What Mattered More?

“Watch Night Meeting”: Slaves await midnight on December 31, 1862; Source: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/odyssey/archive/04/0421001r.jpg

As 1862 drew to a close, as far as emancipation was concerned the nation’s attention was riveted on whether President Abraham Lincoln would finalize the Emancipation Proclamation. They had little to worry about on that score. In the last days of 1862, Lincoln and his cabinet were not debating whether the administration should go ahead with the proclamation, but fussed over its exact wording. While these details certainly were important, it was clear from the discussions that the Emancipation Proclamation was going ahead.

Far from Washington, D.C., however, out in the country other things were happening that make the Lincoln administration putting the final touches on the Emancipation Proclamation seem not quite so important, as titanic a milestone as it was. One such place was Helena, Arkansas, west of the Mississippi River, far from the national capital. Like other parts of the Confederacy that had come under the control of federal forces, slaves in the vicinity fled to Union lines. Yet instead of finding protection, many of the slaves in Helena, Arkansas, instead found mistreatment from the Yankee soldiers and officers.

A committee of chaplains and surgeons reported these injustices to the Union commander of the Army of the Southwest, Maj. Gen. Samuel Curtis, in a letter dated December 29, 1862. They wrote:

The Contrabands within our lines are experiencing hardships oppression & neglect the removal of which calls loudly for the intervention of authority.  We daily see & deplore the evil and leave it to your wisdom to devise a remedy.  In a great degree the contrabands are left entirely to the mercy and rapacity of the unprincipled part of our army (excepting only the limited jurisdiction of capt Richmond) with no person clothed with Specific authority to look after & protect them.  Among their list of grievances we mention these:

Some who have been paid by individuals for cotton or for labor have been waylaid by soldiers, robbed, and in several instances fired upon, as well as robbed, and in no case that we can now recal have the plunderers been brought to justice–

The wives of some have been molested by soldiers to gratify thier licentious lust, and thier husbands murdered in endeavering to defend them, and yet the guilty parties, though known, were not arrested.  Some who have wives and families are required to work on the Fortifications, or to unload Government Stores, and receive only their meals at the Public table, while their families, whatever provision is intended for them, are, as a matter of fact, left in a helpless & starving condition

Many of the contrabands have been employed, & received in numerous instances, from officers & privates, only counterfeit money or nothing at all for their services.  One man was employed as a teamster by the Government & he died in the service (the government indebted to him nearly fifty dollars) leaving an orphan child eight years old, & there is no apparent provision made to draw the money, or to care for the orphan child.  The negro hospital here has become notorious for filth, neglect, mortality & brutal whipping, so that the contrabands have lost all hope of kind treatment there, & would almost as soon go to their graves as to their hospital.  These grievances reported to us by persons in whom we have confidence, & some of which we know to be true, are but a few of the many wrongs of which they complain–  For the sake of humanity, for the sake of christianity, for the good name of our army, for the honor of our country, cannot something be done to prevent this oppression & to stop its demoralizing influences upon the Soldiers themselves?  Some have suggested that the matter be laid befor the [War] Department at Washington, in the hope that they will clothe an agent with authority, to register all the names of the contrabands, who will have a benevolent regard for their welfare, though whom all details of fatigue & working parties shall be made though whom rations may be drawn & money paid, & who shall be empowered to organize schools, & to make all needfull Regulations for the comfort & improvement of the condition of the contrabands; whose accounts shall be open at all times for inspection, and who shall make stated reports to the Department.

Certainly, the Emancipation Proclamation’s finalization ultimately would prove much more important than the ill-treatment of escaped slaves in Arkansas by Union soldiers and officers in late 1862. Still, remembering it should temper the joyful stories of people gathering together on the evening of December 31, what became known as “Watch Night,” waiting for the stroke of midnight when presumably Lincoln’s proclamation would go into effect freeing millions of slaves in the rebel South. (Read this account of one Watch Night service in December 1862 as reported by the New York Times.) It portended the very real problems for freed people that accompanied their liberation from bondage. So while it is proper to remember Lincoln signing the final Emancipation Proclamation, neither should the suffering that accompanied it be forgotten.

Source: http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/Sawyer.html

Jefferson Davis’ Infamous Proclamation

By late 1862, the recruitment of African Americans as soldiers in the Union Army was well under way with thousands of black men already under arms and many thousands more that would soon be recruited. Although they would face discrimination–unequal pay, denied officer’s commissions, and countless other indignities large and small–most black troops in the federal army served willingly, glad for the chance to play an active role in their race’s liberation.

The existence of black Union soldiers though caused great consternation in the Confederacy. Although a few white Southerners had and would continue to advocate recruiting African Americans into their own army, most found the idea repellent. And they considered black men in federal uniform to be even more objectionable. Armed African Americans, even under military discipline, raised the bloody specter of Saint-Domingue–in other words, servile insurrection on a mass scale. Hence, since Confederates equated black soldiers in the Union Army as slaves in revolt, they could treat African Americans in federal uniform as rebellious slaves, meaning in any way they saw fit, including summary execution on the battlefield.

In denying black Union soldiers the customary protections accorded enemy troops, it made their military service riskier than for soldiers in white regiments. The film, Glory (1989), put this fact to dramatic use in telling the story of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the first black regiment formed in the North during the Civil War.

Glory gets some things wrong here. For instance, the proclamation announcing the harsh treatment of black Union soldiers came not from the Confederate Congress, but from Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy’s president just before Christmas 1862. Another interesting thing about the proclamation is that most of it was not devoted to the subject of black soldiers in the Union army. Instead, the bulk of the document was a screed and bill of attainder against northern general Benjamin Butler. The Confederate president declared:

I . . . do pronounce and declare the said Benjamin F. Butler to be a felon deserving of capital punishment. I do order that he be no longer considered or treated simply as a public enemy of the Confederate States of America but as an outlaw and common enemy of mankind, and that in the event of his capture the officer in command of the capturing force do cause him to be immediately executed by hanging.

The controversial Butler certainly had done much to earn the ire of President Davis and the Confederacy. Butler, of course, had devised the clever justification not to return slaves to their rebel owners by declaring them “contraband of war.” But most of Davis’ indictment focused on Ben Butler’s time as overseer of Union-occupied New Orleans and the various indignities, real and imagined, to which the Confederates held him responsible. They can be read by <clicking here>.

After unloading on Benjamin Butler, Jefferson Davis finally turned to the more general policy part of the document. With the recruitment of African Americans into the Union Army under way in earnest, Davis felt it necessary to make an official statement about a step by the Lincoln administration that he and other Confederate leaders considered beyond the pale. The declaration read:

Whereas the President of the United States has by public and official declaration signified not only his approval of the effort to excite servile war within the Confederacy but his intention to give aid and encouragement thereto if these independent States shall continue to refuse submission to a foreign power after the 1st day of January next, and has thus made known that all appeals to the laws of nations, the dictates of reason and the instincts of humanity would be addressed in vain to our enemies, and that they can be deterred from the commission of these crimes only by the terms of just retribution

Jefferson Davis’ idea of “just retribution” was to treat black Union soldiers and their white officers not as legitimate combatants, but as perpetrators of a slave revolt. The relevant section of his declaration read:

3. That all negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered over to the executive authorities of the respective States to which they belong to be dealt with according to the laws of said States.

4. That the like orders be executed in all cases with respect to all commissioned officers of the United States when found serving in company with armed slaves in insurrection against the authorities of the different States of this Confederacy.

So, in other words, Jefferson Davis proposed handing over black Union soldiers and their white soldiers to state authorities as had been the case with slave revolts in the antebellum South. The clear implication, of course, was they would be put to death much as Nat Turner (a black rebel) and John Brown (a white abettor to slave revolt).

Still, intentionally or not, Davis left some uncertainty in how captured soldiers and commissioned officers in black Union regiments would be treated. And by delegating this matter to the states he also was, in effect, washing the hands of the Confederate central government in the handling of African-American prisoners-of-war. Jefferson Davis sounded tough by promising death to Benjamin Butler and his subordinate officers if they ever fell into Confederate hands. But the proclamation was not as definite as the movie Glory would make it seem, where the comparable proclamation promised summary execution to any black soldier and their white officers taken prisoner.

In any case, black Union prisoners’ actual treatment by Confederate forces proved ad hoc. In some case, such as the infamous Fort Pillow incident in March 1864, African American troops were massacred as they attempted to surrender. In other cases, they were treated much as white Union soldiers and shipped off to stockades like Andersonville. In still other cases, black POWs were used as forced labor by the Confederates or even siphoned off by rebel soldiers or officers as personal servants or even as laborers on their plantations and farms back home. However, as uncertain as was the fate of African-American prisoners, the Confederacy refused to exchange them for their own POWs in federal custody until late in the war when the southern army was desperate for men to add to its dwindling ranks.

Nonetheless, Jefferson Davis’ declaration just before Christmas 1862, for all its bluster and buck passing, remains an infamous document. Especially, in how it sought to equate the honorable military service of uniformed soldiers of a sovereign government with servile insurrection. By doing so, it legitimated the worst impulses of white Southerners and the massacres of black Union POWs that were to come. Still, Glory had one thing right. If a purpose of Davis’ declaration was to intimidate black men in federal service during the Civil War and discourage their enlistment in the Union Army, it had the opposite effect. Rather than driving them out of uniform it merely served to make African-American troops even more determined. So, while infamous, ironically, Jefferson Davis’ proclamation of December 23, 1862, likely actually advanced rather than hindered the cause of emancipation in the American Civil War.

Source: http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/pow.htm

Would Lincoln Free the Slaves? Did It Even Matter?

From: Harper’s Weekly, December 20, 1862. Source: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1862/december/emancipation-proclamation-cartoon.htm

As December 1862 progressed the date approached (January 1, 1863) for President Abraham Lincoln to make good on his promise in the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves in the portions of the rebellious states not under control under federal control if those states did not return to the Union by the end of 1862. Not surprisingly, there was disagreement in the press over whether Lincoln would actually do it. As mentioned in the last edition of Civil War Emancipation, the President had generated some of the uncertainty in his annual message to Congress, dated December 1, 1862, by making a last attempt to convince the slave states to accept gradual compensated emancipation, followed by the emigration of freed slaves out of the United States. So the artist of the cartoon above from Harper’s Weekly certainly can be forgiven for doubting Lincoln’s resolve on this issue.

The pro-administration newspaper in Washington, D.C., the National Republican, sought to reassure its readers as Christmas approached that President Lincoln was standing fast. It stated in its December 23 issue:

The late interview which the border State Congressmen held with the President has developed the fact that he will stand by his proclamation. The President told these gentlemen that [emphasis in the original], “he was an anti-slavery man, and considered slavery to be the right arm of the rebellion, and that it must be lopped off.” We congratulate the country upon the firm stand the President of the United States has taken upon this important matter. It is characteristic of Abraham Lincoln, and when his mind is made up, and he is satisfied that he is right, he is not to be moved.

Two days later, on Christmas Day, the National Republican mocked Republican conservatives and others for whom the impending finalization of the Emancipation Proclamation stirred the old fear that once freed the slaves would embark on a violent orgy of vengeance aimed at their former owners and other whites. The paper opined:

There is considerable feeling in certain quarters, in respect to [emphasis in the original] servile insurrection. We desire to treat this apprehension with due respect, but we have no belief in these apprehensions, because, in fact, the danger does not lie in the direction which these sensitive people suspect.

It is asserted, with apparent fear and trembling, that if the President sticks to his proclamation, there will be trouble in this regard. Such a conclusion is absurd, and has no foundation in the nature of things. The danger does not lie in that direction. It is not in affirming and maintaining the proclamation that servile insurrection will find its incentive, but the abandonment of that principle, and giving up the bondsman to hopelessness and interminable doom to which slavery consigns him.

Human nature is the same the world over. We forget this generic fact, when we discuss this slavery question. The negro is not unlike the rest of mankind, unless it be in this particular, that he is more grateful for favors than the white race.

The negro, with all his stupidity, understands as well as we do, that his liberty can be secured only as fast as we, or our arms, achieve the control of the country where the slaves abound. This is understood by the negro in his bondage as well as by us. He will, therefore, wait patiently for the hour of his release, believing that while Abraham Lincoln holds to the doctrine of his proclamation, the good time will be sure to come sooner or later. Annul that proclamation, as the frightened conservatives would have Mr. Lincoln do, and who would be answerable to the consequences? Servile insurrection would be the almost certain result of so-ill timed a step.

No human being rises to minister vengeance upon those who do him favors, whether the favor is voluntary, and comes from the individual tyrant’s own volition, or is extorted from him by external causes over which he can exercise no control.

How was it in the British West Indies? The slave there understood that his master gave him liberty per force of English law, enacted thousands of miles away in the little island of the seas. Did the slaves of those islands arise and kill their masters, who yielded to this outside pressure with extreme reluctance, but nevertheless yielded? Not at all. They received this boon of freedom with uplifted hearts to God in solemn prayer, and not with murderous hands against their former masters. This is history, and it is human nature the world over. And it is worth infinitely more in settling a question like this than any amount of theorizing and speculation, such as the fearful and quaking conservatives are wont to put forth.

It is only when you cut off a man’s freedom, or attempt to subjugate him to the rule of despotism, that he resists you unto blood. This is the lesson of San Domingo. It is the lesson, also, of history, ever since the world began. Let then the timid and mistaken conservatives, who would induce the President of the United States to withdraw his proclamation, cease their efforts in that direction. Their safety, the safety of the nation, and the safety of the slaveholders are solely dependent on the maintenance of the President’s proclamation.

On December 27, the National Republican mocked a specific slave insurrection scare that had broken out in Missouri, which as a loyal slave state was, of course, exempt from the provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation. It reported:

St. Louis, Dec. 26.–The Halleck Life Guard left the city this morning for Gray’s Summit, Franklin county, on special duty. It is said that they are ordered to that place to prevent trouble from the negroes from apprehended insurrection; but inquiries have failed to elicit a reliable foundation for such rumors. There are but few negroes in that county, not enough to get up an insurrection on a large scale.

While correct about the newly liberated not rising in vengeance the National Republican misunderstood something fundamental about American slaves in the Civil War. This article, quite openly racist, assumed the slaves were passive waiting for the moment of their liberation. If the scholarship of recent decades on emancipation has proven anything, the slaves were anything but passive in their own emancipation. While there was no large-scale organized resistance by slaves during the Civil War, through countless acts of self-interest they chipped away little by little at the foundation of slavery in the American South, whether it be by fleeing to federal lines, joining the Union Army, or insisting they would no longer work without being paid. So while the suspense in December 1862 over whether Abraham Lincoln would made good on his pledge to free the slaves was certainly justified, to an extent it was merely confirming a social revolution already in progress in the slave states that had been unleashed by the Civil War.

Sources: 1) http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86053570/1862-12-23/ed-1/seq-2/; 2) http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86053570/1862-12-25/ed-1/seq-2/; 3) http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86053570/1862-12-27/ed-1/seq-2/.

Uncertainty, Discovery, and Hope – December 1862

In early December 1862, the future of emancipation in the Civil War was again in flux. By that time, the initial furor over the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation had died away replaced by uncertainty over whether President Lincoln would make good on his threat in that document to free the slaves in the parts of the Confederacy not under federal control if the rebellious states did not restore their allegiance to the Union.

Abraham Lincoln fed that uncertainty with his annual message to Congress dated December 1, 1862, when he made one last effort to convince the slave states to accept gradual compensated emancipation, along with emigration of freed slaves to some place outside the United States. Clearly, Lincoln as 1862 ended still preferred a gradual end of slavery, which he no doubt saw as more orderly and peaceful, than the sudden and potentially tumultuous end to slavery inherent in the Emancipation Proclamation.

Yet it was also manifest by late 1862 that Lincoln was dedicated firmly to ending slavery. It was merely a question of how, not if. While the President dedicated much of his annual message to thinking aloud over the details of gradual compensated emancipation and emigration schemes, as if musing might somehow sell the nation’s citizenry on these ideas, at the end he left no uncertainty toward his ultimate purpose. In oft quoted words that have echoed down since, Abraham Lincoln wrote:

Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free–honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just–a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless.

By December 1862 then, Abraham Lincoln had concluded that ending slavery was the only way to save the Union, his paramount goal in the Civil War.

Yet it was not just Lincoln who was in a position to influence the future course of emancipation. The Americans, of course, with the greatest interest in Lincoln’s true intentions were the slaves. Like the rest of the population they were uncertain about whether Abraham Lincoln would in the new year make final the Emancipation Proclamation. And the uncertainty made some slaves understandably restless. The New York Times‘ correspondent in Washington, D.C., reported on December 4 that slaves in Maryland’s southern counties, where slavery was most entrenched in that state were exhibiting this restlessness, despite the fact that Maryland was exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation because it had remained loyal. The correspondent wrote:

Persons living in the lower counties of Maryland say that the slaves there are becoming very restive, in view of the near approach of the first of January, when they expect to become free, under the President’s Emancipation Proclamation. The fact that such an edict has gone forth, one informant says, is known to every negro in Lower Maryland. Considable trepidation exist among the whites, who fear that the negroes, when they learn that the Proclamation does not apply to their case, will break into open revolt, and, by force of arms, attempt the work of self-liberation. We learn that on the farm of a large slaveowner, living near Port Tobacco, a number of arms — some of them Government muskets — were recently found, which had been concealed by the negroes; showing a policy of preparation most significant at this time.

This newspaper article yet again demonstrates the influence the slaves had over their own liberation. While they could not by themselves bring about their own freedom, collectively their restlessness made whites in Maryland fearful to the point it would come to the attention of a Washington, D.C. reporter.

Yet December 1862 also was a time of discovery related to emancipation. One such discover was Thomas Wentworth Higginson, then freshly installed as the Colonel of the 1st South Carolina Infantry. Higginson, long a radical abolitionist, was predisposed to think well of the men of his command, all of them recently liberated slaves from the Sea Islands region of coastal South Carolina, George, and Florida. Yet it was one thing to sympathize in the abstract with the plight of the slaves, quite another to get to know them as people, especially those from the Sea Islands, many of whom spoke the Gullah dialect as their first language, largely unintelligible to a white New Englander like Higginson.

Still, despite the linguistic and cultural gap, Thomas Wentworth Higginson quickly grew to admire the men of his new regiment, especially how their behavior quickly dispelled many myths about the slaves that even white abolitionists had accepted as fact. For example, the belief that slaves were naturally lazy and would only work under the threat of the lash. On the same day Abraham Lincoln reported to Congress, December 1, 1862, Higginson wrote in his journal:

How absurd is the impression bequeathed by Slavery in regard to these Southern blacks, that they are sluggish and inefficient in labor! Last night, after a hard day’s work, (our guns and the remainder of our tents being just issued,) an order came from Beaufort that we should be ready in the evening to unload a steamboat’s cargo of boards, being some of those captured by them a few weeks since, and now assigned for their use. I wondered if the men would grumble at the night-work; but the steamboat arrived by seven, and it was bright moonlight when they went at it. Never have I beheld such a jolly scene of labor. Tugging these wet and heavy boards over a bridge of boats ashore, then across the slimy beach at low tide, then up a steep bank, and all in one great uproar of merriment for two hours. Running most of the time, chattering all the time, snatching the boards from each other’s backs as if they were some coveted treasure, getting up eager rivalries between different companies, pouring great choruses of ridicule on the heads of all shirkers, they made the whole scene so enlivening that I gladly stayed out in the moonlight for the whole time to watch it. And all this without any urging or any promised reward, but simply as the most natural way of doing the thing. The steamboat-captain declared that they unloaded the ten thousand feet of boards quicker than any white gang could have done it; and they felt it so little, that, when, later in the night, I reproached one whom Ifound sitting by a camp-fire, cooking a surreptitious opossum, telling him that he ought to be asleep after such a job of work, he answered, with the broadest grin,—

“Oh, no, Cunnel, da’s no work at all, Cunnel; dat only jess enough for stretch we.”

Hence, while there was uncertainty and fear about emancipation in early December 1862, there was also discovery and hope. It remained to be seen which would prevail in a future all Americans had some influence over, but that none could control on their own.

Sources: 1) http://www.infoplease.com/t/hist/state-of-the-union/74.html; 2) http://www.nytimes.com/1862/12/05/news/washington-important-work-laid-congress-correspondence-relating-army-potomac.html?pagewanted=2; 3) http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/02/leaves-from-an-officers-journal/308820/.

Race and Spielberg’s Lincoln

I at last had the chance to see Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln this weekend, so I can finally join the small army of scholars and other commentators who have chosen to share their thoughts on this film. Simply as cinema, it was enjoyable with excellent performances, especially Daniel Day Lewis in the title role. My only complaint about the film as a movie was it lasted about twenty minutes too long. The film centered on Abraham Lincoln’s final lobbying push in early 1865 to pass the 13th Amendment (legally ending slavery) in the U.S. House of Representatives, which it depicts colorfully but more-or-less accurately. Lincoln should have ended with the final triumph of the amendment passing in the House. Instead, the film goes on for twenty minutes after that covering briefly in turn the fall of Richmond, Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln’s assassination, ending a bit awkwardly with Daniel Day Lewis re-enacting an excerpt from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address. I am sure Steven Spielberg had good reasons in his own mind for organizing the film the way he did, but my main concern is not Lincoln as cinema, but Lincoln as history.

The Lincoln establishment among historians, that see their mission as defending and bolstering the 16th President’s reputation, have embraced the film, and little wonder, since Lincoln presents Abraham Lincoln in a highly positive light. The film clearly depicts him as the Great Emancipator, the indispensable man in the passage of the 13th Amendment and the final end of slavery in the United States. Steven Spielberg also clearly courted these scholars, hiring as a consultant, Harold Holzer, dean of the Lincoln establishment (to be fair to Holzer he has written about what he considers historically accurate in the film and what is not). Spielberg also gave “based on” credit to Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, and also used her as a consultant, even though the movie’s subject is only about nine pages in Goodwin’s book. Recently, Holzer and Goodwin even joined Spielberg on stage at the celebration of the 149th anniversary of the delivery of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Yet the acclaim of the film among scholars has not been universal. Eric Foner, of Columbia University, perhaps the most distinguished academic historian of the Civil War era, has pointed out on CNN that emancipation in the United States was a much more complex historical process than Lincoln would suggest (hat tip to Albert Mackey for bringing Foner’s remarks to my attention), a criticism that many academic historians (including this one) would agree with.

Kate Masur, of Northwestern University, also took the film to task in a New York Times op-ed essay, asserting Spielberg in Lincoln depicted African Americans too passively. She writes:

It’s disappointing that in a movie devoted to explaining the abolition of slavery in the United States, African-American characters do almost nothing but passively wait for white men to liberate them. For some 30 years, historians have been demonstrating that slaves were crucial agents in their emancipation; however imperfectly, Ken Burns’s 1990 documentary “The Civil War” brought aspects of that interpretation to the American public. Yet Mr. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” gives us only faithful servants, patiently waiting for the day of Jubilee.

This is not mere nit-picking. Mr. Spielberg’s “Lincoln” helps perpetuate the notion that African Americans have offered little of substance to their own liberation. While the film largely avoids the noxious stereotypes of subservient African-Americans for which movies like “Gone With the Wind” have become notorious, it reinforces, even if inadvertently, the outdated assumption that white men are the primary movers of history and the main sources of social progress.

Kate Masur represents the reaction to Lincoln of decades of scholarship aimed at revising the interpretation of African Americans in the Civil War era from an acquiescent race waiting to be freed by white Americans to active and important players in their own liberation. This scholarship began with historians inspired by the civil rights struggle of the 1960s to recover the history of black people in the Civil War and American history more generally. My mentor, Ira Berlin, and his associates at the Freedmen and Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland played a heroic ground-breaking role in this scholarship, sifting through mountains of federal records to find those relevant to emancipation. Other scholars joined the effort with other works, and Masur’s An Example for All The Land: Emancipation and the Struggle over Equality in Washington, D.C. (2010) is a more recent specimen of what detractors incorrectly call the “self-emancipation thesis.”

Yet as Kate Masur correctly asserts this scholarship  has had a tough time making its way into popular culture. Masur mentions Ken Burns’ documentary series on PBS in 1990 as a partial exception. I also would add Glory (1989), which told the story of the 54th Massachusetts, as another. I will not speculate as to why this scholarship has not caught on more with Hollywood and other dream merchants, except to say that Americans, like the rest of the human race, generally want to feel good about themselves and their nation’s past, and revisionist scholarship on the Civil War while often revealing hard truths about American history does not tend to produce many inspiring, feel-good stories.

This is not to say the revisionist scholarship itself is without fault. In recent years, one historiographical thread that has developed is the recovery of nineteenth-century black political activism. Perhaps the most seminal work in this regard is Steven Hahn’s A Nation Under Our Feet (2003), which explores the rise of an African-American politics in the South from emancipation through to the Great Migration of African Americans to the North that started during World War I, and how it contributed to later forms of black political consciousness.

Other scholars have followed Hahn’s lead looking at black political activism in the nineteenth-century United States. For example, I am presently reading for a book review, David S. Cecelski’s The Fire of Freedom: Abraham Galloway and the Slaves’ Civil War (2012). It is a fascinating exploration on black political activism in North Carolina during the Civil War anchored by the story of Abraham Galloway, an escaped slave who returned to his home state during the conflict where he became an important African-American leader, powerful enough to deny the Union army the military service of black men there until he was satisfied they would be fighting for the freedom of their race and not merely for the preservation of the Union.

Yet as influential as Galloway and other black activists were at that moment when they held the keys to black enlistment in the Union Army in North Carolina, David S. Cecelski too often is left to speculate about the exact nature of Galloway’s activities simply because of the lack of historical sources. Or to assert the historical significance of events that have remained obscure probably because their historical significance in the bigger picture of American history was questionable to begin with. That is, while Kate Masur in her New York Times op-ed is quite right to question seeing African Americans as passive players in their own liberation, it is equally legitimate to question the limits of their influence as historical actors.

Hence, if Steven Spielberg can be criticized for largely ignoring African Americans as active and influential in emancipation during the Civil War (although this was certainly not the case with his depiction Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Lincoln’s black seamstress, whom he shows lobbying Lincoln with forceful dignity), the burden falls on to Kate Masur, David S. Cecelski, Steve Hahn, and other scholars of black political activism in the nineteenth century to suggest specifically ways that Spielberg might have rewritten his script to portray African American more actively in the context of the film. That is, if they had been the historical consultants instead of Harold Holzer or Doris Kearns Goodwin how would they have advised Spielberg? How during the five week or so period portrayed by Lincoln did African Americans make a difference in pushing the 13th Amendment to ratification in the U.S. House of Representatives? How might Steven Spielberg have translated this to the screen?

Certainly, it also is legitimate to probe the degree of Abraham Lincoln’s power over emancipation even as the influence of black political activism on the same issue also is questioned. If I have a personal bone to pick with Steven Spielberg, it is like Eric Foner to complain about the over simplification of the process of emancipation in Lincoln. While the story of the 13th Amendment in the House of Representatives is an interesting and significant moment in slavery’s end in the United States, and effectively dramaticized by Spielberg, it was just a chapter of a much larger story that Civil War Emancipation has been seeking to describe one post at a time for nearly two years now. One in which Abraham Lincoln was a major player, but was just as often pulled along by events beyond his control as he was able to influence them.

If I had been Steven Spielberg’s historical consultant, I might have advised him to drop the last twenty minutes of the film, which are not really relevant to its main story and exist as an awkward postscript, instead ending with the passage of the 13th Amendment (an inspirational, feel-good moment in Lincoln if there ever was one). Those twenty minutes could have been devoted to some sort of dramatic montage at the beginning of the film depicting the key events in emancipation up to January 1865 to put into historical context the story of Abraham Lincoln and the ignoble methods he and others employed in favor of the noble end of  getting the 13th Amendment through Congress. This would have started the film much better from a historical perspective than the gory battle sequence that opens the film at present, followed by the awkward scene of Lincoln chatting with soldiers where they recite to him the text of the Gettysburg Address, something that other historians have pointed out would be far-fetched since this speech did not gain its present illustrious reputation until after the Civil War.

Still, I must confess to enjoying Lincoln. For all its faults it is one of the better Hollywood films on the American Civil War in quite a while, its predecessors generally having set the bar rather low (Gods and Generals comes in mind in that regard). For its laughable historical errors and marginalization of African Americans (which is not quite as bad as Masur would suggest), by calling the nation’s attention to the Civil War during the conflict’s sesquicentennial and by focusing on emancipation however imperfectly Steven Spielberg has done a valuable public service. While I doubt I would use Lincoln in a Civil War history class, neither would I tell my students it was not worth seeing.

Shocking New York Times Article

In studying the American Civil War, the Atlantic slave trade generally is not an issue that gets much attention from either history enthusiasts or academics scholars. Legal importation of slaves in the United States had ended in 1808. In the wake of the War of 1812, the small U.S. Navy joined with the larger Royal Navy of Great Britain to suppress this commerce in human beings by intercepting slave ships off the African coast and liberating the Africans in their holds. Yet the unquenchable demand for slave labor in the Americas, including the U.S. cotton states, made unscrupulous men in the business and maritime community willing to take the risks involved in the now illegal Atlantic slave trade because of the considerable profits from a successful trip.

Indeed, some white Southerners advocated the re-legalization of the Atlantic slave trade in the years before the Civil War, and at the Montgomery Convention that established the Confederate government in early 1861, there was an unsuccessful effort to make re-legalization part of Confederacy’s constitution. Jefferson Davis, the provisional president and a majority of the delegates in Montgomery blocked this initiative because they believed it would reduce the value of existing slaves and make it harder for European nations that abhorred the Atlantic slave trade to recognize the new Confederate government.

Antebellum Northerners also found odious the Atlantic slave trade, although they usually gave the issue little thought beyond supporting congressional funding of the navy’s suppression efforts. (A notable exception is the case of La Amistad, a Spanish slave transport that ended up off Long Island, New York in 1839, after the Africans aboard revolted and seized the ship.) The apathy of white Northerners allowed venal Americans to take part in the illegal Atlantic slave trade based in northern ports with little fear of prison or even arrest, even though participation in this commerce was formally a capital crime under the Piracy Act of 1820. It was not until Abraham Lincoln became president that a convicted slave ship captain, Nathaniel Gordon, was sentenced to death and executed in February 1862.

But Gordon was the exception as the following shocking article makes clear. It appeared in the New York Times on November 17, 1862, and makes clear just how alive the Atlantic slave trade was as late as 1861. The article was titled, “THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE.; EXTENT OF THE TRAFFIC. Successful Efforts to Suppress It.” But despite the title the article suggested pretty much opposite. Little wonder that Secretary of State William Seward concluded an agreement with the British in April 1862 (the Lyons-Seward Treaty) that sought to make Anglo-American suppression activities more effective. This treaty, other diplomatic initiatives, and shifting attitudes led to the final end of the Atlantic slave trade by the late 1860s.

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Perhaps no commerce was ever more profitable than the traffic in Africans, provided those engaged could go on unmolested. But the enormity of the crime is too great to be let pass, although for a time, money seemed to buy its success. Nor did the public know to what extent the traffic was carried. But the recent efforts to suppress it have brought out its extent and condition, and the manner in which it has been so long concealed and carried on.

The trade was never more flourishing than at the inauguration of the present Administration, not even before its abolition in 1808. With officials in power who winked at the fitting out of slavers, or used their badge of office but the better to insure a share in the profits, the traffic had become the bane of the civilized world.

A few vessels were seized and bonded or released in a manner which plainly indicated a want of earnestness in opposing the trade. We have the names of over one hundred and fifty vessels which were engaged in the Trade from 1858 to 1861, with the names of captains, lists of crews, and those who fitted them out, in a large majority of cases. Of this number thirty-eight were seized on the coast of Africa, a part after taking in cargoes, and over thirteen thousand negroes were returned to Africa. Thirteen of the vessels were seized on the coast of Cuba and vicinity, after landing all or part of their cargoes. Thirty-six have been seized at this and other ports in the United States.

We have the names of forty-five which are known to have landed their cargoes in Cuba, and a large number of cargoes are reported landed from vessels bearing no names or in which the names are unknown.

A correspondent high in official position, and who had the means of knowing, writing from Havana, November, 1860, stated the fact that upward of 30,000 Africans had been landed in the island during the single year previous.

Among the operations of Slavers, and seizures and arrests for the year previous to April, 1861, are the following:

July 3. — The bark Kate, Capt. OTTO, was seized at the Narrows, while on her way out of this port, and returned to the City. Her captain and a man named Dr. KOSTA, were arrested, but the bark was subsequently bonded and the prisoners released, and the Kate sailed on her voyage. She afterward landed a cargo of negroes in Cuba, and was seized at this port the second time. She has since been condemned and sold and again seized.

July 10. — The schooner Clotilde landed a cargo of negroes at Mobile. No arrests were made.

July 16. — The brig Benita, Capt. REYNOLD, cleared from this port and was seized Oct. 10, on the coast of Africa, with 713 negroes on board.

July 16. — A brig having no name, was captured on the mouth of the Congo River, and $1,000 in doubloons seized, but the officers and crew, all foreigners, were put on shore.

July 23. — The brig W.R. Kibley, Capt. BURNS, was abandoned after landing a cargo of negroes at Cuba, was seized and brought to this port, afterward condemned and sold. BURNS has since been arrested, and is the only man now awaiting trial.

July 28. — Schooner Peter Merrall, with 360 negroes, was ashore at Nassau and fell into the hands of the British authorities.

Aug. 1. — Two cargoes were landed on the coast of Cuba and the vessels burned.

Aug. 2. — The bark Louisa cleared for Cadiz, via St. Jago de Cuba. After reaching Cadiz, her papers were taken away, and she still lies in that port.

Aug. 8. — The ship Erie, Capt. GORDON, was captured by the United States steamer Mohican, on the coast of Africa, with 897 negroes on board. The negroes were sent back, and Capt. GORDON, and Mates WARREN and HALL arrested, and sent to this port, and committed for trial. GORDON was convicted and sentenced November, 1861, and hung Feb. 21, 1862.

Aug. 8. — The bring Storm King, Capt. SACKBERT, was captured on the coast of Africa, with 619 negroes, and sent to Norfolk. Never tried.

Aug. 14. — A brig, having no name, but fully armed to rob returning slavers, was seized, and taken to Key West. No trial reported. The brig Mary Frances Cloud, from this port same day, for Wilmington, sailed for Africa, and afterwards landed 500 negroes in Cuba.

Aug. 16. — The Thomas Achem, Capt. PARKER, was taken on the coast of Africa by the steamer Mystic, and the Captain and mate, SIBLEY, and second mate, arrested, and sent to this City. The vessel and prisoners were afterwards released on some pretext.

Aug. 18. — The Sultana, Capt. BOWEN, landed 1,200 negroes in Cuba, and was scuttled.

Aug. 23. — The bark Clow Windsor, Capt. POWERS, cleared for Havana.

Aug. 28. — Ship Brutus, Capt. DUVALL, was overhauled at New-Bedford, but afterwards let to go to sea, and afterwards landed 500 negroes in Cuba, and was sold to some parties at Havana and her name changed.

Sept. 3. — The brig W.M. Graton, Capt. BEATTIE, came into this port after a reported successful slave voyage, but no arrests were made.

Sept. 4. — The brig Titan, Capt. BUISSAN, was seized off the Coast of Cuba, after landing her cargo, and taken to Norfolk. Again went to sea, and again seized in the mouth of Congo River, and afterwards bonded. At this time two other slavers cleared from Havana for the Coast of Africa.

Sept. 25. — The bark Cora, Capt. LATHAM, was seized off the coast of Africa, with 705 negroes on board. The negroes were unloaded at Monrovia, and the vessel and captain sent to this port.

Sept. 27. — The ship Sunny South, with 846 negroes, was seized off the coast of Africa, by a British steamer, and the negroes sent to Monrovia, and the vessel taken to St. Helena.

Oct. 5. — THOMAS MAYEN, Captain of the bark Orion, with the two mates, were convicted, at Boston, of engaging in the Slave-trade, and sentenced — the captain to two years imprisonment and a fine of $2,000, and the mates two years each. The Triton, which had been seized, with a cargo of negroes on board, and brought to this port, was afterward condemned and sold.

Oct. 1. — The slaver steamer City of Norfolk, Capt. CRAWFORD, was seized off the coast of Cuba, after landing half a cargo of 800 negroes. The captain escaped. The crew were sent to Key West, and the vessel condemned by a Spanish Court and sold.

Oct. 12. — Four of the crew of the ship Erie, which had arrived at Portsmouth, N.H., were there arrested.

Oct. 28. — The bark Lyra sailed from Havana, on a slave voyage.

[???]. — Bark Romulus was seized of Cold [???] guard placed over her, who allowed her to escape, and she went for a cargo of negroes.

Nov. 2. — The [???], Capt. BOWER, sailed from this port on a slave voyage; and another vessel, from a Southern port, name not stated.

Nov. 3. — The bark Ardenas, Capt. PELETIAR, was boarded at this port, where she had been lying under seizure for some time, and went to Havana, where she completed her outfit and sailed for the coast of Africa, Oct. 1.

At the same date the schooner Byron was captured by a Spanish frigate, with 371 negroes on board, and taken into Havana.

Nov. 12. — Schooner Caysmere, Capt. GOODWIN, was seized at this port, on suspicion.

Dec. 1. — Three vessels beside the Ardenas — the Alexina, brig Falmouth, Capt. SAINAS, and the Express — sailed from Havana, on slave voyages.

Dec. 13. — The bark Williams, Capt. FINIS, landed a cargo of negroes on the coast of Cuba.

The schooner Williams, PELETIER, master, was seized and taken to Key West with a cargo of negroes. The vessel was condemned and sold and again sailed. No arrests were made. She was again seized at Porte au Prince, Feb. 16, 1861.

The Lucy Johnson, from New-London, put into this port in distress, bearing a slave outfit, and was detained.

At this time the trials of slavers were likely to come up, and Judge SMALLEY delivered an able charge to the jury, setting forth that it was the duty of all officers to make active exertions to suppress the trade. Notwithstanding this, and the fact that several vessels and persons engaged in the trade were under arrest, none came to trial.

Jan. 1, 1861. — There were ten slavers in this port under detention — the schooners Weather Gage, Cogswell and Josephine, barks J.J. Cobb, C.E. Fay, Cora and Kate, the brigs Achorn and Falmouth, and ship Erie. The Storm King and Triton were at Norfolk; the Cygnet and Williams at Mobile. The schooners Wanderer, Lyra, and steamer City of Norfolk, were at Havana. The Atlanta, Capt. SILVA; bark Buckeye, Capt. BOOTH; ship Brutus, and schooner Marguerita, Capt. BARRETT, were still on the Coast of Africa. The bark White Cloud, Capt. HATCH; bark Antelope, Capt. JOHNSON, and Iowa, Capt. JOHNSON, had all taken in cargoes, but had not been heard from.

The schooner Josephine, Capt. COSTER, and bark C.E. Tay, Capt. TRAINOR, were bonded and sailed for Africa. The bark Cora was condemned and sold, and again fitted out, and seized under suspicion, March 6, and afterward bonded and sailed.

Feb. 21 — Judge BETTS condemned the bark Kate, deciding that the parties claiming vessels were bound to clear them from suspicion to save them.

April 14. — The schooner Wells, Capt. WELLS, was seized at Greenport by the Custom-house officers.

April 15. — The bark Sarah, COUILLARD, Master, sailed for Cape Palmos, but was overhauled before getting to sea, and afterward condemned, appealed and bonded, and sailed. The bark Oneman, Capt. MONROE, cleared for Elizabethport, N.J., at the same time, and sailed for Africa. Four other vessels were in port, fitting out, at this time, and soon afterward sailed for Cadiz, to complete their outfit — the portion taken in here not being sufficient to warrant their arrest under the then existing law.

This shows an extensive trade, with but little effort to suppress it.

The utmost watchfulness of armed vessels was not sufficient to deter the fitting out of vessels, nor prevent a large number of them from taking in cargoes and escaping. In fact, the very spirit and letter of the law, paying a bounty of $25 for every recaptured negro, is for the interest of these vessels to permit slavers to take in cargoes for the purpose of capturing them. After the cargo was shipped the interest of the slaver was not to be caught, of course. The only means of suppressing the trade was to prevent vessels fitting out in any port, and to deal rigorously with parties interested in the trade, wherever they should be found.

The inauguration of the present Administration, with principles avowedly opposed to the increase of the African population in this country and of extending Slavery, although coming into power with a gigantic rebellion on its hands, had time, nevertheless, to displace officials derelict of their duty, and appoint others competent and disposed to energetically enforce laws for which they were appointed.

The result of this change has been amply apparent, and furnishes abundant evidence that the trade can be completely suppressed. It was from this port that a large proportion of the vessels sailed, and in this City that the extensive organizations for the protection of the traffic existed, and consequently attention was directed here for its suppression. The extent of the traffic offered an abundant field for the exercise of vigilance, not only in tracing out and arresting guilty parties, but in securing evidence sufficient to convict. In this it was often necessary to use a guilty party simply as a witness, as in the case of CRAWFORD, Captain of the City of Norfolk, who has just been used as a witness to convict HORN, who fitted out the vessel.

Evidence could not easily be obtained, for, notwithstanding the number engaged and that the names were known, their liability to arrest prevented their staying in the City.

The vessels might be destroyed or sold to other parties, or their names changed so that they could not be easily recognized. The officers otherwise engaged, the seamen on board of other vessels or so scattered purposely or by accident, that recognition and arrests would be difficult. With all these difficulties the public will be surprised to learn that not two thousand negroes have been landed in Cuba during the past year, and these by vessels fitted at foreign ports, and that there are few if any vessels in this port, or other United States ports, fitting for that purpose, while but eight have sailed during the last eighteen months, and some of them now rot under embargos at foreign ports. The eighth has not been heard from.

The tricks and subterfuges of the trade exceed that of all other kinds of commerce. In one instance the vessel would be fitted out in part or wholly, and clear for some port along the coast, and, when once at sea, “hard aport the helm,” and stand away to the Congo. In other instances, three or four vessels would fit out ostensibly for a foreign port, and loaded each with such a portion of a slaver’s outfit as would evade the law, and meet and exchange cargoes, fully equipping two or three of them for a voyage.

Cargoes of material are placed on board under false marks, and false invoices are made, while others go to Havana and a market, or clear for coasting voyages.

An organization of slave traders has existed in this City from time immemorial, and one is also known to exist in Havana with a capital of $2,000,000. One object of these associations is to protect those engaged in the trade and preventarrests or convictions. And the vigilance is such that witnesses are usually kept out of the war or tampered with, and it is a wonder that and important jury can be obtained at all.

The appointment of a United States Marshal at this port, in April, 1861, who had been Deputy Surveyor for four years, and another four years Harbor Master, and who knew every merchant in South or Beaver streets, and every Captain and “reefer in the vessels” engaged, did not favor the future prosperity of the traffic. The breaking out of the rebellion also naturally directed the attention of those of the South engaged in the trade to other affairs, and shut their ports against the traffic.

Several men and vessels were under arrest, but evidence was needed for their conviction. Several other vessels were on the coast of Africa, and the crews of former slavers scattered from the men-of-war in the Pacific to all other ports, both foreign and at home.

Several seizures were made of slavers on the Coast of Africa — among them the ship Nightingale, with 950 negroes on board, which were sent to Monrovia, while the Captain and a Spanish supercargo were allowed to escape; but the mates, HAYNES, WINSLOW and WESTERVELT, were sent with the vessel to this port for trial. Two of them have recently been bailed. June 30, 1861, the brig Fairy was seized off the coast of Africa with 550 negroes on board. About the same time a Spanish brig was seized in the River Pongas, and the brig Falmouth, Capt. SONAIS, on the coast, by a British steamer, and the Falmouth sent to this City, but the officers and crew went their way. As soon as appointed, Marshal MURRAY set about ferreting out these slave-traders, and soon had a large number under arrest, and was on track of others.

Among the first arrests was ALBERT HORN, merchant, charged with fitting out the City of Norfolk, recently tried and convicted.

ARRESTS SINCE APRIL, 1861.

A nearly correct list of arrests since April, 1861, has been collected:

May 2. — Capt. CRAWFORD, of steamer City of Norfolk.

May 31. — The crew of the Bonita.

June 1. — Seven of the crew of the bark Cora.

July 11. — Capt. BURNS and mate WILLIAMS, of the brig W.K. Kibby.

July 12. — Two of the crew of the brig Triton.

July 30. — Four of the crew of the brig Falmouth.

Aug. 10. — JOHN JAMES, mate of the brig Mary Francis, was arrested and turned over to the authorities at Boston on one charge, when he was examined and held to bail in $1,500. To obtain this bail he came to this City, and a meeting of the slavetraders was called and held at the Howard House. The money was raised and his bail indemnified, and, when released by the officer, again arrested by Marshal MURRAY, charged with a capital offence, but has since been set at liberty for want of evidence, and used as a witness.

Aug. 27. — J.A. MOCHADO, a confrere of the notorious Mr. WATSON, was arrested on charge of fitting out the Mary Francis, and held to bail.

Sept. 11. — GEORGE H. LAINES was arrested charged with fitting out the brig Falmouth, but discharged for want of evidence.

Sept. 19. — ERASTUS BOOTH, Captain of the bark Buckeye, arrested, but just acquitted for want of evidence.

Oct. 2. — The United States steamers Constellation and Mohican, of the African squadron, were boarded on arriving at port, and four of the crew of the Erie, under GORDON, and two others, were arrested.

Oct. 11. — GEORGE CRANT, mate of the bark Buckeye, was arrested in this City, and afterward escaped from an officer.

Oct. 14. — Sixteen of the crew of the Nightingale were taken from the storeship Relief, of the African squadron, as she came in. Three others were taken from another ship at Portsmouth, and one from the Mystic at Philadelphia, and two from another vessel at Brooklyn.

Nov. 18. — Eighteen of the officers and crew of the Augusta were taken at Greenport, L.I. — among them, Capt. A. OAKES SMITH, who has since been tried, convicted and escaped from the jail at Charlestown, Mass., and is now in Havana.

Nov. 29. — J.W. PINCKNEY, charged with shipping the crew of the Augusta, discharged.

Dec. 5. — P.C. PIERSON, charged with fitting out the ship Brutus, and held to bail.

Jan. 3, 1862. — MORGAN FREDERICKS, Captain of the bark Cora, arrested at Brooklyn Navy-yard.

Sept. 18. — J.A. MOCHADO was arrested, examined and held to bail, and has since been arrested, and is now in Fort Lafayette.

Sept. 18. — Captain of the brig Mary Francis was arrested.

Aside from these, several arrests have been made, of which we have not the data, both in this City and others.

In August, 1861, the Marshals of Boston, Philadelphia, and New-York, met to concert plans for a more efficient effort to suppress the trade, the fruit of which has been fully apparent.

At this time, several Slave-traders, and those engaged in fitting out slavers, left this City for Havana, since which time those not arrested have made that their place of residence.

In July Mrs. WATSON left for Lisbon, arriving at which place, she was requested to make some other place her headquarters, and went to Cadiz, where her passport was taken away. She has since died, and her vessels, intended for the trade in negroes, are under embargoes. Among the vessels seized are the bark Magaret Scott, seized Sept. 11, 1861, and Capt. SENDOW and two mates, and the owner, SKINNER, arrested. The bark has since been condemned and sold, and SKINNER convicted and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of $1,000.

Sept. 20. — The bark Augusta was condemned, and afterward sold.

Nov. 18. — The bark Augusta was again seized.

Capt. PELETIER and three mates of the bark Ardenas were tried at Hayti, and sentenced each to five years’ imprisonment.

The arrest of J.A. MACHADO may be considered the “last of the Mahicans,” and with it the nest of Slavers’ in this city is completely broken up, and the trade has received a quietus which it will not recover from for the present.

The arrangements are such with our Consuls abroad that no American vessel can fit out at a foreign port, and certainly they have poor encouragement here.

The Seward-Lyons Treaty has so defined the nature of any partial fitting out for Slavers, that partial outfiters can no longer expect to succeed.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/1862/11/17/news/the-african-slave-trade-extent-of-the-traffic-successful-efforts-to-suppress-it.html

Refugeeing Virginia Slaves

“Negroes Driven South By The Rebel Officers,” Harper’s Weekly, November 8, 1862

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If slaves were intent on gaining their freedom in the American Civil War, southern slaveholders were just as intent on keeping their human property. In late Fall 1862, now that the Emancipation Proclamation had turned the Union Army into effectively an army of liberation, it posed a mortal threat to slavery, much more so than earlier in the war when many federal commanders had pledged non-interference with the peculiar institution.

An obvious tactic that slaveholders used when possible to counter the threat posed by the Union Army was to move slaves away from federal forces’ advance, which became known as “refugeeing.” The practice began even before the war’s outbreak as some slaveholders relocated to remote places they believed would be safer from northern invasion. Over the course of the war, refugeeing became more and more common, especially with Union Army’s move into the slave-dense Mississippi Valley. Many planters there moved their slaves to Texas, with by one estimate 150,000 slaves being driven there by the end of the war.

This activity in the Mississippi Valley was preceded by refugeeing slaves in other parts of the Confederacy, notably the active Virginia theater. In its November 8, 1862 edition, Harper’s Weekly carried a story of story of a mass forced movement of Virginia slaves, ordered by none other than Gen. Robert E. Lee. Harper’s commissioned an illustration (see above) of this refugeeing drive, which appeared in the same issue. The article and the illustration paint a harrowing picture, typical of the refugeeing of slaves during the Civil War. Harper’s Weekly reported:

ON pages 712 and 713 we publish an illustration of an event of very frequent occurrence at the present time in Virginia namely, the DRIVING OF NEGROES SOUTH in order to escape the approach of our army. The poor creatures are collected in gangs, handcuffed or chained together, and driven off under the lash or at the point of the bayonet. One authority says:

A refugee from the vicinity of Leesburg states that a rebel cavalry force appeared in that place on Monday last and forcibly carried South all the negroes who had previously been collected together there, and placed in confinement, by order of General Lee.

The Times correspondent says:

While at Aldie, on Thursday last, two citizens, named Moore and Ball, came within our lines and were detained as prisoners. The first named is a son of the proprietor of Moore’s flour mills, at Aldie, on a branch of Goose Creek, and the latter is a large planter in the same town. They had “done nothing,” so they said, and were neither bushwhackers nor soldiers, and were surprised at being detained within our lines when so near their homes, from which they had been absent some time. Upon being questioned closely, they admitted that they had just come from the James River; and finally owned up that they had been running off “niggers” having just taken a large gang, belonging to themselves and neighbors, southward in chains, to avoid losing them under the emancipation proclamation. I understand, from various sources, that the owners of this species of property, throughout this section of the State, are moving it off toward Richmond as fast as it can be spared from the plantation; and the slaveholders boast that there will not be a negro left in all this part of the State by the 1st of January next.

Another correspondent says:

The rebels in Secessia are busily engaged just now in running off to Richmond and beyond, negroes and conscripts. A Union man, just from below Culpepper, says that he saw droves of negroes and white men on the road at different points—all strongly guarded. He does not exactly know which excited his pity most, the white or black men.

The human cost of refugeeing was high for the slaves with the separation of families and other suffering caused by dislocation, even death. One poignant story in this regard comes Charles Washington, who was a slave near Lake Providence, Louisiana, at the start of the Civil War. He related his life story in 1905 to a federal examiner in his application for a military pension. In the early 1860s, Washington had been married with three children. He joined the Union Army in 1863, serving in the 47th U.S. Colored Infantry, but on his return  home after the war found his family gone. He testified to the pension examiner, “After I left home to go into the army, Mr. Be[rry] [his owner] carried all of his slaves who had remained at home, to the state of Texas, and I have never heard of any of them. I was a married man, and had three children and he carried them to Texas, and I have never heard of them since.“

With stories like Washington’s it is not surprising that refugeeing slaves ultimately backfired. As the editors of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland wrote in The Destruction of Slavery:

Slaveholders hoped that transfer to the interior would insulate their slaves from the disruptive effects of the war. Instead, from the first, refugeeing disrupted the plantation order and transferred the disorder of the war zone to areas as yet untouched by the conflict. Slaves familiar with the shifting balance of power between Union and Confederate forces informed slaves distant from the war front about the struggle, the presence of black men in blue uniforms, and the promise of freedom in federal lines. Following the arrival in the interior of refugeed slaves from the battle zone, the number of runaways surged upward, as did the instance of other forms of resistance that slaveholders denominated collectively as “demoralization.”

That is why the image above, as horrific as was the event it portrays, was ironically a step forward in the emancipation of American slaves in the Civil War.

Sources: 1) http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1862/november/driving-negroes-south.htm; 2) Deposition of Charles Washington to a Special Examiner, December 18, 1905, Civil War Pension File of Charles Washington, 47th U.S. Colored Infantry, Record Group 15, National Archives, Washington, D.C. [published in Elizabeth Regosin and Donald R. Shaffer, eds., Voices of Emancipation: Understanding Slavey, the Civil War, and Reconstruction through the U.S. Pension Bureau Files(New York: NYU Press, 2008), 163.]; 3) Ira Berlin, et al., eds., Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867; Series I, Volume 1: The Destruction of Slavery (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 676-77.