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Black Confederates
written by Charles Barrow
Studio : Pelican Publishing Company
by Pelican Publishing Company
Publisher : Pelican Publishing Company
Released : 2002-01
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9781565549371
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 4 reviews)
List Price : $17.95
Our Price : $11.32
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Product Description |
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Neither Confederate history nor black studies can afford to ignore the efforts of black Americans on the side of the Confederacy, as this seemingly contradictory behaviour reveals and underscores the terrible complexity of the War Between the States. To quote Edward Smith, Dean of Minority Affairs in the August, 1991 edition of The Civil War News: "To admit that blacks actually fought for a cause which in the minds of many 20th century Americans now stands exclusively for slavery and oppression is unacceptable to many in the country concerned with only politics and not with the historical record." This volume reflects an effort to restore some accuracy to the historical record with regard to black soldiers who fought for the Confederacy. Through correspondence, military records, narrative reminiscences, and newspaper accounts from these brave men who served what they considered their country, we hope to discover not only that they did fight, but also how they fought to restore honour to the fallen among them. |
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rumor and myth |
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Since it was illegal for Blacks to carry arms until March of 1865, and numerous Confederate Government documents attest to the illegality of using slaves and free Blacks in that capacity it is hard to see how much unsubstantiated material can be believed. Look at the Confederate Senate and House records. As late as March 17th, 1865, after the final passage of a bill authorizing such service, the Senate repudiated the bill and Jefferson Davis waffling from November 64. Please look at the original documents! Also know that slaves serving as teamsters, cooks, etc. were allowed pensions it did not mean they were weapons carrying soldiers. |
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Helps to tell the WHOLE story . . . |
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Probably, the discovery that more than a few African Americans served on the Confederate side in the Civil War -- and not just as servants, either -- will strike some readers as contradictory, or even unnatural. Certainly, most historians have ignored the subject. But history is history: One must deal with past reality, not subordinate the facts to modern political positions. In researching the subject, Barrow called on the readership of _Confederate Veteran,_ the official publication of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, to submit information on black Southern loyalists. The results were large and diverse, based on official reports, pension applications, family correspondence, newspaper articles, and published memoirs, and from that came this anthology of historical documents and accounts, originally published under the title _Forgotten Confederates._ In fact, the most conservative estimate is that some 50,000 African Americans served on the Confederate side, compared to 600,000 to 1,000,000 white Confederates (depending on who did the counting). Few of them were "properly enlisted," of course (the Confederate Congress did not authorize such enlistments until the War was in its last days), but those who worked as servants, bodyguards, nurses, cooks, scouts, barbers, teamsters, musicians, and construction workers frequently joined the fight, whether sanctioned or not. The irony, of course, is that black Confederates served within white units, while black Union troops were carefully segregated from white troops. At least twenty-five percent of the Confederate Ordnance Department was black, and several black militia units were raised in Louisiana and Alabama. There were black Confederate sharpshooters in the Seven Days campaign in 1862, and more than 1,000 black sailors served in the Confederate Navy. And a surprising number of black faces appear in photographs of post-War Confederate reunions, many of which are reproduced in this volume. This is an engrossing collection of material and the twenty-one-page bibliography of sources for further study will be most useful to local historians. |
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A student of the great mind who wrote this great book. |
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This book is a wonderful claberation of doucments overlooked by history.The author is a great mind and I recomend this book highly for its agnolagement of our forgoten heroes.This book brings halt to all "myths". |
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Challenges commonly held precepts |
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Collaboratively compiled and edited by Charles Kelly Barrow, J. H. Segars, and R. B. Rosenburg, Black Confederates is a scholarly analysis of historical evidence of those black Americans who served the Confederacy during the Civil War. Correspondence, military records, preserved narratives and newspaper accounts present as clear a picture as possible of some seemingly self-contradictory people. Why did they fight, and in some cases, lose their lives for the South in a conflict fought to perpetuate the institution of slavery? This question is carefully scrutinized in a historical work that challenges commonly held precepts and brings to light an oft-overlooked side of America's deadliest war. Black Confederates is a welcome and fascinating addition to Black Studies and Civil War Studies reading lists and reference collections. |
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