Comments on: Robert Smalls and the Escape of the Planter, Part 3

By: Michael B. Moore

Michael B. Moore — Sun, 20 May 2012 12:20:52 +0000

Let’s not confuse slaves whose owners put them in service to the Confederacy as “black Confederates”.

By: marcferguson

marcferguson — Sun, 20 May 2012 01:57:09 +0000

I think we are on the same page on this subject.
marc

By: Donald R. Shaffer

Donald R. Shaffer — Sun, 20 May 2012 01:04:39 +0000

Marc: as I read it, the comment is not making an argument for mass participation of African Americans as soldiers in the Confederate army, but more isolated, ad hoc, and informal participation, which seems to be the case. Have you read Glenn Brasher’s recent book on the Peninsula campaign? He makes a pretty good case for such “black Confederates” in Virginia in 1862, and it wouldn’t surprise me to find a few in Louisiana and elsewhere as well, especially early in the war when the war’s outcome was far from certain and a few African Americans might have thrown their lot in with the Confederates in the hope of they would be rewarded if the South won. Of course, the Confederate government did not formally approve African Americans as soldiers in their army until very late in the war, too late to make any real difference.

By: marcferguson

marcferguson — Sat, 19 May 2012 19:31:42 +0000

Don,
The commenter here seems to be asserting the existence of “black Confederates,” and I would dispute the existence of such people, at least until the very end of the war.

By: Donald R. Shaffer

Donald R. Shaffer — Sat, 19 May 2012 17:19:56 +0000

Not sure what you mean here, Marc.

By: marcferguson

marcferguson — Sat, 19 May 2012 16:10:09 +0000

What “African American Confederates” are you talking about? It’s pure fantasy.

By: More on Robert Smalls from Donald Shaffer | Western Mass Civil War Sesquicentennial

Sat, 19 May 2012 16:07:56 +0000

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By: drbronsonstaughistory

drbronsonstaughistory — Sat, 19 May 2012 02:37:03 +0000

I’m getting the impression that if someone did the research on all the African American Confederates that the majority of them (outside of the Louisiana unit would have been musicians (like the ones from St. Augustine). I only have one report of a Africian American soldier who shot a gun (at Bull Run) and he later became part of the USCT. In the cases that I have after the U. S. Army took an area the African American troops were simply abandoned (and that includes Louisiana.)