The CSA would not have existed if not for slavery, any more than Nazi Germany could have existed as a state that provided equal rights for religious minorities.

Nazi Germany without ant-semitism would not have been Nazi Germany (it wouldn’t have even been Wilhemine Germany); in the same way, the Confederacy without slavery would not have been the Confederacy.

I’ve been reading the memoirs of a Confederate veteran from Tennessee who was in the war from start to finish. Funny thing. He was careful to mention race (as well as ethnic groups, German, Irish, Cajun,) but while he often mentions black servants/cooks/teamsters, etc. in the Confederate Army and black Union soldiers (which he thought were cowards and ‘forced’ into battle by the North) he neglected to mention even a single black Confederate soldier. An oversight, I’m sure.

Lee

I would be more sensitive than most to Cleburne’s early years. As is well known, Celeburne spent some years as a Non-Commissioned Officer in the British Army. His family might have been able to buy him an officer’s commission, but he had actually run away to join up without his family’s approval.

After a few years, he was able to buy himself out with a small legacy, and emigrated to the US.

While he was in the British Army, Cleburne must have been struck by the number of Irish Catholics in the lower ranks. Estimates run from 40% TO 50%, probably over 60% among the lower ranks, and 100% in Irish-raised regiments like the Munster Fusiliers. Not only that, these were from the poorest, labouring classes whose social position would not have been far above slavery.

The 1840s, when Cleburne served in the British Army, were the years known as the Great Hunger in Irish history. A terrible potato famine swept the land – potatoes were the food of the poor, and it is estimated that about 12% of the population died of starvation and disease.

Much of Cleburne’s duties at this time were guarding Government food stores (used for distribution to the starving), and he must also have been struck about how the Irish soldiers stuck by their duties, and did not mutiny in support of their desperate fellow-countrymen.

I think that Cleburne’s experiences fed his instincts that slaves would fight for the Confederacy, if promised liberty for themselves and their families. He was not a starry-eyed idealist promoting liberty. Just as the sons of the oppressed Irish peasant could be turned into a good soldier of the Queen, so could the son of a black slave be turned into a good soldier for the Confederacy.

There is on record a conversation with Cleburne were he confirmed much of the above. Incidentally, time has proved him right. The majority of the South African army during the Apartheid years were blacks, who were thoroughly efficient in carrying out the orders of the state.

Cleburne’s proposal came too late, and Levine shows that the Confederacy could not accept it anyway. However, just as well, if the Confederacy had adopted it whole-heartedly at an early stage, it is hard to see how the Union could have won.

I agree with you that the “The truth is many black southerners flocked to the Confederate recruiting stations at the opening of the war, but were turned away because of their color” statement is absurd; I was curious what, if any, evidence, Mr. Murphy could provide for it.

Since he has “signed off” apparently he has none to offer and – to be collegial about it – has “assumed facts not in evidence.”

Keep up the fire