Memorials for Confederate soldiers and For Blacks Soldiers

[John317]

Obama observes Memorial Day at Arlington cemetery

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer – 41 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama avoided a racial controversy on his first Memorial Day in office by sending wreaths to separate memorials for Confederate soldiers and for blacks who fought against them during the Civil War.

Last week, a group of about 60 professors petitioned the White House, asking the first black U.S. president to break tradition and not memorialize military members from the Confederacy, the group of Southern states that supported slavery.

"The Arlington Confederate Monument is a denial of the wrong committed against African-Americans by slave owners, Confederates and neo-Confederates, through the monument's denial of slavery as the cause of secession and its holding up of Confederates as heroes," the petitioners said.

"This implies that the humanity of Africans and African-Americans is of no significance."

The White House ignored the request.

Obama laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, a customary presidential undertaking on Memorial Day. He also had one sent to the Confederate Memorial there, a traditional practice but not well publicized. Obama also took the unprecedented step of sending a wreath to the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington's historically black U Street neighborhood.

That memorial — to the 200,000 blacks who fought for the North during the Civil War — had been mentioned as a compromise in recent days.

Presidents traditionally visit Arlington National Cemetery to personally leave a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, a marble structure holding the remains of unidentified U.S. service members who died during war. Presidents then have aides deliver wreaths to other memorials or monuments, generally including the Confederate Memorial.

Wreaths also were left Monday at memorials to the USS Maine and the Spanish American War.

In brief but solemn remarks after he laid the wreath and observed a moment of silence, Obama saluted the men and women of America's fighting forces, both living and dead, as "the best of America."

"Why in an age when so many have acted only in pursuit of narrowest self-interest have the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines of this generation volunteered all that they have on behalf of others," he said. "Why have they been willing to bear the heaviest burden?"

"Whatever it is, they felt some tug. They answered a call. They said 'I'll go.' That is why they are the best of America," Obama said. "That is what separates them from those who have not served in uniform, their extraordinary willingness to risk their lives for people they never met."

The president, who did not serve in the military, noted his grandfather's Army service during World War II and his status as a father of daughters ages 10 and 7. Unlike many of those in the audience, Obama said he can't know what it's like to walk into battle or lose a child.

"But I do know this. I am humbled to be the commander in chief of the finest fighting force in the history of the world," he said to applause.

Among those who signed petition is 1960s radical William Ayers. The University of Chicago education professor helped found the radical group the Weather Underground that carried out bombings at the Pentagon and the Capitol. Republicans tried to link Obama and Ayers during the presidential campaign because they lived in the same neighborhood and served on a charity board together.

Men and women in uniform saluted Obama's motorcade as it entered the hallowed burial ground that is Arlington cemetery. Some in the audience of several thousands waved American flags as Obama stepped to the microphone.

Before the ceremony, the president had a private breakfast at the White House with people who have lost loved ones in war.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, have made veterans and military families a priority. His budget proposal includes the largest, single-year funding increase in the last three decades to revamp the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Later in the day, the president headed to Fort Belvoir, Va., to play golf.

[John317]

I agree with Obama. He was right to ignore the request. Confederate soldiers and their families also deserve memorials and to be remembered. It's a part of our history as one, united nation. THEY WERE ALL AMERICANS.

[nuff sed]

What about the Black Confederate Soldiers??? Any monument for them?

[Bravus]

My civil war history knowledge is not what it should be, but were there many black Confederate soldiers? Black people fighting for the right to maintain slavery? Seems odd, but history so often does!

[phkrause]

I'm also not a civil war buff, but I wouldn't think they had any black confederate soldiers fighting for the right to be slaves? But maybe I'm wrong!

pk

[bonnie]

I'm also not a civil war buff, but I wouldn't think they had any black confederate soldiers fighting for the right to be slaves? But maybe I'm wrong!

pk

Seems to me they did have black soldiers in the confederate army.

[bonnie]

Interesting article....

http://www.forrestsescort.org/blacks.htm

When you consider the following facts about the very different world from ours that they lived in, it is not hard to believe that in 1861 some Blacks might offer to serve in the Confederate Army.

*

A few Blacks were free, and some them owned slaves.

*

Slavery was practiced in their ancestral homeland.

*

In his first inaugural address Abraham Lincoln both said he would not and could not abolish slavery.

*

Free Blacks had a social status significantly above that of other Blacks, particularly if part White.

*

Cooperating with those who control the society you live in can pay off.

[bonnie]

http://www.texasescapes.com/MurrayMontgomeryLoneStarDiary/Black-Soldiers-in-the-Confederate-Army.htm

Black Soldiers

in the Confederate Army

by Murray Montgomery

It seems that throughout the years, any mention of black soldiers in the American Civil War has nearly always placed those men in the blue uniform of the United States Army.

There is, however, information available in books and on the Internet today that questions those old theories. Fact is, there is a lot of new material being written about black men who fought for the South.

Not only did they fight, these soldiers distinguished themselves on the battlefield. I think it’s safe to say that this information is not common knowledge. I doubt that any of this is recorded in high school or college level history books.

I’ll have to admit that I was of the opinion that all black soldiers served in the Union army and indeed most did. But after becoming aware of this information about his role in the Confederate army, I have had to sort of rethink my position on this matter.

The black man served his country, with honor, against hostile Indians on the frontier after the Civil War. We have all heard of the famous Buffalo Soldiers and the job they did fighting Indians and protecting settlers. But what about those black Confederate soldiers?

[Bravus]

Excellent, thanks very much for both those posts - it's always great to learn something new that challenges my assumptions.

[bonnie]

We look at slavery with a all together different mind set today than it was regarded at the time slavery was practised.

I can't get my head around it no matter how I try.

But it was not a simple culture.

Slavery has been in existence almost since the beginning.

Stronger taking over the weak.

I almost think the years immediately following the war and freeing the slaves were worse than the slavery itself. Expectations of freedoms to live your life and care for your family did not materialize at wars end.

I worked for a very wealthy and influential family. She had a interesting take on freedom,whether communist or dictator or our own slavery issues

Those that became free here or abroad had to much freedom thrown at them at once and they had no idea what to do with it.

Freedoms they were not equipped to handle or still facing extreme prejudice came as a rude shock.

I also worked with a legal immigrant that said much the same.

Many of the older citizens did not know how to cope or utilize the freedoms they were suddenly faced with.They actually mourned for the good old days

Freedom was a pretty heady experience until they realized that meant they were now to be self sufficient. They didn't know how.

[Dr. Shane]

The Civil War wasn't just about slavery. Slavery was the burning issue on the back burner. Taxes were a major issue. The US did not have an income tax. Most of the dollars sent to the federal treasury came from import taxes or tariffs. The Southern states were heavily dependent on imports. They imported a lot of goods from the west indies. So the South paid a disproportionate amount of taxes to the federal government. The northern states were more populated and thus had more control over Congress and the federal budget.

I believe Tennessee and Kentucky were both slave states and part of the north. So the war wasn't all about slavery. But that was a major issue, no doubt. Also, when Lincoln freed the slaves he only freed the slaves in the Confederate States. The slaves states in the north were still allowed to keep their slaves.

[Dr. Shane]

Thanks for clarifying that.

[there buster]

Quote:

We look at slavery with a all together different mind set today than it was regarded at the time slavery was practised.

I can't get my head around it no matter how I try.

But it was not a simple culture.

Be careful, Bonnie. Don't want to challenge anyone's assumptions with actual facts. Like these:

Quote:

In the rare instances when the ownership of slaves by free Negroes is acknowledged in the history books, justification centers on the claim that black slave masters were simply individuals who purchased the freedom of a spouse or child from a white slaveholder and had been unable to legally manumit them. Although this did indeed happen at times, it is a misrepresentation of the majority of instances, one which is debunked by records of the period on blacks who owned slaves. These include individuals such as Justus Angel and Mistress L. Horry, of Colleton District, South Carolina, who each owned 84 slaves in 1830. In fact, in 1830 a fourth of the free Negro slave masters in South Carolina owned 10 or more slaves; eight owning 30 or more (2).

According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were nearly 4.5 million Negroes in the United States, with fewer than four million of them living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country's leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city.

To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is certainly impressive when compared to less than 1.4 percent of all American whites and less than 4.8 percent of southern whites. The statistics show that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters.

The majority of slaveholders, white and black, owned only one to five slaves. More often than not, and contrary to a century and a half of bullwhips-on-tortured-backs propaganda, black and white masters worked and ate alongside their charges; be it in house, field or workshop. The few individuals who owned 50 or more slaves were confined to the top one percent, and have been defined as slave magnates.

In 1860 there were at least six Negroes in Louisiana who owned 65 or more slaves The largest number, 152 slaves, were owned by the widow C. Richards and her son P.C. Richards, who owned a large sugar cane plantation. Another Negro slave magnate in Louisiana, with over 100 slaves, was Antoine Dubuclet, a sugar planter whose estate was valued at (in 1860 dollars) $264,000 (3). That year, the mean wealth of southern white men was $3,978 (4).

In Charleston, South Carolina in 1860 125 free Negroes owned slaves; six of them owning 10 or more. Of the $1.5 million in taxable property owned by free Negroes in Charleston, more than $300,000 represented slave holdings (5). In North Carolina 69 free Negroes were slave owners (6).

In 1860 William Ellison was South Carolina's largest Negro slaveowner. In Black Masters. A Free Family of Color in the Old South, authors Michael P. Johnson and James L. Roak write a sympathetic account of Ellison's life. From Ellison's birth as a slave to his death at 71, the authors attempt to provide justification, based on their own speculation, as to why a former slave would become a magnate slave master.

At birth he was given the name April. A common practice among slaves of the period was to name a child after the day or month of his or her birth. Between 1800 and 1802 April was purchased by a white slave-owner named William Ellison. Apprenticed at 12, he was taught the trades of carpentry, blacksmithing and machining, as well as how to read, write, cipher and do basic bookkeeping.

On June 8, 1816, William Ellison appeared before a magistrate (with five local freeholders as supporting witnesses) to gain permission to free April, now 26 years of age. In 1800 the South Carolina legislature had set out in detail the procedures for manumission. To end the practice of freeing unruly slaves of "bad or depraved" character and those who "from age or infirmity" were incapacitated, the state required that an owner testify under oath to the good character of the slave he sought to free. Also required was evidence of the slave's "ability to gain a livelihood in an honest way."

Although lawmakers of the time could not envision the incredibly vast public welfare structures of a later age, these stipulations became law in order to prevent slaveholders from freeing individuals who would become a burden on the general public.

Interestingly, considering today's accounts of life under slavery, authors Johnson and Roak report instances where free Negroes petitioned to be allowed to become slaves; this because they were unable to support themselves.

Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia (University Press of Virginia-1995) was written by Ervin L. Jordan Jr., an African-American and assistant professor and associate curator of the Special Collections Department, University of Virginia library. He wrote: "One of the more curious aspects of the free black existence in Virginia was their ownership of slaves. Black slave masters owned members of their family and freed them in their wills. Free blacks were encouraged to sell themselves into slavery and had the right to choose their owner through a lengthy court procedure."

In 1816, shortly after his manumission, April moved to Stateburg. Initially he hired slave workers from local owners. When in 1817 he built a gin for Judge Thomas Watries, he credited the judge nine dollars "for hire of carpenter George for 12 days." By 1820 he had purchased two adult males to work in his shop (7). In fewer than four years after being freed, April demonstrated that he had no problem perpetuating an institution he had been released from. He also achieved greater monetary success than most white people of the period.

On June 20, 1820, April appeared in the Sumter District courthouse in Sumterville. Described in court papers submitted by his attorney as a "freed yellow man of about 29 years of age," he requested a name change because it "would yet greatly advance his interest as a tradesman." A new name would also "save him and his children from degradation and contempt which the minds of some do and will attach to the name April." Because "of the kindness" of his former master and as a "Mark of gratitude and respect for him" April asked that his name be changed to William Ellison. His request was granted.

In time the black Ellison family joined the predominantly white Episcopalian church. On August 6, 1824 he was allowed to put a family bench on the first floor, among those of the wealthy white families. Other blacks, free and slave, and poor whites sat in the balcony. Another wealthy Negro family would later join the first floor worshippers.

Between 1822 and the mid-1840s, Ellison gradually built a small empire, acquiring slaves in increasing numbers. He became one of South Carolina's major cotton gin manufacturers, selling his machines as far away as Mississippi. From February 1817 until the War Between the States commenced, his business advertisements appeared regularly in newspapers across the state. These included the Camden Gazette, the Sumter Southern Whig and the Black River Watchman.

Ellison was so successful, due to his utilization of cheap slave labor, that many white competitors went out of business. Such situations discredit impressions that whites dealt only with other whites. Where money was involved, it was apparent that neither Ellison's race or former status were considerations.

Lots more here: Blacks who owned slaves

[Tom Wetmore]

Little known to most visitors to Arlington is that there are actually two tombs to unknown soldiers, the one with the honor guard and another with no guard posted. The less well known is the tomb of the unknown soldiers of the civil war. It was the first tomb of the unknown at Arlington dedicated in 1866. It contains the bones of 2,111 unknown soldiers from the Battle of Bull Run and the route to the Rappahannock.

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/unk-1865.htm

[Key Guy]

Those that became free here or abroad had to much freedom thrown at them at once and they had no idea what to do with it.

Freedoms they were not equipped to handle or still facing extreme prejudice came as a rude shock.

Remember when the Berlin wall came down and the two Germanies were reunited? How about when the USSR collapsed? The citizens of the communist nations were overwhelmed by the freedoms they were given suddenly.

Americans are soooo fortunate to have freedom for generations.

[bonnie]

Quote:

Be careful, Bonnie. Don't want to challenge anyone's assumptions with actual facts. Like these:

According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were nearly 4.5 million Negroes in the United States, with fewer than four million of them living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country's leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city.

To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is certainly impressive when compared to less than 1.4 percent of all American whites and less than 4.8 percent of southern whites. The statistics show that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters.

It seems down thru history slavery wasn't thought of as terrible as we think it to be today.

I can't understand the 'white person" believing it right to own another,but I really can't fathom black became slave masters.

[Bravus]

Seems it was in many ways more of an economic issue than a racial one, at least in America. And of course, black people had owned black slaves in Africa for a long time. White owner, black slave is definitely just a historical accident of a particular place and time. Again, I don't know enough history to comment knowledgeably, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Moorish empire included white slaves at its peak.

[John317]

Right now there are quite a few black slaves in Africa and they have black owners. A few years ago some well-know black Americans went there to help free the slaves, but they had little success if any. There is no war being fought to free anyone so far as I know.

[lazarus]

My civil war history knowledge is not what it should be, but were there many black Confederate soldiers? Black people fighting for the right to maintain slavery? Seems odd, but history so often does!

Another black historian, Roland Young, says he is not surprised that blacks fought. He explains that "some, if not most, Black southerners would support their country" and that by doing so they were "demonstrating it's possible to hate the system of slavery and love one's country." This is the very same reaction that most African Americans showed during the American Revolution, where they fought for the colonies, even though the British offered them freedom if they fought for them.

[Kountzer]

Quote:

It seems down thru history slavery wasn't thought of as terrible as we think it to be today.

I can't understand the 'white person" believing it right to own another,but I really can't fathom black became slave masters.

If you can frame it you can solve it, or at least understand how it could happen. Allow me to provide some framwork:

There was/is this perfect place called Heaven. (this week's lesson is on the subject). In this perfect place dwells our Father God. God created and inhabited this perfect place, Heaven, with perfect, unfallen spiritual beings called Angels. Did you know that envy, jealousy and evil and eventually war broke out in this perfect place, Heaven, and that 1/3 of these angels had to be kicked out of the place?

If war can start and break out in Heaven then anything is possible here on earth. I'll give some more framework: further down in the story, after Adam and Eve had fallen to temptation and sin had entered the world did you know that their oldest son Cain rose up and murdered his younger brother Abel? Again it was jealousy, evil, etc. Who would of thought it possible? They looked alike, grew up in a perfect, or near perfect environment, they couldn't ask for better parents. Yet one of them rose up and slew his btother. MY, MY. Extrapolate all that down to the u.s. civil war and slavery, and anything is possible.

DB

[lazarus]

http://www.amazon.com/White-Cargo-Forgotten-History-Britains/dp/0814742963

[bonnie]

Quote:

If you can frame it you can solve it, or at least understand how it could happen. Allow me to provide some framwork:

The words are understood.Trying to put myself in their shoes,either as one owning slaves or the slaves,no can do.

Regardless of the fact all have sinned,the issues of "envy,jealousy and evil" still cannot explain to me a willingness to own another human being.

I can't understand the thinking of free blacks owning another of their countrymen. Selling them for profit or any of the rest. What was the reasoning that allowed for "blacks" to take part in owning other black men and feel it wrong for "whites".

I don't understand the reasoning that would tell "white men" they could own,mistreat and sell another human being for profit or for blacks to do same

I know that Cain killed Abel in a fit of jealousy and rage.

Many things can be done in a fit of rage. Perhaps he always had been. Doesn't make it right or acceptable. Slavery in any era and in any country was not committed for those reasons. It was a business.

[lazarus]

I can't understand the thinking of free blacks owning another of their countrymen. Selling them for profit or any of the rest. What was the reasoning that allowed for "blacks" to take part in owning other black men and feel it wrong for "whites".

Its the same reason why Jews would help put other Jews in the gas chambers

[lazarus]

According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were nearly 4.5 million Negroes in the United States, with fewer than four million of them living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country's leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city.

To return to the census figures quoted above, this 28 percent is certainly impressive when compared to less than 1.4 percent of all American whites and less than 4.8 percent of southern whites. The statistics show that, when free, blacks disproportionately became slave masters.

Since when is 28% of free black slaveholders in a single city a mathematically accurate comparison to 1.4% of the white population of the ENTIRE United States?

[bonnie]

Quote:

What was the reasoning that allowed for "blacks" to take part in owning other black men and feel it wrong for "whites".

Quote:

Its the same reason why Jews would help put other Jews in the gas chambers

I understand the stated reasons,I cannot grasp doing so myself.

"We have all sinned" doesn't do it for me on this issue.

Animosity,racism and hatred has come down on both sides of slavery and the treatment of native american in the US.

As it was not only "white" men that took part in slavery or in taking lands from Native Americans,why is the "white man" made to seem like they invented or the only ones that prospered from slavery and abuse?

In MN the Ojibwe took the land from the Sioux or Lakota tribe. Just as they condemn white men for.They took them captive,killed them and took over their lands.

The Sioux getting that name by Ojibwe. Not a very complementary term. It is translated as "little snakes" or "snake in the grass".

To me it would be similar to the N word,only no one objects to calling others a "snake in the grass"

Blacks owned slaves,bought and sold like a sack of grain. In their native homeland they did same long before the white man came along.

Slavery is wrong,but how does it get less wrong for some and more wrong for others

The Sioux getting that name by Ojibwe. Not a very complementary term. It is translated as "little snakes" or "snake in the grass"