Blacks served in the confederacy as laborers, not soldiers. Robert E. Lee on
many occasions tried to persuade Jefferson Davis to allow black soldiers in the
confederacy. Davis acknowledged that to allow blacks to serve in the
confederacy would have defeated the purpose of why the South seceded in the
first place. And there was no way that blacks were going to be given weapons.
Yes, there were black slave owners in the South. But you will find that most of
those slaves that were owned by those blacks were family members, ensuring that
their family could not be sold away from them. So many of these books claiming
that blacks served in the confederacy have doctored images. Soldiers from
northern troops, in both photographs and illustrations, have been doctored to
make them appear as confederate soldiers. This is documented and fact.
Teaching history means that you need to do the footwork and do the research to
verify what is in a book, before you teach it in the classroom as gospel.
As history teachers it is our responsibility to teach fact, not fiction, or
revisionist history. Using primary sources ensures that you teach history as it
happened. So if you can find actual primary sources that support Confederate
black soldiers, with weapons, not shovels, then use that in the classroom to
discuss the topic. And ask yourself, why would any SLAVE fight for someone who
was holding them in captivity. Fighting to stay as a piece of property?
I can provide you with plenty of examples from captured Confederate records at
the National Archives that show blacks being used as laborers during the Civil
War. Have found absolutely no documents in Confederate records that even
mentions blacks as soldiers.
Karen Needles
Director
Lincolnarchives Digital Project
http://www.lincolnarchives.us
On October 20, 2010 at 1:19 PM JEFFREY D SOUTHMAYD <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> There were black slaves who served the South in various capacities. Refusing
> to acknowledge that fact is just plain bad history teaching. As far as
> military service, there are many books including Black Southerners in Gray by
> Richard Rollins; Black Confederates by Charles Barrow, and Like Men of War by
> Noah Trudeau.
>
> Similarly, the failure of all public school history books to acknowledge that
> there were a significant number of Black slave owners in the North and South
> is the type of PC coloring of history that is unnecessary and
> counterproductive to an accurate study of the subject matter.
>
> The facts are the facts.
>
> JDS
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greg Carter <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Wed, Oct 20, 2010 12:51 pm
> Subject: Re: Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over claims on black
> Con...
>
>
> Excuse me, Unbiased
> he history books for years have been written by northern perspective what
> ould be more bias?
> es there were a lot of slaves in the south, but who transported them here?
> northern traders and the north had slaves also but of course you wouldn't
> now it by reading most history books.
> Greg Carter
>
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