Nice to hear from you.

For more information about slavery in Louisiana and the Saint Domingue refugees, see

Berlin, Ira. “Many Thousands Gone:” The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1998.

Dessens, Nathalie. From Saint-Domingue to New Orleans: Migration and Influences. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2007.

Sublette points out that Baltimore was a primary destination for large numbers of those, white, black and in-between, fleeing the turmoil of the Haitian Revolution, particularly between 1790 and 1810. Entire plantations relocated to Maryland directly from what eventually became Haiti, so there were other parts of the U.S. shaped by the French practice of slavery that resulted in substantial numbers of free people of color. The influx didn't come to New Orleans until the Spaniards expelled the French Creoles who had taken refuge in Cuba. An account of the effect of the Haitian Revolution on Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay would also be enlightening and compelling reading, particularly with regard to Louisville and the state of Kentucky as the center for enlistment of colored troops in the Union army.

Cleburne's proposal, as I understand it, would have enlisted slaves for the southern cause directly from the plantations, so the social and demographic dynamic for an army of colored Confederate forces would have diverged sharply from what developed over the course of the war in the north. My contention is that the fall of Vicksburg did present a significant opportunity for the south to avail itself of Cleburne's plan.

My Civil War ancestor served with a regiment that spent four months in Vicksburg, a year and a half in Little Rock, ten days in New Orleans, two months in Mobile and a month in Brazos Santiago, so he didn't really take part in the Civil War. But his wife's brother did. He fought Cleburne at Bald Hill.

Consider that claim about free people of color: that more lived in “New Orleans in 1862 than in all of the rest of the United States combined.” Well, according to the 1860 Census, 18,647 free blacks lived in Louisiana, with 10,939 of those living in New Orleans.

By way of comparison, the 1860 Census lists the free black population of Maryland at 83,942. The free colored population in Baltimore alone numbered 25,680, more than twice the number of free blacks living in New Orleans. Even in Virginia, which mandated that manumitted slaves leave the state, the free black population came to over 58,000 in 1860.

By way of disclaimer, all these figures come from UVA’s Historical Census Browser, http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stat....

I think it's fascinating that New Orleans capitulated to the north as soon as Farragut could get a navy vessel up the river in 1862, while the nearby city of Mobile remained Confederate until after Lee had surrendered in April 1865. The British staged a massive assault on New Orleans in 1815 and were easily repulsed by Andrew Jackson and a handful of pirates. How is it that Farragut encountered so little resistance?

How exactly did slavery as practiced by the French and the Spanish differ from that practiced by the English and the Dutch? Why were there more free people of color living in New Orleans in 1862 than in all of the rest of the United States combined? How many of those free people of color in New Orleans owned slaves? How many of them owned slaves legally? What does it mean to be emancipated? How is it different than being deported to Haiti or Liberia? Can a case be made that slavery actually ended during the French Revolution and not the American Civil War?

The rivers that flow into Mobile Bay originate in what Sublette called the Upper South. The river that flows through New Orleans originates in Canada and provided all of the Old Northwest with access to the Gulf. Without Mobile the southern cause was lost. Without New Orleans the north had no chance in hell. When Vicksburg fell in the summer of '63 thousands upon thousands of slaves in Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana were abruptly emancipated with the immediate prospect of death by either disease or starvation. The Union army had no clue what to do with them all. The Confederacy had people in New Orleans who understood the concept of free people of color. It also had a much clearer sense than the north of the mindset of masterless slaves. They lost the war when they failed to match the Union's offer of freedom, but freedom restricted to those 'liberated' slaves who had served the Confederate cause in uniform.

Look at the numbers for black enlistment in the Union army. Kentucky enlisted far more black soldiers than any other state. The masterless slaves of Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana went up the river to enlist. How many would gladly have gone to Texas or Alabama to wear grey instead of blue if the promise of freedom had been on the table?

Wes Cowan is really something of a joke.