Salah

In the final months of the American Civil War, there was much talk of using African-Americans - including slaves, specially liberated for the purpose - to bolster the eroding ranks of the Confederate army. Some units were even enlisted, but they proved to be 'too little, too late'. Nonetheless, the idea was clearly taken seriously. Jefferson Davis, Judah P. Benjamin, Robert E. Lee, and Patrick R. Cleburne were among its most prominent and vocal supporters.

This brings to mind two hypothetical questions for me, both operating under the fictional circumstances that black troops had been recruited earlier, or in sufficient numbers to impact the course of the War in Southern favor.

1. How would the widespread usage of black Confederate soldiers impact how people viewed the War? If slavery was partially abolished in the Rebel states to accomodate these soldiers, it would take much of the moral high ground away from the Union.

2. Let's say the efforts of these black troops helped bring about a Confederate victory, and a recognized Confederate States of America. What would race relations be like in the South? Would black veterans be treated with respect? Would anyone wish to return them to slavery now that the crisis was over?

Zeno

I think it would be hard to disarm militarily successfull black troops and return them to slavery.
My guess is that attempts at such would end in another civil war, in the south.

Hresvelgr

Another civil war is easily possible if the old entrenched elite are still unwilling to give up slavery and they have enough support, because the armed, newly-freed slaves are certainly not going to willingly go back to the way things were. A similar situation occurred in the Yucatan in the 1840's that sparked a war that lasted nearly a century. Now it's possible the planters might learn from the Yucatan's example, but let's be honest, they weren't the smartest of people. The real wildcard are the white soldiers of the CSA. By and large poor whites either manipulated or forced into joining the war, whether there's going to be a new civil war in the South largely depends on how many of them would actually support the previous status quo or how many would just resign from conflict entirely or even join the former slaves in protest against the system. It's quite possible that the ideas of Mr. Marx might become rather popular with the less advantaged population of the South, both white and black.

diddyriddick

I don't mean to be hypercritical, but this what-if is a non-starter. Though blacks could well have made a significant contribution to the southern war effort (Lee even advocated arming them) there is no way that a southern confederacy based on white supremacy and slavery was ever going to arm blacks.

Hresvelgr

I believe Jefferson Davis did eventually give in to the idea and had I think one regiment formed of former slaves, but it was far, far too late to actually achieve anything and apparently all that regiment did was parade around in Richmond a bit. The trick would be getting ol' Jeffy there to realize that the war is lost unless he does something drastic like that soon enough for said drastic measures to accomplish anything, which is pretty hard given the momentum of the Union advance and the stubbornness of Davis and company. Though on the other hand the Confederacy was more divided on the issue than you might think, in a good way I mean. A lot of people were hostile to the idea, saying that freeing slaves even if it worked would mean that their rebellion was pointless, but while the war was started because of slavery one of the driving motives for many Southerners was plain old Southern patriotism/nationalism and there were quite a few newspapers and somewhat influential people expressing support of the idea. The biggest problem as I said before though remains, trying to get Jeff Davis and enough of the other planter elites to realize that the CSA is doomed unless they free the slaves soon enough to accomplish anything would be momentously difficult, and it's likely that a lot of the plantation owners wouldn't even care if the CSA was independent at that point.

Zeno

Perhaps the southern blacks could arm their still enslaved brothers, and together conquer the south for themselves, expelling all whites. Or set up their own state in the south.

AlpinLuke

A part white supremacy, there was a deep economical motivation to keep slavery working in the South. Slaves in plantations granted great margins of earn, sure more than payed workers. And in the South the industrial system wasn't that developed [it would have been a good alternative].

So, since after the war South would have had to renounce to slavery, I see serious economical troubles. In a few words, after some years a new war would have seen the North victorious anyway [simply because the economy of the South would have suffered so much not to allow a new military effort on large scale].

This, of course, is based on my personal persuasion that Southern "lords" weren't in the condition to start a kind of industrial post revolution in the brief term.

Bluehawk

The extreme generalizations and stereotyping of that paragraph could have been expected to conclude with such a closing sentence.

Soldiers in the South were no more "manipulated or forced into joining the war" than their counterparts were in the North. Manipulation and force was the exception rather than the rule.

To state, "... they weren't the smartest of people." is a racist absurd comment.

Etcetera

Negroes served the CSA military in a variety of ways, with and without dignity, just as their caucasian brothers did. I have no doubt some of them did so willingly, for their own reasons having nothing to do with slavery. I do have considerable doubt that very many would have voluntarily enlisted to perpetuate slavery, but that some might have agreed in order to free themselves or family members and some may even have been forced to serve.

The North and South both believed they held moral high ground. But, there was no possible way to continue agrarian livelihood in the South even in the improbable circumstance that negroes would have enlisted. Of course, since most people assume that the war was "fought over slavery", then that makes their enlistments virtually impossible. If, however, the war was then being fought for self-determination, I see no reason why such enlistments might not have been possible; given certain guarantees.

Hresvelgr

And I guess you felt like adding extreme misinterpretations as well. I personally don't see how saying that a great many of the rich slave owning politicians who started the war weren't very smart is racist, unless I am to believe that wealthy fire-eaters are a race now. And after the first year or two of war the draft was incredibly popular on both sides, so it is accurate to say soldiers in the South were no more forced into fighting than the Northerners were, when they were so upset at the draft that there were straight-up riots over it. Dissatisfaction in the CSA was either stamped out brutally by the government even moreso than in the US, or manifested itself as Unionist guerrilla revolts.

Sam-Nary

Slaves did not serve in the Confederate Army, not when it mattered. There were no blacks in Stonewall's Brigade. There were no blacks in the Louisiana Tigers. Jefferson Davis did ultimately accept the idea to use Black soldiers, but that was weeks before Grant's army shattered the defenses at Petersburg, and the unit that was formed was made up of white convilecents and black hospital orderlies.

Slaves that traveled with the Confederate Army were slaves, NOT soldiers. They did all the manual labor for the white soldiers. They carried additional supplies. They cooked, they cleaned, they did all the things the slaves on the plantations did, just now their master was the Confederate army.

The notion that blacks fought in the Confederate Army is a revisionist argument designed to make the Confederacy look good.