More Armed Confederate Negroes

Testimony of Colonel John W. Phelps, First Vermont Infantry...

SIR: Scouts from this post represent the enemy as having retired, they came to New Market Bridge on Wednesday, and left the next day. They -the enemy- talked of having 9,000 men. They were recalled by dispatches from Richmond. They had twenty pieces of artillery, among which was the Richmond Howitzer Battery, manned by Negroes. . . Their numbers are probably overrated; but with regard to their artillery, and its being manned in part by Negroes, I think the report is probably correct."

Federal Official Records, Series 1, Volume 4, "Report of Colonel John W. Phelps, First Vermont Infantry: CAMP BUTLER, Newport News, Va., August 11, 1861 – " p.569.

Phelps was a leading voice in the effort to allow Black men to fight in Union forces, including escaped slaves. This raised the ire of many in the South and in reaction the Confederacy would mandate execution for captured Black Union soldiers.

His grave can be seen here...

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=22672

German immigrants

Ever since the Mennonites of Pennsylvania became the first people in American to protest slavery in the 1600s, German immigrants have committed themselves to serving the United States, in both peace and war.

During the War Between the States, many Union Army officers were German exiles who had fled their homeland in the 1840s after a failed revolution. Their reform movement in Germany sought to take political power away from the aristocracy and put it into the hands of a voting public. The revolution failed after a short time. When a democracy could not be realized at home many Germans looked toward the United States.

When Robert E. Lee said, “Take the Dutch out of the Union Army and we will easily whip the Yankees” he was actually referring to the Germans.

The Teutonic immigrants who settled in the Northeast called themselves “Deutsch”. But to the English speaking locals this sounded like “Dutch” and so Americans have since referred to them and their culture as “Pennsylvania Dutch”. This was a frequent misnomer used by Americans who probably saw little difference between the “Deutsch” from Germany and the true Dutch of the Netherlands.

There weren't near as many Germans in the Confederate forces. But those that did believed that it was wrong for the North, after selling its slaves to the South, to then use slavery to justify the war. A German volunteer from Virginia, Herman Schuricht, wrote of the urgency and feelings of obligation that led them to enlist:

“all the recently immigrated Germans embracing the Confederate cause did so with throbbing hearts, and in most cases only under the pressure of compulsory circumstance.”

Professor E. Reichmann writes:

For German-Americans looking back at the War of Independence, the Civil War, and the two World Wars, there is a reoccurring tragic aspect. In all these wars there were Germans fighting on both sides, brother against brother/relative against relative.

Sources:

- Michael Baxter Shock, “Confederate soldiers: Why did they enlist?” West Virginia Historical Society Quarterly Vol. XIV, No. 4, October, 2000.
- E. Reichmann, German-American Journal, DANK, November 2006.

Indiana Newspaper reports armed Confederate "Negroes"

Letter from a Union soldier, published in the Indianapolis (Indiana) Star, December 23, 1861:

Attack On Our Soldiers By Armed Negroes- A body of seven hundred Negro infantry opened fire on our men, wounding two lieutenants and two privates. The wounded men testify positively that they were shot by Negroes, and that not less than seven hundred were present, armed with muskets. This is, indeed a new feature in the war. We have heard of a regiment of [Confederate] Negroes at Manassas, and another at Memphis, and still another at New Orleans, but did not believe it till it came so near home and attacked our men.


My comments: I've learned that social engineering is real. Nowadays, historical facts that contradict popular belief are considered "revisionism"... even by academics. Instead of letting our understanding of history be shaped by eyewitness accounts and historical documents, its just more convenient to call it all "revisionism" so we don't have to change what we believe.

Despite the antiquity of the above letter, it would be called revisionism to mention it. Southern historians have been talking about this stuff for years. But we must preserve the papal primacy of Harvard and Yale scholars even if it means filtering what we learn.

I guess those of us who grew up in the South cannot really be objective. After all, those armies marched and fought on what would later become our back yards. Some of us grew up playing on Civil War battlefields. Our relationship with the War is merely intimate. We don't have the clinical detachment required to really understand.

Don't read this and casually browse to something else. I know tons of you are reading this in Tennessee, but I'm preaching to the choir here. Forward this stuff on. To anybody not in the SCV.

More Armed Confederate "Negroes"

Question. Do you know of any individual of the enemy having been killed or wounded during the siege of Harper's Ferry?

Answer. I have strong reasons to believe that there was a Negro killed, who had wounded 2 or 3 of my men. I know that an officer took deliberate aim at him, and he fell over. He was one of the skirmishers of the enemy [Confederate, ed.], and wounded 3 of my men.

Federal Official Records, "Record of the Harper's Ferry Military Commission (U.S.Army)" Vol. XIX, Chapter XXXI, pg. 617.

Armed Confederate "Negroes"

... is just "another confederate lie" according to some other bloggers who- like televangelists, don't have to know their source documents because their moral outrage gives them an intuition that trumps the expertise of historians and genealogists. The conspiracy must be widespread indeed when Northern propagandists are telling the same lies:

"...they [the Confederacy] have, by means of sweeping conscription, gathered in countless hordes, and threaten to overwhelm the armies of the Union, with blood and treason in their hearts. They flaunt the black flag of rebellion in the face of the Government, and threaten to butcher our brave and loyal armies with foreign bayonets. They arm Negroes and merciless savages in their behalf."

- July 11, 1862 - Rich D. Yates, Governor of Illinois, Federal Official Records, "Correspondence, Etc.", Vol. II, pg. 218

They [the Confederates] arm [give weapons to] Negroes and ...

Or maybe the 1862 Governor of Illinois is a neo-confederate revisionist?

Northern and Pro Lincoln: the Klan

Yes, Klan members in the North... during the period of aging northern veterans... and venerating Abraham Lincoln. This is an antique pin from a Klan reunion. Yes, its odd. But don't click away just yet. Spend some time thinking about this little relic from the racist South. Oh, wait a minute. I mean the North:

If this humble antique can upset the commonly accepted image of the North, the reverse just may be possible for the South. (No! Stop! Don't take this to its logical conclusion!) Allow me to mention the obvious: that's Lincoln's portrait directly under the words "Klan Reunion".

In case our heads are spinning from such an historical impossibility, let me point out yet again this Klan button with the portrait of Lincoln is from the North and the ribbon is not a confederate flag.

College students... let the disillusionment begin.

Armed Black Confederates in Tennessee

Report by Lt. Col. Parkhurst, Ninth Michigan Infantry:

"The forces attacking my camp were the First Regiment Texas Rangers, Colonel Wharton, and a battalion of the First Georgia Rangers, Colonel Morrison, and a large number of citizens of Rutherford County, many of whom had recently taken the oath of allegiance to the United States Government. There were also many negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day."

Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol XVI Part I, "Lt. Col. Parkhurst's Report (Ninth Michigan Infantry) on General Forrest's attack at Murfreesboro, Tenn, July 13, 1862: pg. 805."

I like this one, not so much for armed Black men being cited in the official records- as cool as that is- but more so because the residents of the county joined in the fight, even after the Union coerced an oath of allegiance from them.

I'm glad Lt. Col. Parkhurst's personal experience confirms the fact that African Americans took up arms against the North, but I don't want my use of his quote to trivialize his role. Parkhurst was taken prisoner at Murfreesboro and spent three months in a Southern POW camp. Civil War POW camps were not nice places. He was fortunate to have survived this experience. After the war he was appointed as U.S. envoy to Belgium. Like all veterans of this war, especially POWs, his memory should be honored as well.