CWN Civil War News
Vol. 46, No. 3
$3.50
America’s Monthly Newspaper For Civil War Enthusiasts
48 Pages, March 2020
Thousands of enslaved and free African American soldiers fought for the Confederacy by John M. Coski Historian This column is a slightly-updated reprint of a short blog post written for the American Civil War Museum’s website in 2017. For several decades, the question of whether or not there were “Black Confederates” has been one of the most controversial issues in the study of Civil War history. The disagreement arises in part from rival ideological positions, but also traces to different definitions of key terms, especially “soldier.”
There is no question that tens of thousands of enslaved and free African Americans served with Confederate armies as body servants, laborers, teamsters, hospital workers, and cooks, but were these men “soldiers” in any real sense of the word? Partisans of the “Black Confederate” viewpoint answer in the affirmative, comparing the roles black men played in the Confederate army with analogous job descriptions of modern American soldiers, the labor battalions in the World Wars, especially those who were drafted and thus “forced” into service, and even the menial labor that U.S. Colored Troops units performed during the Civil War. Were African American laborers in the Confederate army formally enlisted in the army, equipped with uniforms, arms, and accoutrements, and paid for their own work, as were African Americans in the U.S. Army? No. Their status was that of enslaved or marginally free laborers serving in capacities in a military setting analogous to their roles in civilian life. Referring to such men as “soldiers” ignores a fundamental distinction between forced labor and military service; historian Kevin Levin coined a useful term for them: “camp slaves.” That said, even before the last months of the Civil War, there were African Americans in Confederate armies who met some of the customary criteria to be called soldiers. Beginning in 1862, the Confederate army
Andrew Martin Chandler (1844–1920), Company F, 44th Mississippi Infantry and family slave Silas Chandler (1837–1919) posed for this iconic 1861 photograph both wearing homespun Confederate shell jackets holding Bowie knives, Colt revolver stuck in Andrew’s belt and pepperbox pistol stuck in Silas’ jacket, double barrel shotgun rests across their lap. The Chandlers had 37 slaves when the war began, and when 17 year old Andrew went to war, 24 year old Silas accompanied him. When Andrew was badly wounded in the leg at the Battle of Chickamauga Sept. 20, 1863, army surgeon decided his leg must be amputated, but Silas according to various accounts would not allow it and was able to get Andrew home to Mississippi, with the local doctor treated his wound less drastically and his leg was saved though he never had full use of it again. At this point Silas was sent off to accompany another Chandler brother Benjamin in the 9th Mississippi Cavalry, Benjamin Chandler (1846–1909) had just turned 17 and Silas was now 27 when they left for Georgia, to join Wheeler’s Cavalry early in 1864. Silas would be with Benjamin as an escort for President Jefferson Davis fleeing Richmond Virginia, to Georgia, in June 1865. The Chandlers all returned home to Palo Alto, Miss., after the war. Silas returned to his wife and would have 12 children, of which only five survived to adulthood. Silas was granted pension as “indigent servant” of a soldier in 1916, over 1,700 other African American slaves who accompanied their masters would receive similar Mississippi State pensions. (Liljenquist Family Collection, Library of Congress) formally enlisted hundreds of cooks and musicians; those men were paid, but almost certainly not armed or uniformed. In March 1865, the Confederate Congress passed a law providing for the formal enlistment of African-American soldiers. When the Confederate army implemented the law it required
masters to recognize slaves’ freedom before they could enlist. Not surprisingly, recruitment was slow. Possibly a few hundred men enlisted before Appomattox. Some of those men drilled on Richmond’s Capitol Square shortly before the Confederates evacuated the city, and apparently some traveled with Lee’s
army and were involved in the Appomattox Campaign. In the six months preceding passage of the March 1865 act, soldiers, civilians, newspaper editors, and public servants debated the proposal to arm the slaves. A few
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Inside this issue:
47 – Advertiser Index 8 – Central Virginia BT 16 – American Battlefield Trust 32 – Emerging Civil War 20 – Ask the Appraiser 43 – Events Section 12 – Black Powder, White Smoke 24 – The Graphic War 38 – Book Reviews 26 – Inspection, ARMS!
18 – The Source 14 – The Unfinished Fight 30 – This And That 22 – Through The Lens