Comments on: Why the Confederacy Didn’t Arm the Slaves

By: Donald R. Shaffer

Donald R. Shaffer — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 23:19:25 +0000

Excellent point, Margaret. It also explains the severe penalties threatened against white Union officers in charge of black soldiers. Confederate leaders tried to depict them as John Browns trying incite servile insurrection.

Don

By: Margaret D. Blough

Margaret D. Blough — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 21:29:45 +0000

The Confederate terminology for Union soldiers who were black was generally “negroes in arms” or “armed negroes” which avoided acknowledging them as soldiers and focused on the primary concern which Lt. Gen. Kirby Smith made quite clear to his subordinate, Maj. Gen. Richard Taylor:

>>HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT TRANS-MISSISSIPPI,
Shreveport, La., June 13, 1863.
Maj. Gen. R. TAYLOR, Commanding District of Louisiana:
GENERAL: I have been unofficially informed that some of your troops have captured negroes in arms. I hope this may not be so, and that your subordinates who may have been in command of capturing parties may have recognized the propriety of giving no quarter to armed negroes and their officers. In this way we may be relieved from a disagreeable dilemma. If they are taken, however, you will turn them over to the State authorities to be tried for crimes against the State, and you will afford such facilities in obtaining witnesses as the interests of the public service will permit. I am told that negroes found in a state of insurrection may be tried by a court of the parish in which the crime is committed, composed of two justices of the peace and a certain number of slave-holders. Governor Moore has called on me and stated that if the report is true that any armed negroes have been captured he will send the attorney-general to conduct the prosecution as soon as you notify him of the capture.
I have the honor to be, general, your obedient servant,
E. KIRBY SMITH,
Lieutenant-General, Commanding.<<

The extent of the white Southern obsession with servile insurrection cannot be underestimate. That was why the news that Lincoln had authorized, in the final EP, accepting enlistments by men who were black was greeted with rage in the Confederacy.

By: Donald R. Shaffer

Donald R. Shaffer — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 18:22:10 +0000

Hi Glenn. Thanks for sharing the bigger picture in terms of historical context–I appreciate it.

Don

By: Glenn B

Glenn B — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 17:56:54 +0000

Good stuff. To place things into even more context, “READER” was ironically probably an abolitionist. At the start of July, Lincoln called for more volunteers, and at the end of the month there were rallies all over the north to encourage and facilitate the recruitment of soldiers. When READER referred to “this new great Northern army,” he was likely talking about these new recruits. Meanwhile, in mid-july radicals in Congress has passed a new Militia Act calling for the recruitment of African Americans into Union service as laborers, and possibly as soldiers. The New York Times was a conservative Republican paper, and as such, at this point they supported the use of blacks as laborers, but were not ready to call for their use as soldiers. For close to a year, many abolitionists and radical Republicans had been pushing for emancipation and the use of black troops based on the argument that the South was using their slaves in combat, and would do so on a larger scale if the war started to go against them. Thus, READER was likely calling on the Times to come out in support of emancipation and the raising of Union black troops to meet Lincoln’s call for more volunteers. Obviously, the editor’s response showed that the Times was not yet ready to support such a position . . . at least not based on the rationale that the South was using slaves in combat roles.