"J Burns" wrote in message news:mnfnpg$ag2$1@dont-
stuff snipped
At the end, Lee recommended enlisting blacks so they wouldn't join the
Union Army as it came through. It was authorized March 13, 1865, without
the incentive of freedom. Richmond fell March 25.
Some had been enlisted, but it's doubtful that any were armed and
trained by then.
Glad you pointed that out. Slaves allegedly fighting for the South was just
one more instance of revisionist history. Everything I've read on the
subject says it's a claim that never had any proof to back it up. As you
point out, the very idea of doing it didn't occur until so late in the war
that it was never implemented. Yet it keeps turning up in the claims people
make. Think of the common sense aspect of it: Would you give a gun to a
man that you owned while all around you there was a war going on to free
such men? Southerners lived in perpetual fear of slave revolts. Arming
them seems a little hard to believe in light of that constant fear.
I guess my ancestor was too understanding to punish him because he kept
running away but always stayed close enough that he knew he'd be
returned. My ancestor was afraid Lord Dunmore would talk him into
joining the British Army for the promise of freedom.
As you noted before, incentives are lacking in the slave as Rebel scenario.
They weren't going to gain their freedom by fighting for their masters. The
oft-repeated claims that slaves fought for the South seems to be a case of
testing gullibility limits. On both sides of the issue.
Whether or not Dunmore was sincere, my ancestor sincerely intended to
free the slave when he learned the craft. He knew that except for menial
tasks, a productive relationship with labor required the incentive of
pay. Jefferson and Lee couldn't make ends meet because they didn't
understand that.
Your comments about your ancestors and the runaway slave problem touches on
one of the little discussed issues of the Civil War - The Fugitive Slave
Act. States like Texas were ****ed that many Northern states had passed
laws that attempted to circumvent the recovery of fugitive slaves.
Ironically, Texas did not believe the Northern states had the right to trump
Federal laws (at least those that benefited them), so it's hard to believe
that the South's motive for war was about States' Rights. That's just
revisionist history. I can't blame them, though. After all, defending
States' Rights seems a whole more civilized and principled than defending
the rights to steal the labor of enslaved human beings. Doesn't sound so
noble expressed that way. But in nearly every secession statement at the
start of the war, slavery was the number one issue. Common sense says it
was because its abolition threatened the entire economic model of the region
for Southerners whether they owned slaves or not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugiti...ve_Act_of_1850
Many Northern states wanted to circumvent the Fugitive Slave Act. Some
jurisdictions passed "personal liberty laws", mandating a jury trial before
alleged fugitive slaves could be moved; others forbade the use of local
jails or the assistance of state officials in the arrest or return of
alleged fugitive slaves. In some cases, juries refused to convict
individuals who had been indicted under the Federal law.
What's really interesting is that many of the same techniques used back then
are familiar to us today. States are trying to figure out ways to avoid
Federal mandates, people are forming groups to combat what they see is
legislated societal evil and groups are feeling treated unfairly by a biased
government and many Texans *still* want to leave the Union. The more things
change, the more they stay the same. (-:
--
Bobby G.