The Black Phalanx Part 55

"SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 12th inst. with reference to the employment of negroes as soldiers. I think the measure not only expedient but necessary. The enemy will certainly use them against us if he can get possession of them, and as his present numerical superiority will enable him to penetrate many parts of the country, I can not see the wisdom of the policy of holding them to await his arrival, when we may, by timely action and judicious management, use them to arrest his progress. I do not think that our white population can supply the necessities of a long war without overtaxing its capacity, and imposing great suffering upon our people; and I believe we should provide resources for a protracted struggle, not merely for a battle or a campaign.

"In answer to your second question I can only say that, in my opinion, under proper circ.u.mstances the negroes will make efficient soldiers. I think we could at least do as well with them as the enemy, and he attaches great importance to their a.s.sistance. Under good officers and good instructions I do not see why they should not become soldiers. They possess all the physical qualifications, and their habits of obedience const.i.tute a good formulation for discipline. They furnish a more promising material than many armies of which we read in history, which owed their efficiency to discipline alone. I think those employed should be freed.

It would be neither wisdom nor justice, in my opinion, to require them to serve as slaves. The best course to pursue, it seems to me, is to call for such as are willing to come with the consent of their owners. Impressment or draft would not be likely to bring out the best cla.s.s, and the use of coercion would make the measure distasteful to them and to their owners. I have no doubt if Congress would authorize their reception into service, and empower the President to call upon individuals or States for such as they are willing to contribute with the condition of emanc.i.p.ation to all enrolled, a sufficient number would be forthcoming to enable us to try the experiment.

"If it proves successful, most of the objections to the matter would disappear, and if individuals still remained unwilling to send their negroes to the army, the force of public opinion in the States would soon bring about such legislation as would remove all obstacles. I think the matter should be left as far as possible to the people and the States, which alone can legislate as the necessities of this particular service may require. As to the mode of organizing them, it should be left as free from restraint as possible. Experience will suggest the best course, and would be inexpedient to trammel the subject with provisions that might in the end prevent the adoption of reforms, suggested by actual trial.

"With great respect,

"ROBERT E. LEE, _General._"

Meanwhile the measure, to forward which this letter was written, was progressing very slowly. J. B. Jones, clerk of the War Department of the Confederate Government, entered in his diary from day to day such sc.r.a.ps of information as he was able to glean about the progress of this important matter. These entries are significant of the anxiety of this critical time. Under February 14th we find this entry:

"Yesterday some progress was made with the measure of 200,000 negroes for the army. Something must be done and soon."

"February 16th.--Did nothing yesterday; it is supposed, however, that the bill recruiting negro troops will pa.s.s. I fear when it is too late."

"February 17th.--A letter from General Lee to General Wise is published, thanking the latter's brigade for resolutions recently adopted declaring that they would consent to gradual emanc.i.p.ation for the sake of independence and peace.

From all signs slavery is doomed. But if 200,000 negro recruits can be made to fight and can be enlisted, General Lee may maintain the war, very easily and successfully, and the powers at Was.h.i.+ngton may soon become disposed to abate the hard terms of peace now exacted."

"February 21st.--The negro bill has pa.s.sed one house and will pa.s.s the other to-day, but the measure may come too late. The enemy is enclosing us on all sides with great vigor and rapidity."

"February 22nd.--Yesterday the Senate postponed action on the negro bill. What this means I cannot conjecture, unless there are dispatches from abroad with a.s.surance of recognition, based on stipulations of emanc.i.p.ation, which can not be carried into effect without the consent of the States, and a majority of these seem in a fair way of falling into the hands of the Federal generals."

"February 24th.--Yesterday the Senate voted down the bill to put 200,000 negroes into the army. The papers to-day contain a letter from General Lee, advocating the measure as a necessity. Mr. Hunter's[42] vote defeated it. He has many negroes, and will probably lose them; but the loss of popularity and fear of forfeiting all chance of the succession may have operated upon him as a politician. What madness! 'Under which king, Benzonian?'"

"February 25th.--Mr. Hunter's eyes seem blood-shot since he voted against Lee's plan of organizing negro troops."

"February 26th.--Mr. Hunter is now reproached by the slave-holders he thought to please for defeating the negro bill. They say his vote will make Virginia a free State, inasmuch as General Lee must evacuate it for want of negro troops."

"March 2d.--Negro bill still hangs fire in Congress."

"March 9th.--Yesterday the Senate pa.s.sed the negro troops bill--Mr. Hunter voting for it under instruction."

"March 10th.--The president has the reins now, and Congress will be more obedient; but can they leave the city?

Advertis.e.m.e.nts for recruiting negro troops are in the papers this morning."

"March 17th.--We shall have a negro army. Letters are pouring into the department from men of military skill and character asking authority to raise companies, battalions, and regiments of negro troops. It is a desperate remedy for the desperate case, and may be successful. If 200,000 efficient soldiers can be made of this material there is no conjecturing when the next campaign may end. Possibly 'over the border;' for a little success will elate our spirits extravagantly, and the blackened ruins of our towns, and the moans of women and children bereft of shelter, will appeal strongly to the army for vengeance."

"March 19th.--Unless food and men can be had Virginia must be lost. The negro experiment will soon be tested. Curtis says that the letters are pouring into the department from all quarters asking authority to raise and command negro troops. 100,000 troops from this source might do wonders."

So ends the entries on this interesting subject in Mr. Jones' diary.

Though the conscientious war clerk ceased to record, the excitement and effort of the advocates of the measure by no means slackened. Grant's cordon around the city drew closer and tighter each day and hour, continually alarming the inhabitants. Governor Smith gave the negro soldier scheme his personal influence and attention. The newspapers began clamoring for conscription. No little effort was made to raise a regiment of free blacks and mulattoes in the latter days of January, and early in February a rendezvous was established at Richmond, and a proclamation was issued by the State authorities. A detail of white officers was made, and enlistment began. The agitation of the subject in Congress, though in secret session, gave some encouragement to the many despairing and heart-sick soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia.[43]

Their chief commander, Lee, perhaps dreamed nightly that he commanded 200,000 negro troops _en ma.s.se_, and was driving the Yankees and their Black Phalanx like chaff from off the "sacred soil" of the Old Dominion, but, alas, such a dream was never to be realized.

About twenty negroes,[44] mostly of the free cla.s.s, enlisted, went into camp, and were uniformed in Confederate gray. These twenty men, three of whom were slaves of Mr. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of State, were daily marched into the city and drilled by their white officers in the Capitol Square, receiving the approving and congratulatory plaudits of the ladies, who were always present.[45] However, no accessions were gained to their ranks, consequently the scheme, to raise by enlistment a regiment of blacks, was a failure, for the few volunteers secured in Virginia and a company in Tennessee are all that the writer has been able to obtain any account of. The Confederate authorities then sought to strengthen the army by conscripting all able-bodied negroes, free and slave, between the age of eighteen and fifty. Monday, April 3d, was appointed as the day to begin the draft. The Virginia State Legislature had come to the rescue of the Davis-Lee-Benjamin scheme, and so had the local authorities of Richmond, but all was to no purpose. It was too late; they had delayed too long.

With a pitiable blindness to the approach of his downfall, only a few days before he became a fugitive, Jefferson Davis wrote the following letter:[46]

"RICHMOND, Va., March 30th, 1865.

"His Excellency William Smith, Governor of Virginia:

"Upon the receipt of your letter of the 27th inst. I had a conference with the Secretary of War and Adjutant-General in relation to your suggestion as to the published order for the organization of negro troops, and I hope that the modification which has been made will remove the objection which you pointed out. It was never my intention to collect negroes in depots for purposes of instruction, but only as the best mode of forwarding them, either as individuals or as companies, to the command with which they were to serve.

The officers in the different posts will aid in providing for the negroes in their respective neighborhoods, and in forwarding them to depots where transportation will be available, and aid them in reaching the field of service for which they were destined. The aid of gentlemen who are willing and able to raise this character of troops will be freely accepted. The appointment of commanders, for reasons obvious to you, must depend on other considerations than the mere power to recruit.

"I am happy to receive your a.s.surance of success as well as your promise to seek legislation to secure unmistakably freedom to the slave who shall enter the army, with a right to return to his old home when he shall have been honorably discharged from the military service.

"I remain of the opinion that we should confine our first efforts to getting volunteers, and would prefer that you would adopt such measures as would advance that mode of recruiting, rather than that of which you make enquiry, to wit: by issuing requisitions for the slaves as authorized by the State of Virginia.

"I have the honor to be, with much respect,

"Your obedient servant, JEFFERSON DAVIS."

[Ill.u.s.tration: UNION SOLDIERS BEFORE YORKTOWN BRINGING DOWN A SOUTHERN ALLY.

This negro being a good marksman was induced by the confederates to become a sharpshooter for them, and greatly annoyed the Union pickets before Yorktown by firing upon them from trees, in the branches of which he would perch himself at early morning and remain there through the day, shooting at such Union soldiers as happened come within his range.

His hiding place was finally discovered however, and after refusing to surrender, thinking himself safe, he was brought down by a bullet through his head.]

The appointed time came, but instead of the draft, amid blazing roofs and falling walls, smoke and ashes, deafening reports of explosions, the frenzy of women and children, left alone not only by the negro conscripting officers and President Davis and his Cabinet, but by the army and navy; in the midst of such scenes, almost beyond description, the Black Phalanx of the Union army entered the burning city, the capitol of rebeldom, scattering President Lincoln's Proclamation of Emanc.i.p.ation to the intended confederate black army. For twelve squares they chanted their war songs, "The Colored Volunteers" and "John Brown,"

in the chorus of which thousands of welcoming freed men and freed women joined, making the welkin ring with the refrain,

"Glory, glory hallelujah, Glory, glory hallelujah, Glory, glory hallelujah, We is free to-day!"

The decisive events of the next few days, following in rapid succession, culminating with Lee's surrender, on the 9th of April, at Appomattox, left no time for further action, and when the war was over, with the important and radical changes that took place, it was almost forgotten that such projects as arming and freeing the negro had ever been entertained in the South by the Confederate Government.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] General William C. Wickham led the opponents of the project in a very bitter pro-slavery speech.

[42] It was upon the discussion of this bill that Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, made these significant statements and admissions:

"When we left the old government we thought we had got rid forever of the slavery agitation; but, to my surprise, I find that this (the Confederate) Government a.s.sumes power to arm the slaves, which involves also the power of emanc.i.p.ation. This proposition would be regarded as a confession of despair. If we are right in pa.s.sing this measure, we are wrong in denying to the old government the right to interfere with slavery and to emanc.i.p.ate slaves. If we offer the slaves their freedom as a boon we confess that we are insincere and hypocritical in saying slavery was the best state for the negroes themselves. I believe that the arming and emanc.i.p.ating the slaves will be an abandonment of the contest. To arm the negroes is to give them freedom. When they come out scarred from the conflict they must be free."

[43] Of these twenty volunteers six of them are frequently to be met on the streets of Richmond, while some of them are members of the Colored State Militia of Virginia.

[44] The veterans of General Henry A. Wise's Legion adopted resolutions commending the scheme.

[45] On April 1st, 1865, quite a company of negroes, most of whom were pressed into the service, paraded the streets of Richmond.

[46] This letter is a copy of the original now in possession of Senator George A. Brooks. It has never before been published.

PART III.

MISCELLANY.