| From Richard Rollins' essay, Servants and Soldiers:
"Some [blacks] reported their own experiences in battle situations
and some of the white witnesses recalled seeing them in action. It should
be noted that this was not required for a pension. In fact it was not expected
by those who made up the application form, since they did not specifically
ask for this information. Instead, these comments came out in conversations
with the [Tennessee Pension] Board or in letters. Henry Neal[1] recalled
that 'both of my young masters were killed in the Battle of Shiloh and
I was shot in my left leg.' Also at Shiloh, William Easley[2] was wounded,
and Taylor Kinnard's[3] two masters were killed and he was shot in the
arm. A white man wrote of Henry Gore[4] 'I knew him before the war and
have known him since the war. I know that he was with Col. Gore during
the war. He was a servant to Col. Gore but when in battle, the applicant
would engage in the battle.' Bob McClarson[5] 'was always found ready to
do his duty in camps, on the march or along the firing line...' Alexander
Ransom[6] 'was there, often times in the thick of the fray.' When Wade
Watkins'[7] master, a surgeon, was killed, Watkins 'was shot at the same
time in the right leg.' Ned McCullough[8] 'was wounded in the Battle of
Murfreesboro and at Chattanooga. and have holes in my body now.' Monroe
Jones[9] had both legs shot off at the knees at Snyder's Bluff in the Vicksburg
campaign. Lee Fuller's[10] master was killed in 1862 and he was wounded
when he was barely 15 years old. Ike Anderson[11] was 'captured by the
Federals soon after the battle of Ft. Donelson in 1862 and was shot in
the leg and badly wounded by them.' He said 'I was carried to Nashville
Tennessee by them where I was kept till close of the war and then released.
Alfred Brown[12] was wounded twice at Chickamauga when a shell passed through
his leg."
Black Southerners In Gray, Index To Tennessee Confederate Pension
Applications:
[1] Henry Neal/MS Regiment/TN Pension #130/Filed Madison County.
[2] William Easley/24th TN Infantry/#10/Hickman County.
[3] Taylor Kinnard/54th TN Infantry/#227/Haywood County.
[4] Henry Gore/8th TN Cavalry/#132/Davidson County.
[5] Bob McClarson/regiment ?/#180/County ?/.
[6] Alexander Ransom/24th TN Infantry/#202/Bedford County.
[7] Wade Watkins/48th TN Infantry/#269/Lauderdale County.
[8] Ned McCullough/17th TN Infantry/#137/Rutherford County.
[9] Monroe Jones/MS Artillery/#41/Shelby County.
[10] Lee Fuller/5th AL Cavalry/#86/Fayette County.
[11] Ike Anderson/1st KY Cavalry/#96/Stewart County.
[12] Alfred Brown/Regiment ?/#233/ Bradley County.
 |
Civil War Curiosities, Webb Garrison, 1994, Rutledge Hill Press,
pg. 99
"According to the Leavenworth, Kansas, Conservative, guerrillas
captured a Federal band near Shawnee Creek a month after "fighting
qualities of the negro" were tested in the West. This action was newsworthy
because the Confederate wagon train seized by these partisans had "an
escort of thirty colored troops."
|
| Civil War Curiosities, Webb Garrison, 1994, Rutledge Hill Press,
pg. 107
"Like some of their counterparts in the North, a few Southern officers
made unofficial and irregular use of black soldiers. From start to finish,
an estimated four hundred of them served in the Eighteenth Virginia and
other units raised in the state."
|
| Civil War Curiosities, Webb Garrison, 1994, Rutledge Hill Press,
pg. 107
"Before the epochal voyage of the CSS Shenandoah ended,
Lt. James I. Waddell added two black Americans to his crew. Partisan ranger
John H. Morgan recruited a number of Mississippi blacks for his force,
whose raids came to be feared throughout border states."
|
| Civil War Curiosities, Webb Garrison, 1994, Rutledge Hill Press,
pg. 107
"According to the Fort Smith, Arkansas, Times of September
10, 1861, some slaves willingly adopted a course of action that to Northerners
seemed strange indeed: 'Two companies of Southern black men have been forming
in this neighborhood. They are thorough Southern men, not armed, but drilling
to take the field, and say they are determined to fight for their masters
and their homes.'"
|
| From The Savannah Evening News, quoted in On The Threshold:
Masters And Slaves in Civil War Georgia, by Clarence Mohr, page 66:
"To Brigadier General Lawton
Commanding Military District
The undersigned free men of color, residing in the city of Savannah
and county of Chatham, fully impressed with the feeling of duty we owe
to the State of Georgia as inhabitants thereof, which has for so long a
period extended to ourselves and families its protection, and has been
to us the source of many benefits - beg leave, respectfully, in this hour
of danger, to tender to yourself our services, to be employed in the defense
of the state, at any place or point, at any time, or any length of time,
and in any service for which you may consider us best fitted, and in which
we can contribute to the public good."
|
Blacks in Blue and Gray: Afro-American Service in the Civil War,
by H.C. Blackerby, page 18
"One black company was sent to Augusta, Georgia to serve with the
3rd and 4th Georgia Regiments."
|
South Carolina Troops in Confederate Service, by A.S. Salley
"There were at least 14 black musicians in the Brigade during the
war. All were listed as "free persons of color" except one, William
Rose, a slave who apparently ran away from his master to join the army.
They were listed on the muster rolls of each company; two of them who enlisted
in 1861 in this group were blind, and one served six months before he dropped
out. The Band marched with McGowan's Brigade through the entire war with
the Army of Northern Virginia, including Gettysburg."
|
| Black Southerners In Gray (Tennessee Confederate Pension Files),
Page 83:
"George Washington Yancey was captured with the Georgia militia,
escaped, went to Chickamauga and "got with the Southern troops again,
but was captured again at Missionary Ridge." He escaped a second time
and joined the Confederates at Atlanta. He was captured again at Macon
and imprisoned. "I was loyal to the Confederate states," he asserted,
and escaped again, spending the rest of the war foraging for the Confederate
troops. Dawson Pugh was captured by the Yankees in March, 1863, escaped,
and returned to his owner and master, Lt. Frank Pugh. Clay Hickerson was
captured and when the Yankees tried to take him North with them he refused
to go and returned to his owner, who told him that he was free anyway.
In the spring of 1865, Dave Burns was captured along with "most of
my company." He escaped and returned to his "old master."
A Witness for Henry Church remembered that he had been at Ft. Donaldson
in early 1862:
At the surrender he escaped with Burr Church and went with Capt. Perkin's
Co. till Capt. Church was exchanged when he went to the [48th TN Infantry]
again at Vicksburg and stayed with Capt. Church till after the battle of
Nashville where Capt. Church lost his leg...Henry brought him back home
and then went on South with floo [flu] and was with the Regiment at the
surrender."
|
| Black Southerners In Gray, Page 135 (Ref. On the Bloodstained
Battlefield, by Gregory Coco):
"In addition, the New York Herald reported that on July 1st a group
of armed black Confederates was captured: "Among the rebel prisoners
who were marched through Gettysburg were observed seven negroes in uniform
and fully accoutered as soldiers."
|
| Colonel William S. Christian of the 55th Virginia Infantry, who
was captured and held as prisoner of war on Johnson's Island, wrote:
"My recollection is that there were thirteen Negroes who spent
that dreadful winter of 1863-64 with us at Johnson's Island and not one
of them deserted or accepted freedom though it was urged upon them time
and again." |
