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Searching for
Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth
by Kevin M. Levin
c.2019, The University of North Carolina Press
$30.00 / higher in Canada
228 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
History is a big subject.
And yet, each era has inside it a thousand little clues for
people, places, and everyday life: clothes folks might’ve
worn, toys children played with, maybe, or foods they
enjoyed. Those are the things that make history fascinating,
even powerful. But add in a bit of quarrel and, as in the
new book Searching for Black Confederates by Kevin
M. Levin, they might make history wrong.
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Ever since the last shot was fired in the Civil War, there’s
been controversy, including argument over the site of that
last shot. For more than a century-and-a-half, stories were
told and mythology endures – one of them being the
possibility that slaves fought on the side of the
Confederacy.
“Over the past… decades,” says Levin, “claims…of anywhere
between 500 and 100,000 black Confederate soldiers… have
become increasingly common.”
But, he says, those claims are highly inflated. In truth, “a
small handful of black men” were recruited “just days before
the fall of the Confederacy…” Also true: photographs taken
during the War show black men dressed in gray uniforms.
Those pictures cause a misunderstanding, Levin says, that
leads back to one of the reasons the War was fought in the
first place.
When volunteering to serve in the Confederate Army, many
white men took a slave or two with them to serve as “camp
slaves” to polish arms, press uniforms, cook, and carry
messages. Some slaves charged their “master’s” comrades for
work, which allowed them money to buy their own Confederate
uniforms, if they so desired.
During battle, camp slaves were sometimes tasked with
guarding provisions and horses on the outskirts of a
conflict but “at no point… was it ever revealed that black
men were… serving in the Confederate army as soldiers.” The
idea was suggested and discussed but most slave owners “did
not believe that slaves or free blacks could make good
soldiers.” Even trying, Levin says, would have elevated
slaves to the level of their “masters,” a thought that was
totally unacceptable…
So, is the discussion settled? Probably not, but
Searching for Black Confederates surely makes good
arguments on the side of dismissal.
Beginning with a novel written in 1860 – one that he picks
apart methodically – author Kevin M. Levin suggests that the
idea of slaves basically fighting to keep themselves
enslaved is preposterous. To support this, he cites various
sources to explain photographs that have come to be
misunderstood and how end-of-war expectations and Jim Crow
laws affected life for black men in the post-War years.
These sources underscore his original claims that black men
were not enlisted to fight for the “Lost Cause.” It’s
fascinating information, if not just a bit repetitive.
And yet, because there’s nobody to interview and nobody to
question, certain historians and readers who embrace black
forebears in gray might still dispute the disputer. They,
too, have sources, stories, and reasons, which makes
Searching for Black Confederates a book that no Civil
War scholar should ignore: if you think the argument’s here
to stay, you wouldn’t be wrong. |
