Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War's Most Persistent Myth by Kevin M. Levin

Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War's Most Persistent Myth by Kevin M. Levin

Gunhawks comic: from Wikipedia

During my childhood and early teen years I was an avid comic book reader. One particular fascinating comic book was a Marvel Western series called Gunhawks. The main character in the comic was a black gunslinger named Reno Jones along with his childhood friend Kid Cassidy. Reno is a freed slave who lived a happy life on the plantation with a kindly master where he and Cassidy grew up as friends. But the Union Army attacked his home and the girl he loved. Rachel Brown became a captive of the Yankees and in response Reno joined the Confederate army. At the end of the war, Reno and Kid Cassidy roamed the west on a quest to find Reno’s lover Rachel. The publication of the Gunhawks comic was in the early Seventies but the Gunhawks was an example of a series of stories that began after the success of the Civil Rights Movement which claimed that the Confederate army had thousands of free blacks and slaves that fought alongside white Rebel soldiers.

Today the proposition that the Confederate army included thousands of black rebels soldiers remains a belief found in websites, Facebook groups, and even museum exhibits. The increasing reach of the internet, amateur historical research, and the desire to validate history for political and cultural purposes has only led to the spread of claims that blacks participated in large numbers in the Confederate forces. Heritage groups such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans use the narrative of black Confederates as a vindication of their ancestors as well as a tool to set them apart from white extremist groups. Kevin Levin in his book, Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth draws on primary source documentation to annihilate the legend of black Confederates although he still maintains that the labor of slaves became an essential element of the Confederate ear effort. As soldiers marched to war, many brought body servants and other slaves who served the army in a wide range of roles including cooking, foraging, cleaning, and manual labor indispensable for a functioning army.

Actual Confederates would consider the identification of camp slaves with Confederate soldiers puzzling. In fact the idea put forth by many present Neo-Confederate that the Confederate Army consisted of entire regiments of black soldiers is contradicted by the fact that the Confederacy forbid the participation of black soldiers in the army. Some point to the existence of the black Louisiana Native Guard as an example of a Confederate regiment within the Confederacy but their usefulness to the defense of New Orleans proved limited as the state militia limited membership to “free white males capable of bearing arms,” and many of the Native Guard became members of General Butler’s U.S. Corps d’ Afrique.(45)  In spite of the fact that free blacks volunteered service the response of the southern Government was a denial of any role in combat for all blacks.  In response to reports in Northern newspapers that the Confederacy recruited blacks to serve, John B. Jones of the Confederate War Department responded in his diary saying, “This is utterly untrue. We have no armed slaves to fight for us, nor do we fear a servile insurrection.” Much of Jones’ insistence was a response to the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union policy of arming blacks, which he viewed as an attempt to instigate a slave rebellion. (46) Viewing slavery and white supremacy as a bedrock principle of Southern society and culture the very idea of arming blacks undercut the reason for an independent South.

One of the few lone voices calling for arming slaves was the Irish Confederate general, Patrick Cleburne. By 1864, Cleburne believed that the reserves of available white soldiers was exhausted and promoted the idea of offering freedom to slaves who fought with the South. He also believed that the participation of black soldiers in the army would, “strip the enemy of foreign sympathy and assistance.” (58)  But Cleburne’s suggestion faced instant rejection as Joseph E. Johnson refused to forward Cleburne’s proposal. It was not until January 1865 that faced with defeat would Southern politicians consider the idea of a regiment of blacks. But this plan of desperation was too little and too late as the Confederate government fled Richmond.

General Patrick Cleburne from National Park Service

By the end of the 19^th century, southerners looked for ways to understand and explain their defeat which led to the myth of the Lost Cause. The Lost Cause viewed the War as not about slavery, but as a struggle for state’s rights and a fight to protect the southern way of life. Central to the myth was the benevolence of slavery and the loyalty of slaves. The participation of the camp slaves became evidence of the loyalty and fealty of slaves to their masters. During reunions of Confederate veterans, many former camp slaves participated and became symbols of the loyal slave. As the civil rights movement began to impact the South in the sixties and seventies, many groups such as the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Daughters of the Confederacy pointed to the camp slaves as evidence that the War was not caused by slavery and that the Confederate cause had a just foundation. Kevin Levin provides an excellent resource in refuting the myth of the black Confederate and another essential reading in the role of African Americans in the American Civil War.

see:

Levin, Kevin M. Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War's Most Persistent Myth. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019.

Smithsonian Magazine, The Diaries Left Behind by Confederate Soldiers Reveal the True Role of Enslaved Labor at Gettysburg

 

Photo of Sergeant Andrew M Chandler of the 44th Mississippi Infantry Regiment with his family slave Silas. This photo is often seen as evidence regarding the existence of black Confederates. But Silas served only as a camp slave and the weapons were most likely props. (see Levin, p. 13)