BS: 'Loyal slaves'

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 06:16 PM

Well, this subject is like a hornet's nest. Just kick it and find out. One can stick around and watch, maybe get stung a few times, or one can move on to something more fruitful. So I think I'll move on at this point.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: akenaton
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 06:06 PM

I never find people like Azizi credible.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 06:03 PM

Good lord. "ditching the chip"? When you have the credibility that Azizi has, whether through interest, study, legend and anecdotal evidence, heredity, or all of the above, I'll listen to you.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: akenaton
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 05:53 PM

Same here Q.............Azizi try ditchin' the chip!

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 05:47 PM

Anything that I would add to the post by Little Hawk would be repetition.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: Goose Gander
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 05:27 PM

"If I remember aright, the South offered to free any slave who would fight for it -- 1865, way, way too late to do any good."

See The Gray and the Black: the Confederate Debate on Emancipation (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971).

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 05:26 PM

I am in no way being an apologist for the South. I am simply recognizing the emotions and motivations of the people on both sides, and recognizing that there were a great many good people fighting on both sides, as is always the case in a war.

The abolitionists were absolutely right to oppose slavery. It was a completely unjustifiable practice, and it had already been ended in most other advanced societies of the time. The Southerners in the USA were wrong to continue the practice of slavery.

This does not mean, however, that everyone who fought for the South was some kind of evil person.

I find that when people have a big emotional axe to grind over some issue...whether it be racism, sexism, Naziism, or any other "ism"...they are far too inclined in their righteous fury to simply divide people up rigidly into "the good" and "the evil" (on the basis of which side they fought on)...as if it was that simple. It's not.

It may be considered politically incorrect by many now to say that some Blacks fought willingly for the South during that war, nevertheless it is true that some did. It's on the record. People don't want to admit it's true or hear it even spoken of because they are too darned hung up on present issues and present rhetoric, and that present rhetoric demands a whitewashed view of past history which is just as blind (and prejudiced) in its own way as the Southern maintenance of slavery was blind and prejudiced in the 1860s.

People are running around all the time trying to prove to other people how righteous they are about racial or gender issues. This does not impress me. We are ALL opposed to slavery here, we are ALL in favor of racial equality, we are all in favor of gender equality, and we do not have to change past history or censor old books by Mark Twain or somebody else like that in order to prove our righteousness to all the other people around us.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: Azizi
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 05:07 PM

Much that Little Hawk says is true
-Q

Not his statements regarding African Americans.

Greg F. I agree with everything you said.

And Q, don't you think that you should limit your statement "That hatred of northerners and carpetbaggers was still strong in rural Georgia as late as 1950 when I was there" to a significant percentage of White Southerners?

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 04:57 PM

If I remember aright, the South offered to free any slave who would fight for it -- 1865, way, way too late to do any good.

Remember also that owners would sometimes contract out the work of their slaves, and that this was done in the South during the War, especially in constructing fortifications, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 04:39 PM

Much that Little Hawk says is true. That hatred of northerners and carpetbaggers was still strong in rural Georgia as late as 1950 when I was there. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who fought in the War had to die before the antipathy towards the North slowly died out.

Forrest was cleared by Congress of the charges against him. Reports are conflicting, as they often are after a hard-fought action.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: akenaton
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 04:27 PM

Ah well, thats what Taoism does for you!

You're a good man Little Hawk...Hope Teribus reads that!!

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 04:22 PM

Here we go again. Abysmal ignorance of the causes & conduct of the Civil War, the lot of Slaves in and the history of the antebellum South, the role of Blacks during the war & their "motivation" for "helping" the South (e.g. work or be shot), the true biography of N.B. Forrest, the history of Reconstruction and the "redemption" of the South, etc, etc, etc.

WAY too mush absolute bullshit to try and refute item by item- life's too short. Vide several earlier threads with bibliographies posted. Educate yourselves on these issue=s and THEN come back for an INTELLIGENT discussion.

At this late date & in the light of massive amounts scholarship in the second half of the 2oth Century I REALLY do get tired of neo-Confederate bullshit and latter-day Southern apologists after the pernicious myths of "The Lost Cause" have been repeatedly and incontrovertably proven to be blatant nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 03:53 PM

A great many Blacks loyally served the Southern cause during the Civil War. This was for a variety of reasons, but I think the primary and overriding reason was simply the natural instinct of local people to defend their home territory against an invasion from outside. The Blacks who helped the Confederacy in the Civil War viewed the northern armies as a foreign invasion...and they viewed the "Yankees" as foreign people.

That was also the primary thing motivating the average White southerner who fought for the Confederacy. They were defending their homes and families.

You would find the same sort of thing happening when any country is invaded...and the South did think of itself as a separate sovereign country following secession from the Union.

The vast majority of people naturally rally to the cause when confronted with a threat from beyond their own borders.

Another factor may have been genuinely good relations between some slaveowners and their slaves, in which case the slaves would have been inclined to remain loyal. This was probably the case with Nathan Bedford Forest, since he was a spectacularly good leader of men (if I may judge by his war record).

Now...in the wake of a lost war such as the South's war for independence, you are going to have a lot of bad fallout afterward, and former friends can become bitter enemies. The situation changed radically after the southern surrender. Those who had been in charge in the South were cast down and northern carpetbaggers came in to basically loot the South and fill their own pockets. This stirred up bitterness and hatred that led to the formation of reactionary outfits like the Ku Klux Klan, and that led to all kinds of violent reprisals on Blacks and other targets of that bitterness.

So what I'm saying here is...the fact that the Ku Klux Klan behaved viciously to many Blacks after that war does not necessarily indicate to me that Nathan Bedford Forrest would have behaved viciously to Blacks before that war.

You have to be willing to look at shades of gray in these historical matters, inconvenient as it may be when you want everything out of the past to fit some present modern political position that you attack great emotional importance to...

You have to be willing to imagine yourself in a completely different time, with very different expectations, and realize that had you been born as a White or a Black southerner at that time, you might very well have supported the Confederacy in either case...and NOT because you were consciously supporting what we now term "racism" or even because you were consciously supporting slavery...but for the common reasons of patriotism, honor, duty, and love of your own society and the people around you.

You might have regarded the northern armies with real hatred as you saw them pouring into your home state by the thousands and destroying the entire fabric of the society you had grown up in, and killing the people you knew personally and loved deeply.

And that's what happens in war.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 03:51 PM

That would certainly be my own suspicion.

I wonder - there must be descendants of these people around. Any on Mudcat?

I don't know much about the history of slaves after the Civil War. I know a lot of skilled men moved north, where they worked in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, and there was a strong tradition of intermarriage between Irishwomen and black American tradesmen.

Subject: RE: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:16 PM

By the way,
this is the article that first piqued my interest.

Subject: BS: 'Loyal slaves'
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 01:12 PM

I'm interested to read in this Wiki about Nathan Bedford Forrest that 43 of his slaves "served faithfully until the end of the war. Although they had many chances to leave, they chose to remain loyal to the South and to Forrest".

Remembering the fascinating discussion of The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, and the way in which Catters revealed personal knowledge, I'm wondering if there's the same kind of memory of this.

I somehow doubt that these slaves were delighted to serve the man who founded the Ku Klux Klan. What do people with more knowlege than myself say?