Been in the Storm So Long (21 page)

No matter how the black soldier might perform in combat, the initial reaction of the Confederacy was to call for “sure and effective” retaliation. Since the North had determined to arm blacks and wage a war of extermination, there was little left for the white South to do but wage “a similar war in return.” Nor was there any reason to be overly scrupulous about this problem. Once the black man became a soldier, he was as much an outlaw as the men who trained and commanded him. And once black men, whether northern freedmen or southern slaves, were corrupted by military
service, an Atlanta newspaper declared, they could “scarcely become useful and desirable servants among us.” The message was clear enough.
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But the Confederacy was never able to resolve this question in any consistent manner. When the North began to recruit black regiments in the Mississippi Valley, the Confederate Secretary of War informed the commanding officer at Vicksburg that captured black soldiers were not to be regarded as prisoners of war. The official position of the Confederate government, as stated on numerous occasions, was in no way ambiguous: captured black soldiers (usually designated as “slaves in arms”) and their commissioned officers had forfeited the rights and immunities enjoyed by other prisoners of war. Any officer who helped to drill, organize, or instruct slaves, with the intention of using them as soldiers, or who commanded Negro units, was defined as an “outlaw” and deemed guilty of inciting servile insurrection. Upon capture, he was to be executed “or otherwise punished at the discretion of the court.” But black captives were to be turned over to state authorities and treated in accordance with the laws of the state in which they had been taken prisoner. These laws invariably demanded their execution as incendiaries or insurrectionists.
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Although this official position was never repealed, authorities chose to modify its enforcement. Whatever the guidelines or legislation, most of the actual decisions were made in the field by unit commanders and lesser officers. How many blacks were held as captives was never easy to determine, largely because Confederate officials refused to report such captives as prisoners of war. Some black soldiers and military laborers were executed or sold into slavery, but most of them were held in close confinement, handed over to civilian authorities, or put to work on military fortifications. “After arriving at Mobile,” one black captive testified, “we were placed at work on the fortifications there, and impressed colored men who were at work when we arrived were released, we taking their places. We were kept at hard labor and inhumanly treated; if we lagged or faltered, or misunderstood an order, we were whipped and abused; some of our men being detailed to whip others.” In the aftermath of the assault on Fort Wagner, eighteen black soldiers were placed on trial under the insurrectionary laws of South Carolina but the state failed to win a conviction and the men were interned as prisoners of war. For many whites, including some of the highest-ranking Confederate officials, it was preferable to think that blacks, especially former slaves, who served in the Union Army had been duped. And since they were little more than “deluded victims of the hypocrisy and malignity of the enemy,” the Confederate Secretary of War advised, they should be treated with mercy and returned to their previous owners, “with whom, after their brief experience of Yankee humanity and the perils of the military service, they will be more content than ever …”
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The Confederate government refused to agree to any general exchange of black prisoners of war for prisoners held by the Union Army. This attitude reflected to some degree a distinction made by Confederate officials between free Negroes and slaves. That the North might employ its
own black residents for military service seems to have been conceded; that is, the North had as much right to use black men against them as it did to use elephants, wild cattle, or dogs. But the North had no right to arm a slave against his master. Nor did the South have any obligation to return such slaves. In a war, property recaptured from the enemy reverted to its owner, or could be disposed of in any way the captor deemed proper—and slaves were property. In March 1864, a Confederate lieutenant inquired of his commanding officer if he could sell the four black soldiers he had captured and divide the profits among those who had participated in the mission; the commanding officer advised him “not to report any more such captures.” What complicated the question of prisoner exchange were certain principles said to be immutable that outweighed any legal considerations. To argue an equality between white and black prisoners, as one Richmond newspaper observed, was nothing less than an act of northern insolence. “Confederates have borne and forborne much to mitigate the atrocities of war; but this is a thing which the temper of the country cannot endure.”
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The most efficient way to deal with the vexing issue of black prisoners was to take no prisoners. This was not even necessarily a racial matter but a time-honored military principle. Few wars have failed to arouse charges and countercharges regarding the disposition of soldiers after they have surrendered. In the Civil War, the presence of armed black men, most of them former slaves, thereby aggravated an already sensitive issue. For the common Confederate soldier, the need to confront blacks in armed combat was still difficult to accept, and the military setbacks he suffered exacerbated his frustrations and hatreds. “I hope I may never see a Negro soldier,” a Mississippian wrote to his mother, “or I cannot be … a Christian Soldier.” After the Battle of Milliken’s Bend, in which black troops distinguished themselves, the Confederate commander reported that substantial numbers of blacks had been killed and wounded; “unfortunately,” he added, “some fifty, with two of their white officers were captured.” The nature of warfare dictated that such matters could not be easily controlled by official edicts, whether these emanated from Richmond or from the immediate commanding officer. Every black prisoner “would have been killed,” a Confederate soldier wrote after the Battle of the Crater, “had it not been for gen Mahone who beg our men to Spare them.” Still, as he noted, one of his fellow soldiers, who had already killed several blacks, could not restrain himself. Even when General Mahone told him “for God’s sake” to stop, the soldier asked to kill one more, as “he deliberately took out his pocket knife and cut one’s Throat.” Late in the war, as white southern frustrations mounted, a clash with black troops at Mark’s Mill, Arkansas, resulted in a battlefield “sickening to behold.” “No orders, threats, or commands,” a Confederate soldier reported, “could restrain the men from vengeance on the negroes, and they were piled in great heaps about the wagons, in the tangled brushwood, and upon the muddy and trampled road.”
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Whether or not these were the normal atrocities of warfare, the reports out of the South aroused blacks already deeply disturbed over other manifestations of unequal treatment for black soldiers. The failure of the government to guarantee protection for black troops, in the event of their capture, had already reportedly caused a slackening in the recruitment campaigns. To ensure “full rights and immunities” for all prisoners, regardless of color, black spokesmen urged the Lincoln administration to adopt a policy of retaliation: “For every black prisoner slain in cold blood, Mr. Jefferson Davis should be made to understand that one rebel officer shall suffer death, and for every colored soldier sold into slavery, a rebel shall be held as hostage.” When Frederick Douglass resigned his post as a recruiting agent, he was most emphatic about this particular issue. Even “the most malignant Copperhead,” Douglass charged, could hardly criticize President Lincoln for “any undue solicitude” for the rights and lives of black soldiers. The Confederates murdered blacks in cold blood, shot down black military laborers, threatened to sell black prisoners into slavery, and yet, Douglass noted, “not one word” from the President. “How many 54ths must be cut to pieces, its mutilated prisoners killed and its living sold into Slavery, to be tortured to death by inches before Mr. Lincoln shall say: ‘Hold, enough!’ ” Until that time, Douglass declared, “the civilized world” would hold the President and Jefferson Davis equally responsible for these atrocities.
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Calling the attempts to enslave prisoners “a relapse into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age,” Lincoln decreed in July 1863 that for every Union soldier killed “in violation of the laws of war,” a Confederate soldier would be executed; and for every Union soldier enslaved or sold into slavery, a Confederate soldier would be placed at hard labor on the public works. Although this pronouncement appeared to satisfy black demands, the President, as well as some black leaders, fully recognized that the real problem lay with implementation. “The difficulty is not in stating the principle,” Lincoln remarked, “but in practically applying it.” And once applied, he advised Douglass, there was no way to know where it might end. Among the questions raised by the President’s order was whether the northern white public was actually prepared to accept this kind of retaliation. At least one black newspaper remained skeptical. If any attempts were made to retaliate for the murder of black soldiers, the editor suggested, Confederate authorities were counting on the probability “that Northern sentiment, already weak on the subject, will revolt against taking the life of white men for ‘Niggers.’ ”
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The battle fought on April 12, 1864, at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, where blacks comprised nearly half the garrison, provoked the most bitter black protest of the Civil War. “We had hoped,” a black newspaper declared, “that the first report might have been exaggerated; but, in this, we have been doomed to disappointment.” Nearly 300 Union soldiers (the precise number varied with every report) were slain after they had thrown down their arms and surrendered. The conflicting accounts of what happened
were never satisfactorily resolved. Subsequent testimony, however, leaves little doubt as to the indiscriminate slaughter undertaken by Confederate troops. Only the extent of the annihilation remains uncertain. To black people, and to much of the white northern public, it became known as the “Fort Pillow Massacre.” But to General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who commanded the Confederate forces, it was simply that place on the Mississippi River, “dyed with the blood of the slaughtered,” where his troops had conclusively demonstrated “to the Northern people that negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.” The total number of Union dead, Forrest observed, “will never be known from the fact that large numbers ran into the river and were shot and drowned.” The casualness with which the general treated the massacre suggested no need to defend his conduct or the murders committed under his command.
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Although shocked by the Fort Pillow Massacre, angry blacks expressed little surprise. Since the United States government refused to recognize black soldiers as equal to whites, why should the Confederacy? The tragedy, blacks charged, only underscored the tardiness with which the Lincoln administration and Congress had acted upon their demands for equal protection, equal treatment, and equal rights. “I do not wonder at the conduct and disaster that transpired at Fort Pillow,” a Massachusetts soldier wrote from South Carolina. “I wonder that we have not had more New York riots and Fort Pillow massacres.” Perhaps, though, these deaths had not been in vain, suggested Richard H. Cain, a black clergyman. At the very least, he hoped, what transpired at Fort Pillow might serve to educate the northern public. “None but the blacks of this land, have heretofore realized the hateful nature of the beast: but now, white men are beginning to feel, and to realize what its beauties are.” From these deaths, the Reverend Cain vowed, a new spirit would pervade black troops, and he offered them some words of advice. In future clashes with the enemy, “give no quarter; take no prisoners; make it dangerous to take the life of a black soldier by these barbarians.” When that happens, he promised, “they will respect your manhood, and you will be treated as you deserve at the hands of those who have made you outlaws.”
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Several months after the Fort Pillow affair, the anger had not yet subsided. In the wake of new reports of black soldiers “mown down like grass at Petersburg,” the Reverend H. H. White told a mass meeting called by Boston Negro leaders that a sense of despair prevailed among the people. But he refused to be discouraged. Whatever the losses sustained by black people, the thought that should remain uppermost in their minds is that God had brought about the sacrifice of millions of men in other countries “for the cause of liberty and humanity.” The speakers who followed, however, found it impossible to share the Reverend White’s optimism or explanation. The most forceful disclaimer came from William Wells Brown, a veteran black abolitionist and former advocate of emigration who had recently helped to recruit the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. “Mr. White’s God is bloodthirsty!” Brown charged. “I worship a different kind
of God. My God is a God of peace and good will to men.” Although he had once urged black men to fight, in order to convince “this God-forsaken nation” that they could be as courageous as other men, he now confessed his doubts and disillusionment. “Our people have been so cheated, robbed, deceived, and outraged everywhere, that I cannot urge them to go.… We have an imbecile administration, and the most imbecile management that it is possible to conceive of. If Mr. White’s God is managing the affairs of this nation, he is making a miserable failure.”
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Since editorial outrage, mass meetings, and executive decrees were obviously insufficient to deal with the problem, black troops were left to consider actions that might produce the effect initially intended by the President’s order. An officer with the 22nd United States Colored Troops made explicit a growing feeling among many of the black soldiers: “Sir, we can
bayonet
the enemy to terms on this matter of treating colored soldiers as prisoners of war far sooner than the authorities at Washington can bring him to it by negotiation. This I am
morally persuaded of
.” Six days after the fall of Fort Pillow, Confederate troops in Arkansas routed Union forces in the Battle of Poison Spring, including soldiers belonging to the 1st Kansas Colored Regiment. Not only were some black prisoners summarily executed but captured Union wagons were also driven back and forth over the bodies of wounded blacks. That was more than sufficient inducement for the men of the 2nd Kansas Colored Regiment to vow to take no more prisoners, and in a subsequent clash at Jenkins Ferry, Arkansas, the black regiment charged the Confederate lines, shouting “Remember Poison Spring,” and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. But they fell slightly short of their avowed goal; one Confederate prisoner was taken—apparently by mistake—and he was returned to his regiment to impart the lessons of this battle. When black troops at Memphis reportedly took an oath “on their knees” to avenge Fort Pillow and show no mercy to the enemy, General Nathan Bedford Forrest, of all people, lodged a Confederate protest, charging that the oath had been taken in the presence of Union officers. “From what I can learn,” a Union general replied, “this act of theirs was not influenced by any white officer, but was the result of their own sense of what was due to themselves and their fellows who had been mercilessly slaughtered.”
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