands of free blacks who were slave owners. We may make of that whatever, and as much or as little, as we wish, but it is a fact. In a number of cases, as with the Ellison family mentioned above, a man became free and then purchased his wife and other family. There were often legal barriers to manumissions. It was an evil system, trapping many people of good will into situations where all choices were bad ones. The more you know, the more complicated it becomes.

Frankly, slavery in the USA as a stigma might be over and done with if it werent for elements keeping it alive. It should be an historical relic but it isnt; and it isnt because certain posterity wont let it heal and be at peace. They wont let it rest because they dont want to take the hit for being the bad guys and that denial makes the wound stay open.

That's why to some degree, I dont think it is the slavery itself that's so offensive (and it is offensive)so much as the dedication to combine it with race and then to persecute that difference to present times.

There's a lot of truth in all that but you need to take a step back.

As I have pointed out on this Board its the unique nature of US slavery that holds things back. If we return to Rome for a moment their slavery was substantially different (not OK but different).

They were equal opportunity enslavers. Didn't matter much to them who you were or where came from , or your ethnic background. If you lost in war, you were in (there were other routes).

The race element in US Slavery is inseparable, yes there were black slaveholders, there were in Africa too but the slaves were a targeted group and taken as a commercial enterprise. Being enslaved as war booty is not any better for the slave but you are not singled out and shipped across an Ocean!

The next big issue is once Black Slaves were emancipated they were still where they were previously and there decedents still are.

There may be tens of thousand of Italians DNA linked to Roman slavery but they don't stand out in a crowd because of their skin color nor does the active Right Wing of Italian politics get a chance to target them. Although immigrants make some kind of substitute.

Then of course there is the 100 years after the War which you are all familiar and the limitation of change even after the mid to late 1960's. Yes you can rightly point a finger at the Lost Cause but it runs deeper than that, right across the Country and there are plenty of Federal and State Laws that both directly and indirectly, make sure that it does.

Marcus Brutus,

Do you think the South fought for a just cause?

But there were some thousands of free blacks who were slave owners.

Another excuse for southern slavery…it's also 'whataboutism.'

I have absolutely no doubt that the Holocaust occurred, or that slavery existed. Both were horrible.

Well that Grooms article on black slave owners comes from that Barnes site. It is the only article I could find that suggests that blacks were slave owners just like whites were and, indeed, percentage wise, were more likely to be slave owners.

But there were some thousands of free blacks who were slave owners. We may make of that whatever, and as much or as little, as we wish, but it is a fact. In a number of cases, as with the Ellison family mentioned above, a man became free and then purchased his wife and other family. There were often legal barriers to manumissions.

The other tracts on black "slave owners" that I found suggested, what you touch on, that most were in New Orleans (which must've been some sort of safe zone) and it was mostly cases of freed persons buying their relatives to make them safe.

It was an evil system, trapping many people of good will into situations where all choices were bad ones. The more you know, the more complicated it becomes.

It is only complicated if it is convenient for it to be complicated. For the rest of us it is quite simple. The South fought to preserve slavery and Lincoln first freed the slaves and then then abolished slavery.

Again, historically speaking this conflation of slavery with the American Civil War is incorrect. It is too simplistic. This is a 21st century reconstruction of events. Was slavery a contributing factor to the war? Yes. Was it determinative. Absolutely not. The economic and social forces at work in the United States before the War were the dominant reason for it and there were many forces at play.

Over 90% of Southern White households did have not own slaves. The vast majority of Southerners fighting in the war did not fight to save slavery. The vast majority of Northern soldiers did not go to war to free slaves. Lincoln's original motivation for war was not to free slaves but to preserve the Union.

Do you think the South fought for a just cause?

Your question is leading. Do you not see it Cleburne? The South fought for many reasons. There was no single cause. The diverging interests with the North made it hugely problematic for the South to stay. For instance, the North wanted high tariffs to protect fledgling manufacturing. The South wanted a free trade policy so that it could sell its agricultural goods to Europe. This became an irreconcilable dispute between the sections. Unfortunately. The United States genius for compromise failed at a critical moment.

My personal opinion was that the compromises embedded in the 1787 Constitution that brought together two visions of the country was bound to lead to war because ultimately they were incompatible with each other. The one view was a loose union of states built on the model of the Articles of Confederation. The other was the highly nationalistic view held by Alexander Hamilton that desired to rid the country of sectional interests. They were fused into one document through compromise but the underlying argument was not settled at that time as to what the United States would be.

The economic and social forces at work in the United States before the War were the dominant reason for it and there were many forces at play.

And the economic and social force that led to the war and caused the break was slavery-pure and simple. To downplay that is ahistorical and ignores what slavery was to the southern plantation class, some of whom wanted to restore the overseas slave trade and who also conducted the smuggling of slaves from the Caribbean.

"Small Truth Papering Over a Big Lie

A Texas State Senate Resolution claims that most Confederate soldiers didn't own slaves. Why that's misleading."

link

But there were some thousands of free blacks who were slave owners.

And there were some Jews in the Lufwaffe.
link

Marcus Brutus,

You are describing why they fought. I'm not asking your opinion on why they fought. I'm asking for your own personal opinion on the morality of their cause. Even your personal opinion given was on the Constitution, compromises, and the views of Alexander Hamilton.

I'm not asking for a history lesson. I'm asking for your own personal opinion based upon all the collective knowledge you have gathered over the years of studying the war.

Do you think the South fought for a just cause?

Leave the dead to bury the dead.

A Texas State Senate Resolution claims that most Confederate soldiers didn't own slaves.

I note the link in the piece from The Atlantic quotes the excellent work of:

Joseph T. Glatthaar – Soldiering In The Army of Northern Virginia.

Well worth a read.

There's also a You Tube video of him doing a presentation based on the book:

YouTube link

Why?

How are we supposed to learn from history if we don't discuss it?

What makes you uncomfortable? Discussing the war? Discussing the causes? Discussing modern personal opinions?

On its surface, it violates the Golden Rule.

Or, as Lincoln put it: "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master."

Slavery is evil, and to the extent that the South fought to preserve it, their cause was unjust. That does not make the north's determination to preserve the union by force a just cause. The southern desire for political as well as cultural independence was not intrinsically unjust, or if it was then so was 1776. And the north made the war into one to abolish slavery, which WAS a righteous cause.

Sorry if that is too complex for anyone. The war aims are not reciprocal nor symetrical, and changed for both sides as the war continued.

don, yes, and THAT realization was quite recent, in historical terms.

Sorry if that is too complex for anyone. The war aims are not reciprocal not symetrical, and changed for both sides as the war continued.

You're viewpoints are being received respectfully but you think it's alright to suggest that those who dont swallow it are the fools? What's the difference between teaching and indoctrination?

Incidentally, several of your arguments are popularly pushed on a rampant anti-semitic/white supremicist website, did that just go over your head?

You are presenting the maverick claim, it's on you to explain it. So far, none of the arguments put forward have altered the basic tenets about the ACW,that:

The South fought to preserve slavery and Lincoln first freed the slaves and then then abolished slavery.

I understand that you think your revelations are "Aha" moments that smoke out the hypocrisy but others think it's just the way things work. It's called evolution. It's very rare for someone to have a pure, selfless thought from the very start. Frankly, I cant think of any example. Usually it's the opposite, someone has a rotten, self serving thought from the get-go and sticks with it.

Now, all of these other technical revelations are interesting to ACW/Confederacy fanatics and both can and should be written about ad nauseum but it's impractical to ask the wider world to get sidelined with a narrative that a handful find expedient.

And, you can tell a lot about what is and isnt dissected to the Nth degree. I mean, when people talk about German atrocities during WW2, do we have to stop the class every time and talk about American atrocities too? Where is the consistency here? Does size matter or do the rare exceptions make the rule?

If your mind and spirit requires simplicity, so be it. For you.

I mean, when people talk about German atrocities during WW2, do we have to stop the class every time and talk about American atrocities too?

Well, we MIGHT; it depends on what the purpose of the discussion is. Are you familiar with just war theory? I teach it because it is an excellent set of concepts for evaluating many conflicts. Did the Nazis fight a just war? No, for lots of reasons. Did the US fight a just war against them? Yes, generally -- but does that make the firebombing of Dresden just? It is, I repeat, COMPLICATED.

"Small Truth Papering Over a Big Lie

A Texas State Senate Resolution claims that most Confederate soldiers didn't own slaves. Why that's misleading."

Did you happen notice that the statistical information concerning slave ownership was related only to the precursor formations of the AoNV formed in 1861? What about the vast majority of recruits and conscripts that made up the AoNV in 1862 or 1863? What about the recruits and conscripts that made up the Army of Tennessee in 62 or 63?

This is cherry picking statistics. This is not an honest overview of slave holding in the mature armies of the South. If we are going to have a serious conversation about this issue then we need to be forthright and honest about the data. The article in the Atlantic was more advocacy journalism than a serious overview of the issue.

Over 90% of Southern White households did have not own slaves. The vast majority of Southerners fighting in the war did not fight to save slavery.

They fought to preserve a way of life which was supported by slavery. Vast amounts of slaves worked to do the scut work for the Confederate armies. Did the confederate privates refuse the help? Did they wonder where all these servants came from? In fact, they seemed to have happily shot the ones that dashed for freedom in the back.

The vast majority of Northern soldiers did not go to war to free slaves. Lincoln's original motivation for war was not to free slaves but to preserve the Union.

Well, the vast majority of northern soldiers certainly didnt go to war to preserve slavery either.

Lincoln could hardly have abolished slavery if he didnt preserve the Union.

Why the South fought is complicated and varied, depending on the individual. To protect slavery. For state's right. Because they were conscripted. To make money. Because they are "down here."

What they fought for, the goal, is not. Its simple. Every Yankee killed, every mile marched, every uniform button sewn, every bushel of corn harvested and sent to the military all went toward one goal. The "what." And that is the preservation and survival of a Confederacy that was created to preserve slavery, and, if it survived, needed human slavery for its economy to function.

Did you happen notice that the statistical information concerning slave ownership was related only to the precursor formations of the AoNV formed in 1861? What about the vast majority of recruits and conscripts that made up the AoNV in 1862 or 1863? What about the recruits and conscripts that made up the Army of Tennessee in 62 or 63?

Which is why I advocated Joseph T. Glatthaar – Soldiering In The Army of Northern Virginia.

There's a lot more to it. Unsurprisingly, those in the ANV who had the most to lose fought harder, for longer. Although it is only regarding the ANV, so the Army of Tennessee, I can't help on.

To protect slavery. For state's right.

I'm sure it varied with the individual, in any number of ways but lets be clear. Private A.P.Dickert, 15th Alabama and one time labourer, who lived in some one else's house (a real person from Glatthaar's book) didn't start the War. Nor did anyone else in the 15th Alabama to my knowledge.

What is certain is that those who actually started it on behalf of the South did so to protect State's Rights, it was the fundamental.

An top of the list of Rights, was Slavery and the avoidance of it not being allowed to continue, or expand.

I would love to have a conversation with Private Dickert to get his views on the day he enlisted and tell him that if he ever made it to Gettysburg to go AWOL, or at least avoid that hill down on the far right but I can't.

So you have to look at the instigators, the motives of those who went along with it are as wide, as they were numerous.

I wonder what Woodrow Wilson's views on slavery were?

Over 90% of Southern White households did have not own slaves.

Undoubtedly because that 90% could not afford to own slaves. 90% of the wealth in the South was held by 10% of the population in the South.

The vast majority of Southerners fighting in the war did not fight to save slavery.

But the fact that they fought for an illegitimate regime that supported slavery means that they de facto supported the institution.

Well, we MIGHT; it depends on what the purpose of the discussion is. Are you familiar with just war theory? I teach it because it is an excellent set of concepts for evaluating many conflicts. Did the Nazis fight a just war? No, for lots of reasons. Did the US fight a just war against them? Yes, generally -- but does that make the firebombing of Dresden just? It is, I repeat, COMPLICATED.

It's hard to follow you because sometimes you're talking about teaching HS children and sometimes you seem to be speaking about examining empirical data for very esoteric research. The problem might be that you create confusion about when you mean what level of detail for which purpose. Perhaps in your estimation, that confusion serves an end but this platitude about "Its complicated" only pops up when you want it to pop up.

I really doubt when discussing WW2 Axis atrocities that you'd be in favor of telling a HS class that American soldiers machine gunned civilian villages in Germany. Or that we werent going to declare war on Germany until they declared war on us and that the US war aim really wasnt initially to defeat Germany.

Or, maybe I'm wrong, maybe to get your revision on the ACW across to children, you'd make that sacrifice about America's rep in WW2.

Anyway, your throwing random, highly selective, poorly connected, local factoids out to prove something about both the war causes and slavery are hard to reconcile.

You can write all the esoteric books on the ACW you want but telling HS students that there were black slave owners without the debunking of why that was is disingenuous and misleading.

To throw out "COMPLICATED" is really just asking "Let us off the hook".

Charge,

Right up there with "there were thousands of black Confederate soldiers."

I really doubt when discussing WW2 Axis atrocities that you'd be in favor of telling a HS class that American soldiers machine gunned civilian villages in Germany. Or that we werent going to declare war on Germany until they declared war on us and that the US war aim really wasnt initially to defeat Germany.

Of course not. What I WOULD tell them was that FDR had been fighting an undeclared naval war against Nazi uboats well before Pearl Harbor. And I'd make sure they knew about Reuben James -- the boy, the ship, and the song.

You can write all the esoteric books on the ACW you want but telling HS students that there were black slave owners without the debunking of why that was is disingenuous and misleading.

Haven't published anything on the CW, esoteric or otherwise. And I don't routinely teach about black owners, partly for reasons you cite. If I did I would certainly mention the practice of a freed slave buying his family, which I have alluded to twice now on this thread.

I MIGHT mention black owners to point out that our racial sensitivities have changed from the 19th century, in two opposite ways: we condemn racism, rightfully, whereas it was generally accepted before 1945 -- that was the Holocaust; AND, perhaps paradoxically, we put far more emphasis on "racial solidarity" than used to be true. I suspect many a black master seldom even thought about the fact that he was the same color as his servants. He probably (unless he was Fred Douglass, all honor to him!) had no problem with the institution of slavery, as most people didn't; he just wanted to be the master and not the slave.

That is, OUR justified condemnation of slavery developed slowly and gradually. The Abolitionists were unpopular enough to be mobbed IN THE NORTH.

Genovese, in ROLL JORDAN ROLL, argues that the slaves mostly accepted the fact of servitude (much as medieval peasants would accept their status) but worked very hard and to a great extent successfully to mitigate the worst abuses. Recall that planter class whites were RAISED BY black women alongside their own children. It was a feudal system; no idea of equality, but there WERE mutual obligations.

There were almost no blacks under arms in Confederate armies, but there were thousands who eventually received Confederate pensions. Most were drivers and cooks, etc. but more than a few were body servants, like Levi Miller to J.J. McBride. We know some details about a fair number of these cases, and the relationship was often a close one, because the white guy and the black guy had been raised together, probably by the black guy's mother. The white officer's duty was to the Confederacy; the black guy's duty was to the white guy. No equality, but a very feudal relationship. Judge it as you wish, but do try to understand it.

Charge,

Right up there with "there were thousands of black Confederate soldiers."

Fortunately this American Battlefield Trust article debunks the conspiracy theory that there were tens of thousands of black confederate soldiers.

link

Genovese, in ROLL JORDAN ROLL, argues that the slaves mostly accepted the fact of servitude (much as medieval peasants would accept their status) but worked very hard and to a great extent successfully to mitigate the worst abuses. Recall that planter class whites were RAISED BY black women alongside their own children. It was a feudal system; no idea of equality, but there WERE mutual obligations.

Yeah, everyone's conveniently favorite Marxist for propping up the complex antics of slavery.

I am going to make it a point never to read this book.

That is, OUR justified condemnation of slavery developed slowly and gradually. The Abolitionists were unpopular enough to be mobbed IN THE NORTH.

Who cares? Why does this have to have been fast or monolithic? It appears to only be important to people who dont want to rehabilitate the Old South. We keep going in circles with this fiction that the world is walking around misinformed and living a dangerous lie that the North went to war to end slavery. OK, you think it proves your point and I dont think youre making any point at all.

But the fact that they fought for an illegitimate regime that supported slavery means that they de facto supported the institution.

Only illegitimate in the eyes of the North. And since I contend that slavery was only a and not the contributing factor to Southern secession the attempt to link the two is erroneous on your part.

Undoubtedly because that 90% could not afford to own slaves.

Pure speculation and I would suggest there is no evidence for this assertion. Ad hominem attack in essence.

Trajanus, Since you have the book by Glatthaar what are the statistics for the 1863 AoNV and slave ownership?

I'll offer hypothesis on the statistics in the article linked by Steve Wilcox from The Atlantic about the 1861 recruits in the eastern theatre for the proto AoNV.

The original enlistments in the AoNV were done by men who had the means to leave their farms/plantations and go off to fight in the war. That would imply slave ownership by many. The original thinking at the time was that it would be relatively short affair (1 Southerner is worth 10 Yankees.) Small farmers who provided the sole labor for their farms probably didn't enroll initially in large numbers because they couldn't afford to leave their farms and families and because they assumed it would be a short war in any event. My hypothesis is that when small landowners began arriving in larger numbers in the various Confederate armies in 1862 the statistics concerning slave ownership noted in the Atlantic article would come down very quickly.

Are you saying that the majority of soldiers in the AoNV owned slaves? If not, what's your point?

Marcus Brutus,

In your personal opinion, do you think the South fought for a just cause?

Read Glatthaar. And the ANV had a large slave contingent with them on a regular basis, often doing military work like digging fortifications.

Are you saying that the majority of soldiers in the AoNV owned slaves? If not, what's your point?

OFM, did you happen to read the Atlantic article linked above?