Thousands of black men accompanied Confederate armies into the field, but virtually none were fighting men. General Pender boasted that his servant Joe “enters into the invasion with much gusto and is quite active in looking up hidden property.” Pender maintained the excitement extended beyond just Joe and included the army’s entire accompaniment of slaves, who “seem to have more feeling in the matter than the white men and have come to the conclusion that they will [im]press horses, etc., etc. A prisoner from the 1st Minnesota encountered a similar scene on the morning of July 3, as he was escorted behind Confederate lines, observing “long lines of negro cooks baking corn pone for rebel soldiers at the front.” Once the firing sputtered to a close, many camp slaves were faced with the unenviable task of traversing the battlefield in search of their wounded or potentially slain masters. He steered clear of the Confederate columns for eight days, returning only as Lee’s army slipped across the Potomac River at Williamsport, Md., and back into Virginia. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (Catherine Elizabeth "Kate" Middleton); wife of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. Slaves and a small number of free African Americans might also have received cash for taking on additional tasks, or simply as a “bonus” for good work. b. killed. slaves ran away from plantation to join the Union. 72—instructing Confederates to respect civilian property—came “much to the disgust of the negro cooks, who cannot understand why the army should act so differently from the Federal armies in Virginia.”. Washington was “captured by the Yankees with our wagon trains in Pennsylvania,” but escaped, swam across the Potomac River, and eventually made his way to Richmond. The claims of fidelity and devotion that Southern diarists and columnists were all too eager to trumpet unraveled before their eyes as the war progressed. Camp slaves occupied much of the First Day’s battlefield after it was firmly in Confederate hands, tending to the wounded, cooking meals for Southern soldiers, and caring for the army’s multitude of horses and animals. Cloudflare Ray ID: 60f194ac0f580476 Most of his 31,000 troops were stationed two miles away in the small railroad town of Grand Junction, about 45 miles south of Memphis and a few miles north of the Mississippi state line. could be induced to leave.” Confederates seized upon their slaves’ supposed loyalty on free soil to paint a picture of affectionate master-slave relationships and a benign slave system. Several slaves ran away to serve with Mexican forces. The self-emancipation thesis, which originated in the 1930s in the work of W. E. B. The Union Army swept through Missouri during the early months of the war, and a Confederate guerrilla insurgency emerged to counter what many considered an enemy occupation. “Our negroes are not at all prepossessed with their Yankee brethren,” Wood wrote home, “and I don’t suppose one in the Regt. d. armed and forced to fight against the Rebels. When referring to camp slaves, Confederate soldiers consistently used the terms “servant,” “cook,” or “negro”—making a clear distinction that the African Americans traveling with Lee’s army were laborers and servants, not soldiers. During the summer of 1862, a Charlottesville, Va., slaveholder groused that this slave George ran away, and “passing as a free man” joined up with a Confederate artillery unit. Jimmy Page, musician, songwriter, producer; member of The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin and other bands. e. given their freedom. ... Patsey Fossett – ran away in 1827, and living free in Cincinnati by the time of the 1850 Census; ... "Monticello Slaves Who Gained Freedom." (National Civil War Museum), It was in Union hands that George’s story takes a surprising turn. During the summer of 1863, Birney was in Baltimore tasked with recruiting U.S. Even Robert E. Lee acknowledged in May 1863 that “our negroes” constituted “the chief source of information to the enemy.” Escaped slaves often proved valuable informants to the Army of the Potomac’s intelligence chief, Colonel George H. Sharpe. When slaves were near the front lines, amused Confederates drew on heavy dosages of slave vernacular and the “Sambo” stereotype, to depict them as clueless, “comical bystanders,” who lacked the battlefield courage of white Southerners. Most Confederates were unwilling or unable to believe that slaves had legitimate reasons for leaving, much less the agency and wherewithal to plot their own escapes. An enslaved man by the name of George Washington also returned south. American Civil War - American Civil War - The Emancipation Proclamation: Despite its shocking casualty figures, the most important consequence of Antietam was off the field. In the wake of the battle, 64 black laborers who had been traveling with rebel forces were captured by the Union. As soon as the Civil War began, many free black men in the North wanted to fight for the Union cause. Many proponents of the myth point to a post-battle report published in the New York Herald on July 11, 1863, which counted “among the rebel prisoners…seven negroes in uniform and fully accoutered as soldiers.” These men, however, were not soldiers, but among the thousands of camp slaves accompanying Lee’s army. Some have even gone as far as to declare broadly that the Southern Army’s legion of camp slaves were active supporters of the Confederacy. There the abolitionist colonel “appealed to them as freemen,” and pointing to the “glorious” stars and stripes floating above, “urged them to assert their rights, and strike the blow that should deliver their oppressed brethren from the tyranny of their so called masters.”. A Chambersburg minister who had taken special note of the Southern army’s sizable contingent of “colored servants and teamsters” reported rumors that some had deserted. Pender, who castigated the treatment of camp slaves, paid his servant Joe $15 per month—higher than the average Confederate private’s monthly wage ($11). These men formed bonds of camaraderie even while forced to serve a cause dedicated to keeping them in bondage. If the North Carolina newspapers that celebrated George’s tale were to be believed, here was a slave running away to the South. Richard Nixon, 37th President of the U.S. and first President to resign from office. “We have hired a negro man to cook for us,” wrote one Confederate soldier. Gen. George H. Steuart’s Brigade correctly informed one of Sharpe’s men that the Confederate army “intended to march to the [Shenandoah] valley and visit Maryland.” A week later, after the fight at Brandy Station, Va., two slaves identified as officer’s servants came into the Union lines and shared more valuable information. In the defense of Atlanta, General Joseph E. Johnston called for 12,000 slaves to join his army as teamsters and cooks, but such a large number was never furnished for any general, although slaves were an important part of the campaign, building fallback lines for the stubbornly retreating Confederate army to man. All seven were skilled tradesmen, ideally capable of finding employment as freed men. Decades of antebellum slave codes in Southern states had strictly curtailed African-Americans’ access to firearms, and most Confederates warmed to the idea of arming blacks only during the winter of 1864-65, and even then only out of sheer desperation to continue the fight for independence. The African Americans accompanying the Army of Northern Virginia as camp slaves were noncombatants. And if camp slaves were eagerly searching for stashes of food and livestock, in many cases it was because their masters ordered them to do so. When referring to camp slaves, Confederate soldiers consistently used the terms “servant,” “cook,” or “negro”—making a clear distinction that the African Americans traveling with Lee’s army were laborers and servants, not soldiers. Estimates ranged as high as that of Thomas Caffey—another Englishman, serving as a Confederate artillery officer—who placed the number at 30,000 “colored servants who do nothing but cook and wash,” to the more conventional figure of 6,000–10,000, adopted by most scholars. Morris was optimistic that the remaining number might be employed as “laborers, teamsters, &c&c,” though he noted that several of the men declared themselves to be free, “and have families to whom they desire to return.” Union officials debated this request, though Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton ultimately decided that no black detainees would be sent south. “Discovering that he would be. They used many as … Runaway Slaves from Wessyngton Plantation 1862-1863. “He is a good and smart boy but like most young negroes needs correction badly.”. Cooper H. Wingert is a historian and the author of 12 books, including The Confederate Approach on Harrisburg, Slavery and the Underground Railroad in South Central Pennsylvania and Abolitionists of South Central Pennsylvania. “There was no way the Union would have won the war had it not been for the support of African-Americans,” said Stauffer. On July 1, 1863, George’s master, Colonel Collett Leventhorpe, led his 11th North Carolina Infantry (Pettigrew’s Brigade) across Willoughby Run and smashed into the left flank of the famed Iron Brigade. Lieutenant J. Wallace Comer of the Army of Tennessee's 57th Alabama and his camp slave, Burrell. 8 Escape, under these circumstances, would have amounted to a “suicide mission,” in the words of scholar Colin Woodward. In postwar reminiscences, former Confederates extolled the virtues of their similarly “devoted” slaves. There are many accounts of slaves being taken by union soldiers and running away from the union army to … On July 6, several slaves belonging to the 3rd Richmond Howitzers were captured by Union forces, only to return to Confederate lines three days later. Federal policy regarding slaves who ran away from their masters and came to the Union army was contradictory and confused in the first years of the war. The unfolding conflict destabilized slavery as many of Missouri’s nearly 115,000 slaves took advantage of the ensuing chaos and struck a blow for their own freedom. The politically incorrect runaway slaves you will not hear about, are those slaves captured and forced into labor by the union, that ran away from the union back to their plantations. “I have ordered him to allow me to be his treasurer,” Pender wrote home. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. 7 Black southerners, most of whom were enslaved, overwhelmingly supported the Union, often running away from plantations and forcing the Union army to reckon with slavery. Shortly after the Antietam Campaign, Joe instantly aroused jealousy from white Confederate soldiers by purchasing “a nice gray uniform, french bosom linen shirt.” Pender determined that Joe would make no further purchases without his consent. While some took flight as opportunities presented themselves, others stayed put, aspiring to keep their families intact despite slavery. Through word-of-mouth and eavesdropping, slaves learned of the rise of the Republican Party, Lincoln’s election and the outbreak of war. During the Civil War , the Union Army frequently occupied much of Alabama's Tennessee Valley from the spring of 1862 on. From Mercersburg, Confederate surgeon Thomas Fanning Wood proudly reported that a slave in his brigade had refused the invitation of local “abolition women” to help him escape. Inability to raise enough finances to support the war. • Not all African Americans at Gettysburg were northerners, of course. “He seemed to be really glad that he had got home again,” reported his slave-owning mistress Martha Twyman, who was unable to pry any more details out of her reticent bondsman. Most performed menial tasks like this man ready to shine an officer’s boots. Although Pennsylvania was a free state, throughout the Gettysburg Campaign Confederates occupied large swaths of the south central part, and were already rounding up blacks without regard to their legal status. Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery to become a famous abolitionist leader, stated “We are ready and would go.” But prejudice against black people — both free and slave — was strong and deep in the North as well as the South.Most white Americans at this time thought of black adults as children, lacking in mental ability and discipline. Unwilling to completely forsake Joe’s loyalty, an advertisement for his return speculated that he “ran away…or was captured…on Gen. Lee’s retreat from Pennsylvania.”, During the retreat, Captain Charles Waddell of the 12th Virginia (Mahone’s Brigade) briefly left the regiment, returning to find that his slave Willis had seized the opportunity to escape, taking with him Waddell’s camp equipage. Regular Army units were consolidating their position at Fort Craig and Fort Union to protect the upper Rio Grande valley against any Confederate columns coming from Texas. Legions of enslaved people labored as servants, cooks, and teamsters, helping to free Southern whites to fight. The men were recaptured by the Union troops and forced back into hard labor. An attack on the Confederate position on June 3 resulted in heavy casualties for the Union, and nine days later, Grant led his army away from Cold Harbor to Petersburg, Virginia, a rail center that supplied Richmond. From the outset of the war, slaves had been pouring into Federal camps seeking safety and freedom. As the battle raged on to the east, the fallen colonel was joined by his slave. As Lee’s columns entered Pennsylvania in late June 1863, Confederates were eager to establish their slaves’ loyalty. During the conflict, Southern papers churned out sentimental stories of “faithful” slaves combing battlefields to retrieve the bodies of their wounded or slain masters, anecdotes that painted the slave system in a harmonious and favorable light. There he was jailed as a runaway, and his ultimate fate remains uncertain. It did not free slaves from the border states Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Tennessee. “A chance for freedom they had,” bragged Private William S. White of the 3rd Richmond Howitzers, “but they preferred life and slavery in Dixie to liberty at the North.” Thoroughly coached in proslavery paternalism, White predicted that freedom would be an “absolute curse” to “careless” African Americans, who would “ever miss their kind and considerate masters.”, Some even claimed that slaves were more eager than white Confederates to wreak havoc on Yankee territory, in revenge for the hard war waged throughout much of the Union-occupied South. “We don’t pay but 80 cts a piece a month for him, and I had much rather pay that than to be standing over a hot fire cooking.” Samuel Burney and his mess mates in Cobb’s Georgia Legion shared a camp slave named Daniel, who “does all for us; brings wood, water, cooks, spreads down beds, blacks shoes, &c.” Although Daniel was not his slave, Burney seemed satisfied with his function as a shared servant, opining that he “does me as well as if he were mine.”, Life for camp slaves was often grueling and harsh. General John C. Fremont in August 1861 declared that the slaves owned by Confederates in his conquered territory in Missouri were free. Those who remained on the plantation, undermined the system and drastically decreased productivity. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. To reconstruct the lives and experiences of enslaved people, historians are often forced to sift through diaries, letters, and reminiscences left by whites. While the British observer Arthur Fremantle recorded that each of Lee’s regiments had from “twenty to thirty negro slaves,” the precise number of camp slaves the Army of Northern Virginia brought to Gettysburg remains unknown. While “a man can do everything that a soldier has to do,” reasoned a Mississippian who later joined Barksdale’s Brigade, “it is needlessly making a slave of himself if he can get some one else to do it for him.” Before his family sent an enslaved man named Jim to act as his servant, the Mississippi officer “scarcely had time to write a letter or read a line; now I have plenty to do both.”, Often lacking the funds to purchase their own slave, many enlisted men pooled their money to hire (or “rent”) an enslaved person from his master, or hire a free black servant. Stepping foot on free soil (most likely for the first time), they confronted a cruel dilemma—family or freedom. Slaves who ran away to Union army troops were considered "contrabands of war." “Negro servants hunting for their masters were a feature of the landscape,” recalled Confederate artillerist Edward Porter Alexander. “They desert.”. Even the Rhode Island regiment was half black, half white, and the men were segregated into their own companies, but in the rest of the Army, they were integrated throughout the regiments. Slaves who ran away toward Union troops were a. killed. An enslaved man named Joe—who served a group of brothers in the 18th Mississippi—disappeared during the retreat from Gettysburg. Marlboro Jones, a slave of Captain Randal F. Jones of the 7th Georgia Cavalry, sat for a formal portrait in a Confederate uniform. Performance & security by Cloudflare, Please complete the security check to access. Union officers took the initiative to actually free slaves. It technically freed the slaves in the states in rebellion, but not the ones in the Border states that had stayed loyal. The myth of “Black Confederates” has misconstrued and distorted the nature of slavery within Confederate armies. Farther to the south, an Amelia County, Va., slave owner advertised for the return of a slave who had accompanied him during the Peninsula Campaign “and has since been anxious to go to the army again.”. No. While Union desertion ran the full course of the war, there were periods when it spiked, most notably the winter and spring of 1863 in the wake of the Union army’s devastating defeat at Fredericksburg and its retreat following the Battle of Chancellorsville. When the union troops were in an area they often had the freed slaves come to them for protection and to help. While Confederates viewed their slaves’ return as proof of unflinching loyalty, in most cases enslaved people’s true allegiances rested with their family members,  who remained in bondage. “A great many negroes have gone to the Yankees,” wrote Edgeworth Bird, a quartermaster for Benning’s Georgia brigade, in a letter dated July 9. One enslaved man, a servant in Cobb’s Legion, confirmed the presence of Lee and all three corps commanders at a recent review in nearby Culpeper, while also shedding light on the army’s trajectory toward Pennsylvania. Joan Baez, American folk singer and activist. b. armed and forced to fight against the Rebels. George’s return was not the only such instance. to any amount.” Members of the Washington Artillery of New Orleans (Eshleman’s Battalion) similarly testified that Lee’s General Orders No. Texan forces executed one runaway slave taken prisoner and resold another into slavery. These claims require more context. Wingert has appeared on CSPAN Book TV, and is currently a student at Dickinson College. In May 1861, an Alabama recruit’s first taste of camp life included winding his way through “throngs of negro cooks.” As they adjusted to army life, Confederate soldiers frequently wrote home, imploring relatives or acquaintances to “send me a negro boy.”, The presence of slaves allowed Lee’s soldiers to configure their camps as “small Southern communities,” in which bondsmen completed everyday tasks such as laundry, cooking, and caring for animals, while also seeing to their master’s personal comfort. Washington was owned by Joseph Bryant of Bossier Parish, La., who hired him out as a cook to Private Burrel McKinney of the 9th Louisiana (Hays’ Brigade). Remarkably, many recent websites, books, and articles have accepted these claims as fact—with little or no critical analysis. As manpower issues grew more dire as the war progressed, however, the British army became more amenable to arming runaway slaves and sending them into … (Virginia Museum of History and Culture). In November 1863, Sergeant William Walker of the 3rd South Carolina Infantry took dramatic action to express a grievance shared by thousands of African American troops in the Union Army. • Again, the Union advance was halted, if only momentarily, as Grant awaited reinforcements. After the fighting on July 1 had concluded, Confederate artillery officer Coupland R. Page met his “negro boy, Pete” along the Chambersburg Pike west of town. “By 8 o’clock my mess were all filled with real coffee and other substantials.”. “There are several in my Reg’t and they are all so well contented, that every thing moves along easy with them.” When slaves did escape, disgruntled Confederates echoed the accusations that slaveholders had been repeating for decades—a third party, an abolitionist or a “Yankee,” had “seduced” their slave into leaving. Contraband camps were refugee camps to which between four hundred thousand and five hundred thousand enslaved men, women, and children in the Union-occupied portions of the Confederacy fled … These southerners joined the Union army, that is, the army of the United States of America, and worked to defeat the Confederacy. Family ties likely influenced George, the slave of an English-born Confederate officer. (Courtesy of Robert Gray), Slaves were ubiquitous in Confederate armies dating back to the war’s earliest days. During the war, most Confederates believed their slaves were loyal. The commander of Union forces became notorious for overestimating the size of the Confederate troops his men were fighting--and using this as an excuse not to advance. Slaves ran away, some joined the army, others fled to freedom behind Union lines. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. Largely convinced of their slaves’ loyalty, Confederates confidently toted their human property into a Northern free state. Two were freed during Jefferson's lifetime and five were freed by the terms of Jefferson's will. to see how white men calling themselves gentlemen neglect their poor helpless negroes in this camp.” Paralleling the experience of many soldiers, slaves fell ill in startling numbers as unsanitary conditions and exposure to new diseases took their toll. The wartime “desertion” of more than half a million slaves undermined many Southerners’ long-held proslavery convictions. ... before Lincoln ran … In May 1861, three enslaved men who were determined not to be separated from their families ran to Fort Monroe, Virginia. It was in Union hands that George’s story takes a surprising turn. Accounts left by several disgruntled slave owners suggest that some slaves preferred the army as a welcome reprieve from monotonous labor at home, offering opportunities for travel generally unavailable to slaves in the antebellum period—and not to mention the improved prospect of escape to Union lines. Pender, a North Carolinian, looked on with dismay as slaves and “free boys” alike—“in most cases forced from home,” he added—came down sick and “are allowed to die without any care on the part of those who are responsible for their well being.” And just like soldiers, homesickness plagued slaves who were separated from family and loved ones, often for prolonged periods of time. So much so, that it became a logistical problem that had to be overcome. Du Bois and Bell Irvin Wiley, suggests that slaves who ran away to the Union army during the first two years of the Civil War forced military and civilian officials to take steps toward emancipation. Colored Troops—often concentrating his efforts in the city’s slave pens and prisons, much to the ire of Maryland slaveowners. By July 30, the fort’s commandant, Brig. At Richmond, Lee received 2,000 or his requested 5,000 to relieve white teamsters for duty in … Reading between the lines, we can attempt to recover some of what enslaved people experienced, but crucially not all of their thoughts, feelings, and motivations are clear to us. returned to their masters. Yet as events quickly demonstrated, Joe’s status was still secondary to that of white Confederate soldiers. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. The southern Pennsylvania countryside, by comparison, seemed a veritable cornucopia of agricultural bounty. Refugee camps were established on confiscated plantations to house thousands of slaves liberated by the Emancipation Proclamation and provide them with care. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. In August 1861, the Union Army determined that the US would no longer return escaped slaves who went to Union lines and classified them as "contraband of war", or captured enemy property. Shortly after the First Battle of Manassas, the Richmond Enquirer ran a satirical column about a camp slave named Sam who had purportedly followed his master into the thick of the “popin of de guns.” Sam wrapped up his story with a joke that seemed to place him in lockstep with white Confederates. Other black residents were inspired by the battle to enlist in the Union army, serving with distinction during the remainder of the war. “My opinion is that he was enticed away or forcibly detained by some negro worshipper,” the Alabamian reasoned, “as he had always been prompt and faithful, and seemed much attached to me.”. Just days after Lee’s cautionary epistle, a slave who ran away from Brig. Slaves who ran away toward Union troops were a. returned to their masters. A prisoner from the 1st Minnesota encountered a similar scene on the morning of July 3, as he was escorted behind Confederate lines, observing “long lines of negro cooks baking corn pone for rebel soldiers at the front.” Once the firing sputtered to a close, many camp slaves were faced with the unenviable task of traversing the battlefield in search of their wounded or potentially slain masters. Although, the troops were not successful in conquering Ford Wagner, the sacrifice and valor of the soldiers proved that the slaves wanted freedom and they could lay down their life to achieve it. Why was the place of battle called Manassas, he asked? Thousands of the men ended up enlisting in the Union army as part of the 180,000 African-American troops who fought for the North. c. considered "contrabands of war." Karel Capek, Czech writer and playwright, best remembered for his play R.U.R., which contained the first use of the word "robot.". Many slaves had already left the plantation by the time of legal abolition. When the opportunity presented itself, slaves consistently ran to—not from—Union lines. (Library of Congress). “We never have been able to keep the impressed Negroes with an army near the enemy,” he admitted in January 1864. Shortly after their arrival, the men were visited by Colonel William Birney—the older brother of Maj. Gen. David Bell Birney, who had fought at Gettysburg and whose father was a prominent prewar abolitionist. Most slaves had spent their entire lifetime in slavery, and the past several years in war-torn Virginia. Members of a Georgia unit pose in camp with an enslaved man. Their flight led to the phenomenon of Civil War contraband camps. “I gave Joe a tremendous whipping last night,” Pender scribbled in a note to his wife. 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