Posted by E. S. Coleman on June 10, 1999 at 18:38:37:
In Reply to: Miscellaneous Junk posted by Tom on June 10, 1999 at 08:40:57:
:
: Yes, I have heard all these stories about the wonderful racial diversity of the Confederate army.
*Tom, I'll bet you haven't heard 1% of the stories written about
Blacks in the Confederacy, with equal pay and fully integrated,
unlike the Yankee army. Ever read their own words in the slaves
narratives?
Excuse me if I believe that these stories are much ado about nothing.
*Then you'll excuse us Southerners for not believing the Yankee
propaganda proliferating from the prejudiced Yankee writers.
An attempt by Southern apologists to excuse the Confederacy for fighting for slavery.
*If the South had only wanted to protect slavery, all they had to do was go along with the ORIGINAL 13th Amendment, offered in early 1861 after several states had seceded, which would have protected slavery for all time in the states where it then existed. This was not inducement enough
to bring South Carolina or any others back into the fold.
The States of the Confederacy, even today, could block the passage of the 13th Amendment, and certainly could have then. This is exactly why the Slaveholders wanted to stay in the Union.. Their "property"
was protected by the Constitution..
The Union army had a 180,000 African Americans under arms by the end of the war.
*Sherman gave the Blacks a choice. Join Linkoln's army or be shot.
Most of these men were Southern blacks who knew well enough which side was fighting for their purpose.
*What they knew was which side was raping their women, burning
their homes, and destroying their food. They prefered joining Linkoln's invaders in lieu of death by the invading Yankees.
In comparison were a paltry few thousand black Confederates and that pretty much makes a mockery of comparing opportunies for blacks in the two armies.
*There were fewer Blacks in the Confederacy for two reasons: The
Confederacy needed them to run the farms and take care of the citizens while the Southern men went to meet the aggressors.
The Confederates did not threaten to shoot them if they did not join the Southern army. Still, there were more Blacks in the Confederate Army percentage wise.
No, I do not believe that Union army's ranks were stocked with abolitionists. Few Northerners had any particular love for black people; but most came to recognize a curse on the land and their own futures when they saw one.
*Most Yankee rapists, arsonists, theives, murderers, and heathens
were either drafted or imported hired hands getting off the boats. And the Yankees owned slaves for months after the war was over. (even U.S. Grant) The curse on the land was the Yankee
slave trade with Yankee only ships, after the English and Portgugese stopped buying Africans from the other Africans.
: As for the possibility for an African American historian to see some comparisons between the ANV and the Waffen SS.
*The Confederate Constitution was a carryover of the original U.S.
Constitution which Linkoln destroyed. The Nazi's believed like
Klinton, Federal control over our lives. And don't forget, it
was Confederate Americans who led the defeat of the Nazi's.
Well, it is very well documented that Lee's army on its march up North in the summer of 1863 were seizing free African Americans, shackling them togther and selling them into slavery down South. (Lee Considered by Alan Nolan is one source that mentions this black mark on ANV's record)
*Pure unadulterated B.S.
I wonder how this "black" soldier in Stonewall Jim's brigade felt about these actions?
*Stonewall was dead before Lee went North in '63. Everyone knows that. Too bad they're all dead and can't straighten you out on this themselves.
Also lets not forget the actions of Confederate forces in the Crater in 1864 where they murdered black soldiers trying to surrender. Now a white Southern might choose to dismiss these ugly episodes as "pc revivisionism" or jump to point out similar atrocities committed by Union forces.
*The atrocities were the Union officers that sent the all Black Regiments into the fight because the Union considered them expendable, aka Nashville and Battery Wagner.
Yet I can see how an African American historian, a descendent of slaves, could see comparisons between the ANV and another superb fighting force with a black record.
*Well, I don't because the Southern Blacks fought with the Confederacy and ran the farms. The Southern Blacks also fought
the NAZI's with the Confederate Americans.