February is Black History Month.
I'm gonna post a few items that don't get mentioned much.
From Rappidian TO RICHMOND AND THE SPOTTSYLVANIA CAMPAIGN
A Sketch in Personal Narrative of the Scenes a Soldier Saw
By WILLIAM MEADE DAME, D. D.
Private, First Company Richmond Howitzers
“When rations got short and were getting shorter, it became necessary to dismiss the darkey servants. Some, however, became company servants, instead of private institutions, and held out faithfully to the end, cooking the rations away in the rear, and at the risk of life carrying them to the line of battle to their young massahs”
Heroic Henry Comer, standing, carried this wounded officer
5 miles to safety, to medical care and saved the officers life..
Union soldier James G. Bates wrote a letter to his father that was reprinted in an Indiana newspaper in May 1863. In the letter Bates assured his father that there were black Confederate soldiers:
I can assure you [his father,] of a certainty, that the rebels have Negro soldiers in their army. One of their best sharp shooters and the boldest of them all here is a Negro. He dug himself a rifle pit last night [16 April 1863] just across the river and has been annoying our pickets opposite him very much to-day. You can see him plain enough with the naked eye, occasionally, to make sure that he is a "wooly-head," and with a spy-glass there is no mistaking him. (Winchester Journal, May 1, 1863)
Union soldier James G. Bates wrote a letter to his father that was reprinted in an Indiana newspaper in May 1863. In the letter Bates assured his father that there were black Confederate soldiers:
I can assure you [his father,] of a certainty, that the rebels have Negro soldiers in their army. One of their best sharp shooters and the boldest of them all here is a Negro. He dug himself a rifle pit last night [16 April 1863] just across the river and has been annoying our pickets opposite him very much to-day. You can see him plain enough with the naked eye, occasionally, to make sure that he is a "wooly-head," and with a spy-glass there is no mistaking him. (Winchester Journal, May 1, 1863)
From
http://www.mtgriffith.com/web_documents/blackconfederates.htm
From
Reminiscences of the Richmond Howitzers
By Carlton McCarthy
“A few of our negro cooks, who were with our wagon train when it was captured by the enemy, escaped and returned to camp today. Certainly they were the happiest fellows I ever saw and were greeted with loud cheers by our men.
A chance at freedom they had, but they preferred life and slavery in Dixie to liberty in the North.”
Black cooks in Confederate camp near Charleston, S.C.
To all the Black Confederates who Loved DIXIE.
Amen!
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