131. Lt. Charles James, Eighth Va., to sister, February 7, 1865, near Richmond, Va., Charles Fenton James Letters, VHS.
132. Chaplain Robert Bunting, Eighth Tex. Cavalry, to Houston Telegraph, February 17, 1865, Auburn, Ala., Robert Franklin Bunting Papers, TSLA.
133. For the effect of Union occupation on slavery, see Berlin, Fields, Glymph, Reidy, and Rowland, Destruction of Slavery, which argues that the war and the actions of slaves in the Confederacy had irreparably damaged slavery even before the end of the fighting, and that slavery could not have survived no matter who won the war. While the war, slaves’ actions, and Union occupation certainly weakened slavery, to argue that it was dead regardless of the conflict’s outcome misses the resilience of the institution. In areas that went back and forth between Union and Confederate occupation, slavery returned whenever Confederates got back in control, and in areas that never experienced Union occupation, it got stronger. For the strengthening of slavery in the North Carolina mountains during the war, see John Inscoe, “Mountain Masters: Slaveholding in Western North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review 61 (April 1984), 143–73; and John C. Inscoe and Gordon B. McKinney, The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), ch. 9.
The necessary element in slavery’s demise, even as late as 1865, remained Union victory, as Confederate soldiers and civilians knew. When the war ended, Confederates everywhere expressed shock that slavery was dead, which they would not have done if the institution had already been moribund anyway. For example, five days after the Union occupation of Richmond, slaveholder Fannie Taylor Dickinson reported in astonishment that her slave, Millie, no longer behaved as a slave. “Last night on ringing the bell for Millie, she was nowhere to be found,” Dickinson confided to her diary. One week later, Dickinson was even more surprised when all the family’s slaves left. In disbelief, she wrote, “our servants have all left…. This is indeed the unkindest cut of all. I cannot write about it.” To the very end, she could not imagine that slavery would cease to exist. See Fannie E. Taylor Dickinson Diary, April 8 and April 17, 1865, Virginia Historical Society, quoted in Nelson Lankford, Richmond Burning: The Last Days of the Confederate Capital (New York: Viking, 2002), 235–36.
134. Pvt. David Thompson, Twenty-seventh N.C., to mother, January 9, 1865, near Petersburg, Va., Samuel Thompson Papers, SHC.
135. Robert Durden, The Gray and the Black: The Confederate Debate on Emancipation (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972), 202–203, 268–69; Bruce Levine, Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves During the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 119–20; Nelson, Bullets, Ballot, and Rhetoric, 167–78.
136. For three decades, Durden’s The Gray and the Black remained the leading and generally unquestioned account of the Confederacy’s black enlistment debate. Durden focuses mainly on the issue at official levels rather than on what soldiers thought about it, and contends that the question of black enlistment really amounted to a southern debate about emancipation, in which the Confederacy, led by Jefferson Davis, approached voluntary emancipation. When Durden does address soldiers’ attitudes toward black enlistment, he draws almost exclusively on the resolutions in the Official Records to argue that enlisted men approved of the measure, especially nonslaveholding enlisted men who saw the move as a way to force the wealthy to make sacrifices, which many ordinary white Southerners felt they did too much of while the wealthy did too little. In April 1865: The Month that Saved America (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), Jay Winik uncritically repeats Durden’s interpretation without particular attention to evidence.
A recent reexamination of the subject, Philip D. Dillard’s dissertation, “Independence or Slavery: Confederate Debate over Arming the Slaves” (Ph.D. diss., Rice University, 1999), looks at newspapers in Virginia, Georgia, and Texas to conclude that “the vast majority of Virginians, Georgians, and even some Texans discovered that slavery could be sacrificed much more easily than southern independence,” and therefore reluctantly came to support black enlistment in 1865 (11). While Dillard usefully notes three distinct stages in the debate over black enlistment, the conclusive one being the aftermath of the failed Hampton Roads conference, he misses some of the question’s subtleties, for example, the distinction between actually freeing slaves and the loophole in General Orders No. 14, and the belief of many of the bill’s supporters that, far from sacrificing slavery, black enlistment, if done correctly, could either help retain slavery, or at the very least, save white control-by-force over black labor as well as white supremacy, even if the legal institution was discarded. Further, Dillard’s source base is very narrow. His conclusions come so exclusively from newspapers (he cites only two published soldiers’ diaries and two memoirs of soldiers, and no manuscript sources) that they cannot be taken as indications of soldier opinion, especially in a war where soldiers’ experiences and views diverged so widely from those of civilians, and in which soldiers complained about newspapers’ misrepresentations. The narrowness of his source base might explain how he could miss, or at least underestimate, hostility and opposition to the measure.
J. Tracy Power touches briefly on the black enlistment debate in the Army of Northern Virginia in Lee’s Miserables, noting that soldiers were “divided” on the issue. While he accurately attributes the support of those willing to tolerate the measure to their desire to exploit all available manpower rather than any “positive sentiments toward the prospect of black Confederates,” he underestimates the heat and significance of the opposition to the measure in the ranks (250–55; quotation from 253).
The fullest and most recent treatment of this topic is Bruce Levine’s Confederate Emancipation. Drawing on more thorough evidence than previous accounts, Levine conclusively shows that arming some black slaves to stave off imminent defeat, which the Confederacy ultimately accepted, and emancipation, which it avoided, were two very separate things. With a focus encompassing Congress, Davis, political leaders, military leaders, and civilians from all social classes, Levine shows that black enlistment did not mark willingness to give up slavery for independence, nor did it signal a softening of white racism. Instead, it was a desperate last measure brought about by military disasters and the actions of slaves who forced Confederates to consider the previously unthinkable, but who also rejected enlistment because their own interests were served by Union victory. Through black enlistment, Levine argues, white supporters hoped to retain as many aspects of slavery as possible, including control over black labor and white supremacy. Levine does not aim to examine exhaustively enlisted soldiers’ views on the subject of black enlistment. Left with a short space to consider the topic (113–17), he concludes that until the spring of 1865, soldiers opposed black enlistment, and many continued to oppose the proposition to the bitter end, but that in the final months of the war the Army experienced a “shift in its center of gravity” in which small majorities, but majorities nonetheless, were willing to countenance black enlistment, though he is less clear about emancipation (115). The analysis offered here will differ, largely due to the use of different sources: Levine quotes overwhelmingly from officers and slaveholding soldiers rather than enlisted troops (mainly nonslaveholders), who are the main focus here. He also accepts uncritically the results of regimental votes that enlisted men’s private writings suggest need to be considered with more circumspection.
137. For General Cleburne’s proposal and official response (including Davis’s order that discussion of it cease, and denial of promotion to Cleburne), see Beringer et al., The Elements of Confederate Defeat, 168–69; Dillard, “Independence or Slavery,” 17–20; Durden, The Gray and the Black, 53–67; Escott, After Secession, 242; Levine, Confederate Emancipation, 27–29; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 832–33; Thomas, Confederate Nation, 261–64.
138. Sgt. Edward Brown, Forty-fifth Ala., to wife, January 3, 1864, Tunnel Hill, Ga., Edward Norphlet
Brown Letters, ADAH.
139. Sgt. Edward Brown, Forty-fifth Ala., to wife, January 12, 1864, Tunnel Hill, Ga., Edward Norphlet Brown Letters, ADAH.
140. Governor Henry Allen to Secretary of War James Seddon, September 26, 1864, quoted in Durden, The Gray and the Black, 74. See also Dillard, “Independence or Slavery,” 22–23; Levine, Confederate Emancipation, 31–32.
141. On the contributions of slaves and freed blacks to the Army of Northern Virginia, see James H. Brewer, The Confederate Negro: Virginia’s Craftsmen and Military Laborers, 1861–1865 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1969).
142. For discussion of public opinion on black enlistment in the fall of 1864, see Dillard, “Independence or Slavery,” 12–43, 89–113, 117–202; Levine, Confederate Emancipation, 110–11.
143. Sgt. Marion Hill Fitzpatrick, Forty-fifth Ga., to wife, November 3, 1864, near Petersburg, Va., in Lowe and Hodges, Letters to Amanda, 182.
144. Cpl. Charles Baughman, Thirteenth Battalion Va. Light Artillery, to father, October 23, 1864, near Petersburg, Va., Charles Baughman Letters, MOC.
145. Pvt. Peter Cross, Seventh N.C., to wife, November 4, 1864, somewhere in Va., John Wright Family Papers, NCDAH.
146. For further discussion of the impact of the Hampton Roads conference, see Dillard, “Independence or Slavery,” 71–88, 147–75, 236–68; Levine, Confederate Emancipation, 111–12. Dillard and Robert Durden hold that Lee’s endorsement of black enlistment led to a shift in opinion among leaders, civilians, and soldiers. Michael Fellman, in The Making of Robert E. Lee, counters that even despite Lee’s support, most soldiers remained hostile to the measure (213–15).
147. Gen. Robert E. Lee to Ethelbert Barksdale, February 18, 1854, in Durden, The Gray and the Black, 206. The Examiner’s doubts appeared on February 16. See Durden, The Gray and the Black, 199.
148. Lt. William Andrews, Tenth Va. Battalion, to father, February 21, 1865, Chaffin’s Farm, Va., William B.G. Andrews Papers, DU. Levine notes Lee’s influence in changing some soldiers’ minds; see Confederate Emancipation, 115.
149. Camp Davis’s Brigade, February 14, 1865, near Petersburg, VA, Richmond Sentinel, February 21, 1865, reprinted in Durden, The Gray and the Black, 219.
150. “Resolutions of Thomas’s Brigade,” Richmond Examiner, February 18, 1865, in Durden, The Gray and the Black, 218.
151. See esp. Durden, The Gray and the Black; Winik, April 1865.
152. See, for example, “Resolutions of the Fredericksburg Artillery,” January 18, 1865, Richmond Examiner, January 22, 1865; “Resolutions of the 57th Virginia Infantry,” January 26, 1865, Richmond Examiner, January 30, 1865; “Resolutions of the 36th and 60th Va., 45th Va. Battalion,” “Resolutions of the 54th North Carolina,” “Resolutions of the 17th South Carolina,” Richmond Examiner, February 18, 1865. Resolutions like these dwelled on the danger of “our ruin as a people” if Southerners were to surrender to the Yankees, who intended to “consign us and our children to bondage and slavery which would be insupportably base and degrading”; they mention nothing about black soldiers.
153. See numerous soldiers’ letters to newspapers in January and February 1865, such as one of mid-January 1865 from “Soldier,” Richmond Examiner, January 18, 1865. J. Tracy Power notes the significance that Army of Northern Virginia soldiers attached to regimental consolidation in Lee’s Miserables, ch. 8, esp. 239–40.
154. “Resolutions from the Army,” January 1, 1865, Jordan’s Battery (ANV), Richmond Examiner, January 1, 1865; “B.” in “camp” to Editor, February 14, 1865, Richmond Examiner, February 24, 1865.
155. South Carolina Soldiers to Editor, Charleston Mercury, January 13, 1865.
156. Pvt. J. C. Wright, Fortieth N.C., to sister, February 19, 1865, Petersburg, Va., Corpening Family Papers, DU.
157. “Your’s &c,” Wise’s Brigade, to Editor, February 8, 1865, Petersburg, Va., Richmond Examiner, February 11, 1865.
158. Pvt. Daniel Abernethy, Eleventh N.C., to parents, February 16, 1865, Petersburg, Va., Daniel Abernethy Papers, DU.
159. Pvt. Joseph Maides, Twenty-seventh N.C., to mother, February 18, 1865, Petersburg, Va., Joseph Maides Papers, DU.
160. La. soldier to friend, February 4, 1865, Keachie, La., “The Color of Gray: African Americans in Confederate Service,” MOC.
161. Pvt. J. C. Wright, Forty-sixth N.C., to mother, February 15, 1865, Petersburg, Va., John Henry Murphy Papers, SHC.
162. Sgt. Edward Brown, Forty-fifth Ala., to wife, March 16, 1865, Hamburg, S.C., Edward Norphlet Brown Letters, ADAH.
163. “A Private Soldier” from Ga., to Editor, January 16, 1865, Warrenton, Ga., Augusta Daily Constitutionalist, January 26, 1865, p. 2.
164. Chaplain Robert Bunting, Eighth Tex. Cavalry, to Houston Telegraph, February 17, 1865, Auburn, Ala., Robert Franklin Bunting Papers, TSLA.
165. Pvt. Grant Taylor, Fortieth Ala., to wife, January 11, 1865, Spanish Fort, Ala., in Blomquist and Taylor, This Cruel War, 322–23.
166. Levine makes a similar point, arguing that the late and desperate date of the Confederacy’s adoption of black enlistment, despite much earlier indications that such a measure offered the only hope of avoiding defeat, shows exactly how central slavery and white supremacy were to the Confederate cause. See Confederate Emancipation, 15, 148, 156–59.
167. Lt. J. G. Sills, Sixty-sixth N.C., to brother, April 3, 1865, near Smithfield, N.C., Roy Vernon Howell Papers, NCDAH.
168. For Confederate desertion in the final weeks of the war, see William Marvel, Lee’s Last Retreat: The Flight to Appomattox (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 5–6; Weitz, More Damning Than Slaughter, 281.
Conclusion: What This Cruel War Was Over
1. Pvt. Charles Beman, Fifth Mass. Cavalry, to father, April 5, 1865, Richmond, reprinted in A-A, April 22, 1865, p. 1. Lt. Edward Bartlett, Fifth Mass. Cavalry, also told of the regiment’s arrival as one of the first Union regiments to enter the Confederate capital. See Bartlett to sister, April 3, 1865, Richmond, Edward J. Bartlett Correspondence, MHS.
2. Sgt. Major Griffin, Twenty-ninth Conn., to Editor, April 12, 1865, Richmond, A-A, April 29, 1865, p. 1.
3. Pvt. Charles Beman, Fifth Mass. Cavalry, to father, April 5, 1865, Richmond, in A-A, April 22, 1865, p. 1.
4. On April 18, Gen. Joseph Johnston and Gen. William T. Sherman reached terms; Jefferson Davis was captured on May 10; and the last on-land fight sputtered out at Palmito Ranch, Texas, on May 12. Because the terms offered by Sherman to Johnston were deemed too lenient, President Andrew Johnson and the cabinet revoked them and sent Grant to negotiate new terms. Johnston’s official surrender according to these terms took place April 26. After Palmito Ranch, a few Confederate raiders were still afloat on the high seas, but they did not engage Union ships in any major sea battles. A small amount of guerrilla activity broke out in Missouri, whose residents had gotten into the habit in the 1850s, but it never amounted to enough to constitute a serious threat to the peace between the United States and the erstwhile Confederate States of America.
5. Pvt. John Franklin Smith, a Tex. regiment (probably Twelfth Tex. or Nineteenth Tex.), to cousin, May 19, 1865, Galveston, Tex., John Franklin Smith Letters, CAH.
6. Cpl. Lewis Bissell, Second Conn. Heavy Artillery, to family, April 9, 1865, Appomattox Court House, Va., in Olcott and Lear, The Civil War Letters of Lewis Bissell, 374. See also Thomas Low’s report of “the wild joy of the hour.” Capt. Thomas Low, Eighth N.Y. Heavy Artillery, to brother, April 12, 1865, City Point, Va., Thomas Low Papers, DU.
7. See, for instance, Capt. Peter Eltinge, 156th N.Y., to father, April 20, 1865, Goldsboro, N.C., Eltinge-Lord Family Papers, DU; Pvt. Justus Silliman, Seventeenth Conn., to brother, April 24, 1864, Jacksonville, Fla., in Marcus, A New Canaan Private in the Civil War, 100.
8. Sgt. Nathan Parmater, Twenty-ninth Ohio, April 17, 1865, Raleigh, N.C., Nathan Parmater Papers, OHS.
9. Richard H. Black, Third U.S. Colored Troops, to Editor, May 1865, Fernand
ina, Fla., A-A, May 27, 1865, p. 2.
10. Sgt. Charles Harris, 157th N.Y., to parents, April 1865, near Statesburg, S.C., Charles J. Harris Letters, DU.
11. The 83rd Illinoisan, 1:6 (April 21, 1865), Clarksville, Tenn., p. 2, TSLA.
12. Jack Halliards, U.S. Gunboat Kennebec, to Editor, off Galveston, Tex., May 1, 1865, A-A, May 27, 1865, p. 1.
13. Sgt. William Ellis, Washington Artillery, diary, April 18, 1865, near Abbeville, S.C., William H. Ellis Family Papers, CMM Ser. B, Reel 5; Lt. E. L. Cox, Sixty-eighth N.C., diary, April 16, 1865, Fort Delaware Prison, E. L. Cox Diary, CMM Ser. A, Reel 13.
14. For more on southern reaction to the assassination, see Thomas Reed Turner, Beware the People Weeping: Public Opinion and the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), ch. 7.
15. Pvt. Rudolf Coreth, Thirty-sixth Tex. Cavalry, to family, April 28, 1865, near Richmond, in Goyne, Lone Star and Double Eagle, 169.
16. Pvt. William Pitt Chambers, Forty-sixth Miss., diary, May 16, 1865, Fertile Glade, Miss., in Baumgartner, Blood and Sacrifice, 225.
17. Capt. Henry Richardson, Confederate Corps of Engineers, to parents, June 21, 1865, Tensas Parish, La., Henry Brown Richardson Papers, CMM Ser. B, Reel 17. See also Ga. soldier John Speer to mother, April 2, 1865, Natchitoches, La., Soldiers’ Letter Collection, Louisiana File, MOC; Lt. James Green, Fifty-third N.C., diary, May 4, 1865, home in N.C., James E. Green Diary, SHC; Lt. Hannibal Paine, Twenty-sixth Tenn., to sister, May 21, 1865, Fort Delaware Prison, Hannibal Paine Letters, TSLA.
18. See Cpl. Theodore Livingston, Third Fla., to brother, May 22, 1865, home in Madison Court House, Fla., Livingston Family Letters, MOC; Lt. George Dillon, Eighteenth Tenn., May 26, 1865, Talladega, Ala., George Dillon Letters, TSLA.
19. Captain Samuel Foster, Granbury’s Texas Brigade, diary, 1865, quoted in Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers, 205.
20. See, among others, Pvt. David Thompson, Twenty-seventh N.C., to mother, January 9, 1865, near Petersburg, Va., Samuel Thompson Papers, SHC; “Poor [Georgia] soldier” to Editor, January 21, 1865, near Augusta, Ga., Augusta Daily Constitutionalist, January 26, 1865, p. 2; Lt. Charles James, Eighth Va., February 7, 1865, Richmond, Charles Fenton James Letters, VHS. Chaplain Robert Bunting, Eighth Tex. Cavalry, wrote repeatedly about the federal government’s alleged intentions of redistributing land, disenfranchising whites and enfranchising blacks, and otherwise elevating blacks at the expense of southern whites. See also Blight, Race and Reunion; Faust, Mothers of Invention; Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers, 204–06; Wells, The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 231–33.
What This Cruel War Was Over Page 46
