The Civil War was the most devastating event in the history of America. The severe conflict continued for four decades, and it revealed profound economic, social, and political discrepancies between the North and the South. African Americans have fought every conflict in the United States of America. The contribution of blacks to the confederates is thoroughly studied by numerous authors and stated that these soldiers were dedicated and played a vital role for the Union and Confederate governments during the Civil War. When conflict arose in the country, the Union army hired a huge number of blacks as soldiers.
The free blacks of New Orleans who created a regiment of “Native Guards” for the Louisiana armed force and the Confederate effort late in the war were to employ slaves as soldiers” (Wiley, Pp. 247). It is very depressing to know that historians of the Civil War did not give much credit to these blacks in spite of their valuable involvement in Warr. This paper focuses on the major participation of black confederate soldiers in the outbreak of the Civil Warr.
Black Confederate soldiers served on the border during the Civil War with dignity against antagonistic Indians. According to data available, approximately 90,000 blacks, slave and free, were engaged in some power by the Confederate arArmyThese soldiers were classified as military laborers or body servants. Some Southern blacks might have played a significant role. The Louisiana Native Guards was a band of soldiers regiment comprised of 1400 black men and officers, who offered their services to Dixie in April of 1861 (Jordan, Pp. 218). In the subsequent year, 3000 black men and officials organized themselves into the 1st Native Guard of Louisiana.
These pro-Confederate blacks were created for the defense of New Orleans. After March passed through the city, they were labeled as rebel Negroes, well-drilled and uniformed (New Orleans Daily Delta, from Walter Williams article). Louisiana employed these soldiers effortlessly for military service. Many other states had blacks volunteer their services, and some states accepted these volunteers. At the end of 1861, these slaves in Alabama were organized like soldiers. There were also 60 free blacks in Virginia who formed their own company and marched to Richmond to volunteer their services to assist in the war effort. “Several companies of free Negroes offered their services to the Confederacy Government early in the war” (Wiley, Pp. 148).
Thousands of African Americans fought for the Confederacy. According to the chief inspector of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, Dr. Lewis Steiner, he saw about 3,000 well-armed black Confederate soldiers in Stonewall Jackson’s arArmynd these were noticeably an essential section of the Southern Confederate Army. In a Union army battle report, “General D. Stuart” protested about the fatal efficacy of the black Confederate soldiers whom his troops had stumbled upon.
After the end of the Gettysburg battle, Union forces took seven black Confederate soldiers as prisoners. During the Battle of Chickamauga, slaves serving Confederate soldiers armed themselves and asked consent to join the fight, and when they received that acquiescence, they fought admirably. Their commander, Captain J. B. Briggs, noted that these soldiers “filled a portion of the line of advance as well as any company of the regiment.” There are numerous accounts of slaves assisting Confederate soldiers in battle and helping them to escape capture afterward (Francis Pp. 172-183).
Soldiers, comprised of slaves or free blacks, were between the ages of sixteen and sixty. They came with both Confederate soldiers and officers into the Warr. Body servants, in a continuation of the master-slave association, tended their injured soldiers, sometimes escorting their bodies home and rarely fought in battles. At the beginning of the war was, there were large numbers of body servants in the Confederate alarm. Their task was wide-ranging.
They were often employed in the officer’s residence in the civil WarWar, and they were instructed to clean the house, wash the clothes, brush uniforms, polish swords and buckles, and run errands, such as going to the commissary and getting rations. They had to look after his master’s horse, to feed it at time. Slaves who accompanied their possessor from plantations were the most faithful under intricate happening.
Negroes, who had been given fair treatment before the start of the WarWar, were more loyal during the conflict (Wiley, Pp. 148). In many cases, soldiers and servants had been intimate relationships from childhood. Such relationships were further solidified, and real affection developed for each other, which cemented during the shared adversity brought on by the Warr. “No other slaves had as good opportunities for desertion and disloyalty as the body servants, but none were more loyal” (Wiley, Pp. 64).
Blacks confederate soldiers participated in the war was because they were trustworthy to their masters. Black servants, who were exceptional musicians and good singers, kept the soldier’s spirits up in camp. “When life became sad or monotonous for Jeb Stuart’s officers, they often built a deafening fire, formed a large circle, and had the servants dance and sing to the music of the banjo” (Wiley, Pp. 138). Black body servants fought in battles for the Confederacy with full keenness.
A newspaper reporter from the New Orleans Daily Crescent who was reporting on one of the early battles of the WarWar affirmed that a soldier, Levin Graham rebuffed to stay in camp during a fight, but obtained a musket, battled powerfully, and killed four of the Yankees himself. There are other cases observed by Captain George Baylor, who stated that two soldiers had supplied themselves with equipment left on the field by Federals at the Battle of Brandy Station. These two soldiers joined in the company charges and did well in capturing a Yankee and brought him back to camp as a captive”. One soldier, Robin, a black servant with the Stonewall Brigade, revealed Black Nationalism.
According to the news of the Richmond Whig, he was locked up for a time away from his master and then offered his self-determination on the condition to take a pledge and vow commitment to the United States. Robin stated, in the Richmond Whig, “I will never disgrace my family by such an oath” (Whig ). After the blockade of Vicksburg, there were soldiers who were incarcerated along with their masters who were given freedom.
But as a replacement for their freedom, they preferred to share in the cruelties of the northern prisons with which they had been serving in the Confederate arArmyFree blacks willingly became body servants for wages and whatever other compensation they might bargain. Self-preservation was the dominant objective for the free blacks who offered their services as soldiers. Free blacks in the South knew very well that there was dissimilarity between them and the slave population; they saw this as a way to isolate themselves even further from the slave group. “Being a body servant enabled individual ‘Afro-Confederate’ males to embellish their Confederate allegiance by publicly integrating themselves with Confederates” (Jordan, Pp. 186).
The free blacks stood ready to copy the white class in its loyalty in order to believe that this was an approach to achieve privileges earlier deprived of them and to establish better over the slaves. The blacks’ power and ability were major aspects of Confederate transportation and strengthening. In 1861, “Negro labor, under supervision of state engineers, was immediately committed to the construction of defensive lines” (Brewer, Pp. 132).
Whether they were free or slaved, the blacks, these soldiers worked as laborers, contributed a supporting effort to the Warr. In the South, during 1861-1865, there was continuous construction of defensive works designed to deter attacks by Federal armies. Their full participation was observed in the WarWar, and without the support of the Negro, the South never would have been able to end four years in the War (Wilson, Pp. 460).
While the overpowering majority of blacks were common laborers, there were some highly expert craftsmen. In the WarWar, the usual laborer provided manpower in the foraging of food and raw materials such as coal, iron, and timber. “Black artisans provided their skills in subsequent stages of refinement and processing of commodities into manufactured items in arsenals, armories, ironworks, and machine shops” (Brewer, Pp. 165).
As far as loyalty and patriotism are concerned, black Confederate faithfulness was persistent and actual. Blacks could show their devotion to the Confederacy not only through Serving in a military capacity, but Black Nationalism took many forms, “some were sincerely patriotic, others were alarmed individuals acting on self-preservation and economic interest” (Jordan, Pp. 235). There are other major causes of black partisanship among slaves and free men. Many of these people saw their cause as shielding their homes.
“Regardless of the suffering of slavery, loyal blacks made financial and material contributions to the Confederacy” (Obatala, Pp. 94). In the 1st Battle of Manassas, black Confederates had an opportunity to show their allegiance. An English officer, Arthur Freemantle, explained the narrative of a slave who had run away to the Federal line just before the battle started. The slave was recaptured a short time after the battle ended. He was then turned over to these slaves and met a more cruel death than any white man could have given him. These slaves performed such acts out of patriotism and these soldiers most likely also felt endangered by a runaway slave.
They understood that escape was a threat to their freedom as soldiers. They wanted to demonstrate to the white soldiers in the arArmyhat they were not anything like this escapee. They tried to accomplish that goal by brutally killing to persons. The eagerness with which some blacks reacted should only be astonishing to those who are unknown with the true feelings of the slaves. Their only expectation was to sometime be liberated.
At the end of the Civil War, approximately 179,000 black men which were 10% of the Union Army served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Almost 40,000 black soldiers died in the WarWar and around 30,000 died with infection or disease. Black soldiers served in weaponry and infantry and executed all non combat support functions that maintain an army, as well. There were nearly 80 black commissioned officers.
Black women, who could not formally join the ArArmyhowever served as nurses, spies, and scouts. To understand the role of black confederate soldiers, we must recognize that majority of them do things for instant reasons and not abstract ones. Instead of rebellions among the blacks, slave and free, as calculated by experts, many became possessed of a dedication, originating in fear which was enthused by an interest of the white population.
Soldiers knew that they had a chance to better them, which was all many of them actually wanted. When the WarWar erupted, everybody assessed that it will end rapidly. Slaves and free blacks also knew this too. For this reason, they displayed a fervor that was vanished by 1863, when the South began to be defeated the WarWar.
To sum up, civil WarWar was the major battle fought in the era, in which Black soldiers in the Confederate armies participated in three ways. They gave their services as body servants, taking up arms or in other ways representing their support for the WarWar. There were many soldiers who joined in regular units on their own and several all-black or predominately-black units were established in Confederate armies or local defense forces.
Southern blacks also assisted the revolt in individual ways. African-Confederates not only offered their services as soldiers and as laborers but even individual Negroes, free and slave, donated their money for the Confederate Government. As the use of Blacks became more usual in the Union Armies and their position began to develop. Many Generals prematurely began to use the Black Man as a soldier.
Work Cited
- Wiley, Bell. Southern Negroes; 1861-1865. Yale, 1938, Pp: 247.
- New Orleans Daily Delta, from Walter Williams article.
- Jordan, Ervin L. Blacks Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia. University of Virginia, 1995. Pp: 218.
- New Orleans Daily Crescent, from Jordan’s Black Confederates.
- Richmond Whig, from Jordan’s Black Confederates.
- Obatala, J.K. “The Unlikely Story of Blacks Who Were Loyal to Dixie”. Smithsonian, March 1979. Pp: 94-101.
- Francis Springer, War for What?, Springfield, Tennessee: Nippert Publishing Company, 1990, pp. 172-183.