Black Confederate Soldiers

Because one picture is said to be worth 1,000 words, let's begin with some pictures that address this issue.

It is not surprising that some have reacted to the claim that Blacks voluntarily served the army of a government that supported the enslavement of members of their race with ridicule. Skeptics can argue that , although the men in pictures 6 and 7 are armed and in uniform, they are slaves forced to pose for these pictures. However, pictures 1 and 5 cannot be explained on the basis of force, as they were taken long after the War, and clearly these men did not have to attend Confederate reunions, and presumably would not have attended reunions if they had been forced to participate in the activities of the Confederate Army. (Observe that the Black men in picture 5 of an 1890 Alabama Confederate reunion are certainly not, say, waiters and bell men at the hotel where it was held, because they are wearing the same badges many of the White men are wearing, and they, like the Whites, are elderly. )

A number of years ago, this writer, who at that time had only heard about Black body servants accompanying their soldier owners to war and the hiring of slaves from their owners to build fortifications, was surprised to come across an article in a newspaper published shortly after Southern states began leaving the Union which reported that some local free Blacks had volunteered to serve as soldiers. Since then several people have done extensive research into the role of Blacks in the Confederate Army and have concluded that some fought for the Confederacy.

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.

If we could bring back to life the man pictured to the left, Confederate Brigadier General Edward L. Thomas, we could find out exactly what roles Blacks played in the Confederate Army. Two of the Black men pictured above served in the 14th Georgia that he commanded.

Near the end of the War General Thomas' men voted to petition their government to enlist Blacks in the Army to fight beside them. General Thomas forwarded this petition to his superiors. The Confederate Congress passed, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis signed, a bill authorizing the enlistment of Blacks.

Picture 4 above is of Bill Yopp. The Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, 1861-1865, Vol. 2, page 389 records: "Yopp, Bill (colored) - Drummer July 9, 1861. Surrendered, Appomattox, Va. Apr. 9, 1865"

His owner, Thomas M. Yopp, was a 1st Lieutenant in the company Bill Yopp served in: Company H, 14th Regiment (Laurens County's Blackshear Guards), Georgia Volunteer Infantry.

The Official History of Laurens County, Georgia, 1807-1941 by Betha Sheppart Hart, reports that: "No man has ever exhibited a finer loyalty nor a greater capacity for friendship than Bill Yopp, a negro man born and raised in Laurens County, belonging to Thomas McCall Yopp. When his master left to join the Army in Virginia, in the early months of the Confederate War, Bill went with him. He went through the War at his master's side. When freedom came, poverty overtook Captain Thomas Yopp, and Bill went out into the world on his own responsibility. A varied career led him here and there over the United States....In time Captain Yopp, an old man, went to live at the Soldiers Home in Atlanta; here Bill found him and devoted the remainder of his life to his former master."

Picture 2 is one of Charles Hicks, Co. F, 14th Georgia, taken at the 1938 reunion held at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Picture 3 is of Jeff Shields, who was Stonewall Jackson's cook.

Among the various accounts of Blacks actually fighting for the Confederacy are the following:

"Dr. Lewis Steiner of the U.S. Sanitary Commission observed that while the Confederate army marched through Maryland during the 1862 Sharpsburg (Antietam) campaign, 'over 3,000 negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabers, bowie knives, dirks, etc. And were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederate Army.'" Quoted in "Blacks, Jews fight on side of theSouth," by Thomas C. Mandes in The Washington Times, June 15, 2002.

The following is a Union officer's account from War of the Rebellion, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Vol. XVI, Part 1, Reports, page 805. "The forces attacking my camp were the First Regiment Texas Rangers, Colonel Wharton, and a battalion of the First Georgia Rangers, Colonel Morrison, and a large number of citizens of Rutherford County, many of whom had recently taken the oath of allegiance to the United States Government. There were also quite a number of negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day."

In "Crazy for Bears" by Wendy Mitman Clarke, Smithsonian magazine, October 2001, pages 87-94, she mentions Holt Colier, a former slave helping Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt hunt bears, who "...had served as a sharpshooter for the Confederacy during the Civil War."

From The San Angelo Standard-Times Online, "Out Yonder: Many blacks fought for the Confederacy during Civil War," by Ross McSwain, February 8, 1999: "The Confederate Congress did not approve officially enlisting black soldiers, except as musicians, until late in the war. However, Confederate officers did not obey the mandate of the politicians. They enlisted blacks into their units with the simple question, 'Will you fight?'"

From http://www.jewishworldreview.com/, "Black Confederates" -- "During our war of 1861, ex-slave Frederick Douglass observed, 'There are at the present moment, many colored men in the Confederate Army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders and bullets in their pockets ready to shoot down...and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government.'" Also reported by this source: "Horace Greeley, in pointing out some differences between the two warring armies said, 'For more than two years, Negroes have been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They have been embodied and drilled as rebel soldiers and had paraded with white troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union.' General Nathan Bedford Forrest had both slaves and freeman serving in units under his command. After the war, General Forrest said of the black men who served under him '(T)hese boys stayed with me...and better Confederates did not live."

The following accounts of Black Confederate soldiers are from "Louisiana's Free Men of Color in Gray," by Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr. in Louisianans in the Civil War, Lawrence Lee Hewitt and Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr., Editors, University of Missouri Press, 2002.

"...a number of Louisiana free blacks did serve as soldiers, and their white comrades in arms did know them to be 'free men of color.'"

Free Blacks in Northwestern Louisiana "...lived as white, in almost all respects." They were related to many neighboring White families. They may have feared losing their special status with emancipation.

A Black company was organized in Baton Rouge. One of its members may have been the "huge" Black man a reporter said was one of "...the most conspicuous of the Rebels" involved in an attack on the 14th Maine Regiment. He was "armed and equipped with knapsack, musket, and uniform" and helped lead the attack. He was killed.

Free blacks in Pointe Coupee Parish also formed a company with White officers. It was still in service in the Spring of 1862.

Free Blacks near Natchitoches also formed a company, some of whose officers were Black. These Cavalrymen furnished their own uniforms, weapons, equipment, and horses.

Some 15 free Blacks volunteered and served in regular Confederate units as privates. There may have been others.

Charles F. Lutz received a Confederate pension in 1900. He enlisted as a White. His mother was a mulatto. Lutz and possibly one other man were the only ones who pretended to be White.

The Daily Delta, December 28, 1860: "...the free colored population (native)...love their home, their property, their own slaves, and they are dearly attached to their native land, and they recognize no other country than Louisiana, and care for no other than Louisiana, and they are ready to shed their blood for her defense. They have no sympathy for Abolitionism; no love for the North, but they have plenty for Louisiana; and let the hour come, and they will be worthy sons of Louisiana. They will fight for her in 186l as they fought in 1814-'15..."

A "Creole" wrote the governor of Louisiana that the free blacks of New Orleans were well educated and included in their ranks artists, physicians, craftsmen, mechanics, and other businessmen. He said few had ever been slaves, and that they appreciated the benefits of slavery. (Black slaveowners are the subject of Larry Koger's book, Black Slaveowners, Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860.)

1,500 men signed up to defend Louisiana on April 21, 1860, and the Daily Picayune asked "What will the Northerners have to say to this?" On May 29 Governor Thomas O. Moore appointed a colonel and lieutenant colonel of the Regiment of Free Men of Color. All the officers were free Blacks. They were called the Native Guards (See picture 6 above.), and their job was to defend New Orleans. When New Orleans fell some of them became members of the 1st Louisiana Native Guards (Union).

Additional information about Black Confederates appears in Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia by Ervin L. Jordan, Jr., University Press of Virginia, 1995. (As this and many other sources point out, many Blacks fought in the Union Army.)