>>HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT TRANS-MISSISSIPPI,
Shreveport, La., June 13, 1863.
Maj. Gen. R. TAYLOR, Commanding District of Louisiana:
GENERAL: I have been unofficially informed that some of your troops have captured negroes in arms. I hope this may not be so, and that <ar119_22> your subordinates who may have been in command of capturing parties may have recognized the propriety of giving no quarter to armed negroes and their officers. In this way we may be relieved from a disagreeable dilemma. If they are taken, however, you will turn them over to the State authorities to be tried for crimes against the State, and you will afford such facilities in obtaining witnesses as the interests of the public service will permit. I am told that negroes found in a state of insurrection may be tried by a court of the parish in which the crime is committed, composed of two justices of the peace and a certain number of slave-holders. Governor Moore has called on me and stated that if the report is true that any armed negroes have been captured he will send the attorney-general to conduct the prosecution as soon as you notify him of the capture.
I have the honor to be, general, your obedient servant,
E. KIRBY SMITH,
Lieutenant-General, Commanding.<<

Porter Alexander was away from Petersburg when the Crater occurred but he spoke to many involved. He wrote in “Fighting for Confederacy”, meant to be a private account of his wartime experiences for his children, explaining why there were comparatively few black union soldiers taken prisoner. He stated that it was the first time that the ANV had encountered black Union troops & they saw it as an incitement to servile rebellion by the Union & they reacted not only against Blacks but whites along with them. Alexander wrote, “Some of the Negro prisoners, who were originally allowed to surrender by some soldiers were afterward shot by others, & there was, without doubt, a great deal of unnecessary killing of them.” (P. 462, “Fighting for the Confederacy.”)

It's not that the issue of “black Confederates” it's that it doesn't make much sense given the fact that the Confederate government expressly denied blacks the right to enlist. There were probably a select few who managed to enlist as soldiers, but they are clearly the exception.

Your raising of the black Confederate issue leads me to believe that you assume I am making a moral point about the Confederate cause. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I said, I am trying to better understand the accounts that white southerners penned in letters, diaries, and newspaper articles at the time.

Thanks again for the comment.

I assume we’ll never know the exact amount of how many Union Soldiers turned on their comrades in cold blood..but there are certainly quite a few accounts of it in different literature and internet articles. I think it still has significance to the point you’re making though about the battle of the crater being from a Southern Soldier’s point of view a “slave insurrection”..thus assisting in making the battle become the slaughter it ended up being.

Whites who were caught assisting slaves rebel against their masters would be shown no quarter as well. John Brown might be an example. There are stories of slave revolts in the north even 120 years before the civil war (see NYC slave revolt of 1741) where white conspirators and aggressors in slave rebellions where tried and executed along side their black counterparts. This might of had to play into the thoughts and emotions of Yankee soldiers as the rebels closed in on the crater in mass.

Also what different conditions are you talking about specifically..that would cause difference in perception to be shaped about black soldiers in combat? Wouldn’t there be alot of very similar conditions ? Like most Yankees most rebels didn’t own slaves. They also both thought they were superior to any black man due to the nation wide acknowledgment of white supremacy. Both had something to lose in their minds if the black man was given suffrage and equality…meaning blacks taking over jobs and competing for lower wages etc..

All feared the “alleged” wave of free blacks that would be storming into their communities and taking over.. maybe even raping or sleeping with their women..asserting their manhood on equal terms with white men..

I guess what I am trying to speculate at is.. wouldn’t the conditions be pretty similar for the common northern and southern solider to shape their perceptions of the black threat?

And lastly..let me know if this is now a mute point or if you’ve explained this somewhere else and I’ve missed it..But why are you posing the question of the crater being the last slave insurrection in the western hemisphere (or N. AMerica)? Is it because it’s the LAST battle with a highly noted amount of after battle killings of Black Yankee/White Southern soldiers? Otherwise wouldn’t The Battle of Fort Blakeley in Mobile be the last example of a perceived servile insurrection?

Thanks again!

KC

Thanks for the comment. I’ve made the point about the limited executions of Confederates by USCTs elsewhere, though you are right in noting that it is often overlooked. Yes, I’ve come across a few cases of white Union soldiers who used the buts of their rifles and bayonets against retreating USCTs following Mahone’s countercharge, though I would caution against characterizing the numbers in terms of “many.” In addition, while I agree that white Union soldiers harbored racist views of blacks we need to understand that their perceptions would have been shaped by a set of conditions different from white southerners. Thanks again.

Very nice point made. I just finished reading “NO QUATER” THE BATTLE OF THE CRATER , 1864 By Richard Slotkin. What an Awesome book.

He gives vivid accounts of the battle as well as a very thorough view of the performances and success of the USCT’s during their initial charge against the 17th/18th SC and 49th NC on the right flank trenches. Something he mentions in his book that not one of you have mentioned in this whole forum (yes I read the whole forum before posting) was the fact that Some members of the USCT’s not only screamed no quarter but acted it out was well. Principally occuring against the 17th/18 SC troops. This was quickly stopped with sometimes brutal force by federal officers.. but it did occur. It could be possible that some Rebel Soldiers of Elliots Brigade that survived the successful initial charge of Sigfried’s Black brigade passed the word on that Black Troops were screaming no Quarter and some were actually carrying out it out with bayonettes! Thus further enraging those rebels who were warned on their way to battle that they’d be facing black troops.

The fact of the matter is though this still did not matter. Alabama troops that had no idea that they were facing Negro Troops until they were right up in their faces still reacted by killing wounded and dying blacks just out of sheer rage of seeing them there. Although the gentlemen you carried a discussion with at some point in this forum..(Bobby) had some valid points and great insight to add as a combat veteran…his idea of the slaughter never happening was much flawed and conflicting against the reports of the Rebel Troops he’s honoring and defending. The Slaughter did happen!

I would also add that many of the Northern Troops shot down their black comrades as to not be caught with them. The “slaughter” was inevitably two pronged. Could it be that the Northern troops, who by no means loved the black man, could have felt that same anger as southern whites against negroes fighting along side of them? Could they have felt that fighting along side blacks degraded them to the status of slave revolters or “nigger lovers”?
Could their ideology and opinions about slavery and the status of the black man have effected how many of them reacted when it was time to surrender and black men were near them? Accounts given by the 14NYHA, The 9th New Hamshire and the 51st New York all state that before the rebs closed in many Yankee soliders bayonetted or shot Black Troops hiding near them or running past them so that they could avoid being slaughtered for being amongst the blacks. Is this not the same fate they could expect to receive if caught aiding slaves in a slave revolt? It seems that some of them even tried to do it as a show of solidarity amongst white men so that they would be spared any excess harm from their rebel captors.
Pretty Sad Affair!

Regards,
KC