- Joined
- May 12, 2019
- Messages
- 7,157
- Reaction score
- 4,171
https://www.civilwarmonitor.com/blog/the-b-a-q-a-kevin-m-levin
Over on Civil War Talk, there were literally hundreds of Black Confederate threads that went nowhere. The definition of what a Black Confederate is-is in dispute. Some like me want to see photos of Nubian blacks in gray actually shooting at Union soldiers while others take off white men toting firewood. Some of those wild claims have an army of Black Confederates of the size of the Army of Northern Virginia.
Anyway, we have Levin's definition of as a Black Confederate as a soldier. Like everything in the BC world, that term can be flexible.
Over on Civil War Talk, there were literally hundreds of Black Confederate threads that went nowhere. The definition of what a Black Confederate is-is in dispute. Some like me want to see photos of Nubian blacks in gray actually shooting at Union soldiers while others take off white men toting firewood. Some of those wild claims have an army of Black Confederates of the size of the Army of Northern Virginia.
Anyway, we have Levin's definition of as a Black Confederate as a soldier. Like everything in the BC world, that term can be flexible.
How did you come to write a book about so-called black Confederates?
I wrote my first blog post about the black Confederate myth back in 2008. Over the years these posts have generated hundreds of comments and often heated discussion. At its core the question is not simply whether blacks served as Confederate soldiers, but how we think about and remember the place of slavery in the American Civil War. The subject bridges my interests in the history and memory of the Civil War, digital media literacy, and history education. From the beginning I was struck by the wide discrepancy between what Confederates themselves had to say about the status and role of enslaved people in the war effort and the wild claims made today about the existence of tens of thousands of loyal black Confederate soldiers. These claims can be found on thousands of websites, in history textbooks, National Park Service exhibits, and monuments, and even in the writings of two Harvard scholars. I wanted to better understand why some people insist on defending this narrative in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary and why others who have a sincere interest in the history of the war fall victim to this myth.
One of the persistent problems with the Black Confederate controversy in boards and blogs is how black does an individual have to be before they are a Black Confederate. Mulatos served with whites in CSA units, the general rule seems to be that if they looked white, then they were regardless of ancestry. In any case, IMHO Levin is correct that no one used the presence of Black Confederates in the ranks as evidence in the debate. I wrote my first blog post about the black Confederate myth back in 2008. Over the years these posts have generated hundreds of comments and often heated discussion. At its core the question is not simply whether blacks served as Confederate soldiers, but how we think about and remember the place of slavery in the American Civil War. The subject bridges my interests in the history and memory of the Civil War, digital media literacy, and history education. From the beginning I was struck by the wide discrepancy between what Confederates themselves had to say about the status and role of enslaved people in the war effort and the wild claims made today about the existence of tens of thousands of loyal black Confederate soldiers. These claims can be found on thousands of websites, in history textbooks, National Park Service exhibits, and monuments, and even in the writings of two Harvard scholars. I wanted to better understand why some people insist on defending this narrative in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary and why others who have a sincere interest in the history of the war fall victim to this myth.
How did the idea of black Confederates become, as you note in the book’s subtitle, “the Civil War’s most persistent myth”?
What I find so striking is that during the very vocal debate over whether to allow enlistment of black men as soldiers in the southern armies—a debate that occurred throughout the Confederacy beginning in 1864 and continuing right up to the final weeks of the war—is that not a single person pointed to African Americans already serving as soldiers in the Confederate military. Regardless of their position on slave enlistment, no one in the army, in the Confederate capital of Richmond, or on the home front used the fact of existing black soldiers to bolster their position. Even in the decades following the war the white southerners who fought the conflict recalled the presence of blacks in the army, either as body servants or impressed slaves, but not as soldiers. This changed only in the mid-1970s as the memory of the war shifted in response to new research and the influence of the civil rights movement. Slavery, emancipation, and the service of black men in the Union army finally took center stage, and this did not sit well with members of the Confederate heritage community, particularly the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The SCV soon insisted that blacks were not only loyal to the Confederacy but had in fact “served” as soldiers. They commissioned books and used Confederate Veteran magazine to highlight these stories, but it was the internet that helped to spread these tales to a wider audience. Many of the websites that contain these false claims are cut and pasted from one another. Readers untrained in how to search and assess online content are easily misinformed. The ease with which new websites and social media pages can be created makes it next to impossible to challenge the black Confederate myth on a broad scale.
One of the rhetorical ways to increase the numbers of Black Confederates is to use the term served. That is any African American that did something for the CSA was a Black Confederate--soldier or cook. Many of these African Americans had no free will in their service thus the term is disingenuous to me. What I find so striking is that during the very vocal debate over whether to allow enlistment of black men as soldiers in the southern armies—a debate that occurred throughout the Confederacy beginning in 1864 and continuing right up to the final weeks of the war—is that not a single person pointed to African Americans already serving as soldiers in the Confederate military. Regardless of their position on slave enlistment, no one in the army, in the Confederate capital of Richmond, or on the home front used the fact of existing black soldiers to bolster their position. Even in the decades following the war the white southerners who fought the conflict recalled the presence of blacks in the army, either as body servants or impressed slaves, but not as soldiers. This changed only in the mid-1970s as the memory of the war shifted in response to new research and the influence of the civil rights movement. Slavery, emancipation, and the service of black men in the Union army finally took center stage, and this did not sit well with members of the Confederate heritage community, particularly the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The SCV soon insisted that blacks were not only loyal to the Confederacy but had in fact “served” as soldiers. They commissioned books and used Confederate Veteran magazine to highlight these stories, but it was the internet that helped to spread these tales to a wider audience. Many of the websites that contain these false claims are cut and pasted from one another. Readers untrained in how to search and assess online content are easily misinformed. The ease with which new websites and social media pages can be created makes it next to impossible to challenge the black Confederate myth on a broad scale.
In Searching for Black Confederates, you also investigate the roles that African Americans actually performed in the Confederate army. What were these? And did you learn anything that surprised you?
Enslaved labor was vital to the success of the Confederate war effort. Tens of thousands of impressed slaves worked in hospitals, constructed earthworks, repaired and extended rail lines, and helped manufacture artillery in places like the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. Impressed slaves also performed a wide range of important roles in the armies. Confederate armies also included thousands of body servants (what I refer to in the book as camp slaves), who accompanied their masters to the front. These men functioned outside the military hierarchy entirely. They tended to their masters’ every need, including cooking, tending horses, foraging, cleaning, and serving as messengers with families back home. This mobilization of black bodies helped to offset the population difference between North and South and made it possible for the Confederacy to maximize the number of white men that could shoulder a rifle in the ranks.
Enslaved labor was vital to the success of the Confederate war effort. Tens of thousands of impressed slaves worked in hospitals, constructed earthworks, repaired and extended rail lines, and helped manufacture artillery in places like the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. Impressed slaves also performed a wide range of important roles in the armies. Confederate armies also included thousands of body servants (what I refer to in the book as camp slaves), who accompanied their masters to the front. These men functioned outside the military hierarchy entirely. They tended to their masters’ every need, including cooking, tending horses, foraging, cleaning, and serving as messengers with families back home. This mobilization of black bodies helped to offset the population difference between North and South and made it possible for the Confederacy to maximize the number of white men that could shoulder a rifle in the ranks.