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. “I gave Joe a tremendous whipping last night,” Pender scribbled in a note to his wife. Remarkably, many recent websites, books, and articles have accepted these claims as fact—with little or no critical analysis. Through word-of-mouth and eavesdropping, slaves learned of the rise of the Republican Party, Lincoln’s election and the outbreak of war. 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. “Out of the many negroes in this army I haven’t known one to even try to make his escape to the enemy,” boasted James Paul Verdery of the 48th Georgia. 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. The myth of “Black Confederates” has misconstrued and distorted the nature of slavery within Confederate armies. Cloudflare Ray ID: 60f194ac0f580476 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. The loyalty of Confederate slaves has proved a bedeviling topic in public memory of the Civil War. b. armed and forced to fight against the Rebels. From the outset of the war, notably, even before the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves ran away from their owners to the advancing Union Army lines. At Richmond, Lee received 2,000 or his requested 5,000 to relieve white teamsters for duty in … “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. When word of the captured camp slaves reached him, Birney headed directly to Fort McHenry. During the war, most Confederates believed their slaves were loyal. Contraband was a term commonly used in the United States military during the American Civil War to describe a new status for certain escaped slaves or those who affiliated with Union forces. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. 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. slaves ran away from plantation to join the Union. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. Slaves ran away, some joined the army, others fled to freedom behind Union lines. “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. 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. 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. “Negro servants hunting for their masters were a feature of the landscape,” recalled Confederate artillerist Edward Porter Alexander. Just like the Virginia slave Beverly, the prospect of a prolonged, perhaps permanent separation from loved ones—coupled with fears of retribution against relatives still in bondage—discouraged many slaves from running away once the army reached Pennsylvania soil. 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. Largely convinced of their slaves’ loyalty, Confederates confidently toted their human property into a Northern free state. 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. c. given their freedom. (Library of Congress), At Gettysburg, enslaved people were present in large numbers in the Army of Northern Virgina, but not in the battle lines sweeping toward Union positions. “I have ordered him to allow me to be his treasurer,” Pender wrote home. As the battle raged on to the east, the fallen colonel was joined by his slave. Two were freed during Jefferson's lifetime and five were freed by the terms of Jefferson's will. “As to the idea of a faithful servant, it is all a fiction,” the North Carolina diarist Catharine Devereux Edmondston concluded in September 1863. The canteens indicate his role as a camp slave rather than a fighting man. Slaves had accompanied the Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland in September 1862, but the Gettysburg Campaign would mark the first and only time Lee’s army carried a substantial number of slaves into a free state. Reading the Enquirer from his camp in northern Virginia, a member of the 16th Mississippi copied the joke into his diary—complete with slave vernacular. 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. If the North Carolina newspapers that celebrated George’s tale were to be believed, here was a slave running away to the South. “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. 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. Michael Everson, American and Irish linguist; a leading expert in the computer encoding of scripts. 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. d. armed and forced to fight against the Rebels. armed and forced to fight against the Confederacy. Union officers took the initiative to actually free slaves. “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.”. Yet just months earlier, the colonel’s wife had offered George a potent reminder of the family ties that probably motivated his return. 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. S… President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, issued September 22, 1862, declared freedom to slaves in the confederate states that did not return to the control of the Union by January 1, 1863. ... before Lincoln ran … Still, at least six managed to escape—a testament to the strength of family bonds. At least 16 followed Birney’s call and enlisted, while another eight left with Union regiments as cooks. 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. “Negro servants hunting for their masters were a feature of the landscape,” recalled Confederate artillerist Edward Porter Alexander. Runaway slaves who were not claimed were sold at public auction. 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. “By 8 o’clock my mess were all filled with real coffee and other substantials.”. As Lee’s columns entered Pennsylvania in late June 1863, Confederates were eager to establish their slaves’ loyalty. 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. Several slaves ran away to serve with Mexican forces. 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. Karel Capek, Czech writer and playwright, best remembered for his play R.U.R., which contained the first use of the word "robot.". Yet as events quickly demonstrated, Joe’s status was still secondary to that of white Confederate soldiers. 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. Members of a Georgia unit pose in camp with an enslaved man. e. given their freedom. No. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. An Alabama officer leveled just such an accusation after his “negro cook” Charles ran away in 1864. While some took flight as opportunities presented themselves, others stayed put, aspiring to keep their families intact despite slavery. An enslaved man named Joe—who served a group of brothers in the 18th Mississippi—disappeared during the retreat from Gettysburg. returned to their masters. 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. Family ties likely influenced George, the slave of an English-born Confederate officer. b. killed. “They desert.”. “I have seen the favourite & most petted negroes the first to leave in every instance.” According to General Joseph Johnston, “desertion” also plagued Confederate armies’ camp slaves. These claims require more context. 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. Other black residents were inspired by the battle to enlist in the Union army, serving with distinction during the remainder of the war. 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. 8 Pete had “kindled a bright fire” and procured food from “four full haversacks” scavenged off the lifeless corpses of Union 1st Corps dead. 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. Refugee camps were established on confiscated plantations to house thousands of slaves liberated by the Emancipation Proclamation and provide them with care. c. considered "contrabands of war." Just how many camp slaves escaped during the Gettysburg Campaign remains unknown, though several individual cases do survive. Nor did Pender’s earlier criticisms prevent him from administering the lash. • The African Americans accompanying the Army of Northern Virginia as camp slaves were noncombatants. ... Patsey Fossett – ran away in 1827, and living free in Cincinnati by the time of the 1850 Census; ... "Monticello Slaves Who Gained Freedom." Gen. William W. Morris, could count 64 “Negroes, Servants of Officers in the Rebel Army” from Gettysburg and the retreat. 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.”. d. returned to their - 14097191 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. Those who remained on the plantation, undermined the system and drastically decreased productivity. There he was jailed as a runaway, and his ultimate fate remains uncertain. Slaves who ran away toward Union troops were a. returned to their masters. Many slaves had already left the plantation by the time of legal abolition. For several months beginning in the summer of 1864, Army leadership ordered troops to harass and expel refugees from the camp and cooperated with slave owners to return their slaves. Texan forces executed one runaway slave taken prisoner and resold another into slavery. 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. 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. An enslaved … In the wake of the battle, 64 black laborers who had been traveling with rebel forces were captured by the Union. killed. In postwar reminiscences, former Confederates extolled the virtues of their similarly “devoted” slaves. Your IP: 51.75.207.239 Marlboro Jones, a slave of Captain Randal F. Jones of the 7th Georgia Cavalry, sat for a formal portrait in a Confederate uniform. Lieutenant J. Wallace Comer of the Army of Tennessee's 57th Alabama and his camp slave, Burrell. Jimmy Page, musician, songwriter, producer; member of The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin and other bands. 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 … 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. 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. • Because “de abolitioners met us dar—we was de ‘men’ and day de ‘asses.’” While Sam’s parting quip—if indeed his own words—might have conveyed some vague sense of camaraderie, white Southerners were quick to remind him and other camp slaves of their secondary status. 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. Former Confederate camp slaves, some wearing ribbons proclaiming them as "ex slaves," attended a 1927 reunion in Tampa, Florida. In order to deal with the population influx of recently freed slaves, a concentration camp was established to essentially eradicate the slaves. 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). George’s return was not the only such instance. American Civil War - American Civil War - The Emancipation Proclamation: Despite its shocking casualty figures, the most important consequence of Antietam was off the field. 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. (National Civil War Museum), It was in Union hands that George’s story takes a surprising turn. 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. 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). 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. Most slaves had spent their entire lifetime in slavery, and the past several years in war-torn Virginia. “I afterwards asked him about it, but he evaded my questions, and I could get nothing further from him, in relation to it.” For Beverly, the Gettysburg Campaign was another cruel reminder of the painful ironies and heartrending conditions of American slavery. It was in Union hands that George’s story takes a surprising turn. “We have hired a negro man to cook for us,” wrote one Confederate soldier. In May 1861, three enslaved men who were determined not to be separated from their families ran to Fort Monroe, Virginia. So much so, that it became a logistical problem that had to be overcome. 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. Not all African Americans at Gettysburg were northerners, of course. In the furious fighting that blanketed Herbst Woods, Leventhorpe fell with wounds in his hip and arm. 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. 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. Slaves who ran away to Union army troops were considered "contrabands of war." 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. 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. Thousands of black men accompanied Confederate armies into the field, but virtually none were fighting men. Just as white Southern soldiers ate well in Pennsylvania, so too did the army’s contingent of slaves. 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. “He then took my horse, fed him, and returned to the fire,” recalled Page. 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 … One of Lee’s divisional commanders, Maj. Gen. William Dorsey Pender, was “horrified, Confederate Maj. Gen. William Pender Dorsey paid his camp slave Joe a decent wage, but did not hesitate to whip him. 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. The wartime “desertion” of more than half a million slaves undermined many Southerners’ long-held proslavery convictions. “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. “Discovering that he would be. 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. 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. As the army entered Pennsylvania, Henry became “very trifling,” Pryor wrote, and “dont care for any thing but to make money for himself.” Pryor thought that Henry “will get better” once he “got farther away from the free states.”, Many camp slaves who fell into Union hands were brought to Baltimore’s Fort McHenry. 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. It did not free slaves from the border states Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Tennessee. 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.”. From the outset of the war, slaves had been pouring into Federal camps seeking safety and freedom. 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