Climbing Up to Glory (12 page)

Free blacks offered their services to the Confederacy for many reasons. Some, fearing enslavement or reenslavement, may have volunteered in the hope that by showing their loyalty to Southern whites, they would allay whites' fear. Most Southern whites viewed free blacks with suspicion, believing that they had a negative influence on slaves and could not be trusted. Apparently, some free blacks also hoped that their loyalty would lead to an improvement in their everyday condition and to a relaxation of some of the political and legal restraints against them. Indeed, they envisioned increased privileges and rights in the post-Civil War South as the end result of white gratitude. Moreover, free blacks, particularly mulattoes in and around Charleston, New Orleans, Savannah, and Richmond, supported the Confederacy for economic reasons. Many were substantial slaveowners themselves, often having inherited a portion of their wealth from white relatives. If the Confederacy lost, they, too, would lose. Further, many of the free mulattoes aligned themselves with whites against slaves. In their eyes, the degradation of slavery elevated their own status just as the degradation of blacks elevated the status of whites.
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Most free blacks, however, aligned with slaves culturally, and therefore supported the Union war effort.

Answering the question of why some slaves would support the South is more difficult. Undoubtedly, as did free blacks, a number of slaves developed genuine friendships with Southern whites and sympathized with the Confederate cause. After all, they had grown up around their masters and mistresses who materially provided for them. Some also may have hoped that their loyalty would lead to freedom and some degree of acceptability from whites. A few were certainly committed to the struggle, as a letter from a South Carolina servant to his sister illustrates:

Perhaps another reason why some slaves sided with the Confederacy was the way they were treated by Yankee troops. Although many Union soldiers treated slaves humanely, often informing them of their freedom and sometimes making their masters and mistresses cook lavish meals for them, others mistreated them. For example, General Sherman's troops in Georgia pillaged slave cabins as well as the planters' big houses on their march to the sea. A former slave described Sherman's men as “hungry wolves who didn't say howdy.”
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Union soldiers also destroyed food and livestock that blacks needed for survival. Finally, most Federal soldiers were straightout racists rather than abolitionists.
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Especially during the first year and one-half of the war, Union soldiers returned so many runaways to their owners that a number of slaves came to regard Yankees as their enemies. In their minds, Union men were “little better than secessionists.”
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The Confederate and state governments consistently refused the offers of free blacks and slaves to join the war effort as soldiers. Above all, they feared that arming blacks would lead to insurrections. Even worse, some whites believed that accepting blacks for military service would imply that racial equality existed between blacks and whites. Win or lose, if black men fought for the Confederacy, they would expect increased social and economic opportunities or envision being admitted to first-class citizenship in Southern society. Such a move would have devastating consequences for a system built on the notion of black inferiority. Nonetheless, despite stern opposition from Southern leaders, agitation in favor of enlisting blacks continued throughout the war. In fact, in its early months, a few voices urging the arming of slaves against the Northern enemy were heard. For instance, a Georgia planter, John J. Cheatham, wrote the Confederate secretary of war in favor of arming a few slaves against the Union. Cheatham reasoned that since some of the slaves clearly thought that President Lincoln would free them, the best way to counteract this idea would be to arm them and make them assist in defeating the Federal forces. By placing only ten or twenty blacks in each company, “there number would be too small to do our army any injury, whilst they might be made quite efficient in battle,” he wrote.
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Cheatham's proposal was regarded by most Confederates as ludicrous. Early Southern victories had convinced many of them that the South's strategy—arming a larger proportion of their white male population than the North as well as utilizing slave labor to keep the Southern economy afloat—was and would continue to be successful. Thus, at this point, it was not necessary to arm the slaves.

Confederate military setbacks in the summer of 1863, however, would change this optimistic outlook. The surrender of Vicksburg, Mississippi, and the costly defeat at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, especially caused slaveholders to fear for the worst. Now, the calls for arming the slaves grew louder and more numerous. Letters began to pour into Jefferson Davis's office pleading with him to arm the slaves. One planter from eastern Mississippi wrote in despair: “Visburg is gone and as a consequence Mississippi is gone and in the opinion of almost every one here the Confederacy is gone. I can myself see but one chance, but one course to pursue to save it, and I fear it is now too late for even that to check the tide that is overwhelming us.” He implored Davis “to call out every able bodied Negro man from the age of sixteen to fifty years old.” If the Confederate president did not act promptly, “the negro men will all go to the enemy.”
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But Davis would not budge on the issue, since opposition was still too great. Nevertheless, it would be only a matter of time before this opposition would decrease because the year 1864 brought another string of Confederate losses. In addition, the Southern army witnessed thousands of desertions as many rebels began to doubt that they would ever defeat the Yankees. Heartfelt letters to these men from home underscored the desperate plight of their families. Their wives and children were starving and had to beg for food in order to survive.
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Meanwhile, the Northern economy was producing war materiél at an unprecedented rate. Thousands of black men were fighting for the Union army, and thousands more were preparing to join their brothers on the battlefield. The Confederates were in trouble and knew it.

The year 1865 brought more gloomy news for the Confederacy. Union forces raced through the South racking up one victory after another. Charleston fell, Columbia was captured, and Richmond was taken, to name only a few. These defeats and others would begin to tip the balance by February in favor of those advocating the arming of slaves. Yet with the Yankees thundering at the gates, the arguments of those opposed became almost fanciful. We can win without black help, they said, if only the absentees and stragglers return to the ranks and the people rededicate themselves to the cause. “The day that the army of Virginia allows a negro regiment to enter their lines as soldiers they will be degraded, ruined, and disgraced,” roared Robert Toombs, a prominent Georgian. Howell Cobb, a fellow Georgian, concurred: “If slaves will make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong.”
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The secessionist
Charleston Mercury
, moreover, asserted that “it would be the most extraordinary instance of self-stultification the world ever saw” to arm and emancipate slaves.
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Thus, although the group opposing the arming of slaves and their emancipation was now in the minority, it still represented a significant and vocal segment of Southern white opinion. In mid-February, however, Lincoln shocked many Confederates when he announced at Hampton Roads that he would accept nothing short of unconditional surrender. Clearly, in the event of a now-likely Union victory, the institution of slavery would be abolished. Desperation began to set in as petitions as well as thousands of letters from Confederate soldiers in the trenches of Petersburg were sent to President Davis endorsing the idea of fighting alongside blacks.
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Undoubtedly, General Lee's position on the issue also helped to swing the pendulum toward those who favored arming the slaves. In February, he broke his public silence with a letter to the sponsor of a Negro soldier bill: “I think we could, at least do as well with them as the enemy.... Those who are employed should be freed. It would be neither just nor wise to require them to serve as slaves.” The general's prestige carried the day—but just barely. After much debate, on March 13, 1865, less than a month before Lee's surrender at Appomattox, the Confederate Congress passed a bill authorizing the enlistment of twenty thousand blacks and promising their emancipation if they remained loyal throughout the war.
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It is interesting to speculate about what course the war would have taken if time had not run out on the Confederacy after it reached a decision to use black troops. What was the black response to the rumors that the Confederate Congress was debating the issue of arming the slaves? According to at least one source, some black men in the South were prepared for possible recruitment. Scores of anxious black men were said to have been roaming the streets of cities and towns in wild fits of Confederate patriotism. Surely, there were some ready to serve,
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but, the vast majority of African-American men and women were adamantly opposed to the measure. Black Civil War correspondent Thomas Morris Chester was on the mark when he wrote, “When this question was first broached to the public, it was as evident to the most ignorant slave of the South as to Davis himself that it was dictated by rebel necessity.” Moreover, “The idea was so repulsive to these poor, humble people that they immediately began to devise ways and means to escape to our lines.”
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In the midst of the Confederate congressional debate, secret associations, whose purpose was to deliberate upon the proposal of taking up arms, were organized in Richmond and rapidly spread throughout Virginia. These associations agreed that black men should promptly respond to the call of the rebel chiefs, whenever it should be made. On the field, if placed in front of the white Confederate troops, “as soon as the battle began the Negroes were to raise a shout for Abraham Lincoln and the Union, and, satisfied there would be plenty of support from the Federal Force, they were to turn like uncaged tigers upon the rebel hordes.” If placed in the rear, the black troops were to fire on the white Confederates in front of them. This two-pronged attack would disastrously defeat Lee's army and might even result in its total annihilation.
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This brilliant plan sent a resounding answer of “no” to the question of whether blacks would fight for the South in significant numbers at this stage of the war.

Even in the early years of the conflict, most slaves had already made up their minds about which side of the white forces on the Southern battlefields was Pharoah's army. Despite Lincoln's reluctance to approve the enlistment of black soldiers at the beginning of the war and his snaillike pace in abolishing slavery, most slaves believed that a Union victory would lead to their emancipation. A Southern victory, by contrast, would mean a continuation of slavery. Given the intense racism of Southern whites, the brutality of the institution of slavery, and blacks' adamant dislike or mistrust of whites, it is inconceivable that the South would have persuaded blacks to fight for the Confederate cause in any significant numbers. Thomas B. Wester, a soldier in the Forty-third U.S. Colored Infantry, spoke for most blacks in his response to the question, Will the slave fight against the North? “No, Never!” he answered. “He will turn his back upon the traitors, and leave them to their ignominious fate.”
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The outcome for the South was its worst nightmare, the destruction of slavery. Thus, to argue that blacks would somehow embrace the Confederacy in its final days defies logic and historical reality. As already noted, most blacks stood steadfast against the South from the start of the war to its conclusion.

In one of the many ironies of the Civil War, black participants in both the Union and Confederate causes were unwanted. Both governments, pathetically racist, allowed a number of needless deaths to occur before they actively recruited blacks into their armed services. Two years of fighting transpired, with a string of Union defeats, before Federal officials became convinced of the practicality of employing black troops. Had they recruited blacks at the start of the war, the balance may have tipped in the North's favor at least a year and one-half earlier than it did. By contrast, although there are serious doubts that the South could have ever recruited enough blacks to turn the tide of war in its favor, if the perceived threat were there, perhaps the North would have been more amenable to some form of reconciliation. Instead of at least entertaining the notion of recruiting blacks, however, Southerners could not bring themselves to enlist them as soldiers until it was too late. In an eerie way, the nation benefited from Southern white racism. Had Southern whites not been so racist, they would have been more open to some kind of compromise short of the abolition of slavery. Wanting all or nothing, in the end they got nothing. Fortunately, this led to the monumental liberation of four million slaves.

Black men demonstrated resourcefulness and courage in escaping from plantations and fighting in the army. They were proud of their participation in the war and proud of their role in winning their own liberty. Indeed, military service was of the upmost importance to most blacks, for as Frederick Douglass noted, “liberty won only by white men would lose half its luster.”
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Thomas Long, a black corporal in the First South Carolina Regiment, asserted, “If we hadn't become sojers, all might have gone back as it was before. But now tings can never go back, because we have showed our energy, and our courage and our naturally manhood.”
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A slave from Tennessee who visited his owner while on furlough after the Union victory in the Battle of Nashville found her glad to see him but disappointed that he was fighting for the Union. “You remember when you were sick,” she reminded him, “and I had to bring you to the house and nurse you? And now you're fighting me!” Unmoved and with a clear vision, the slave replied, “I ain't fighting you. I'm fighting to get free.”
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From the moment that blacks proudly donned the Union blue, it was clear what they were fighting for—freedom!