The confederate government did not allow blacks to be soldiers until January 1865. By then it was way too late for them to have any effect on the outcome of the war. Those blacks in the areas already occupied by union forces were considerable and had no interest in returning to and serving the south again. About 180,000 volunteered for the union army. In an attempt to gather volunteers the confederacy was barely able to recruit a single regiment. Lee pointed out how offering freedom for their service would merely accomplish what Lincoln desired in the first place.
Nathan Bedford Forrest's body guards were BLACK Confederates. He did not have the elite officer attitude because he was not a graduate of West Point. R.E. Lee was former Headmaster of West Point. Some of Gen. Nat's white troopers were more afraid of him than they were of the Yankees. Lee was the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Forrest was in the Army of Tennessee, and not of the Virginia elite class. Government is controlled by those with power. The Civil War was also known as "The Rich Man's War". There were several races and ethnic groups that served for the Confederacy. The victorious wrote the history, and wanted people world wide to believe that it was all about slavery and nothing else. ie: Russia vs. Ukraine
@@TheGuitarReb Interesting. But Nathan Bedford Forrest went on to become a founder of the KKK, of the Night Riders, to spread terror and keep blacks down and cringing after the Civil War. NBF was brutal. Lee preached graciousness...
That didn't stop the individual states from employing them, which they did. The Confederate national government didn't control the Southern states like the Union's federal government.
@@les3449 True that. The South was represented on the field of battle by the CSA forces (Confederate States of America) which we are all familiar with, but also the PAOV (Provisional Army of Virginia) and other groups which had separate command structures. Jefferson Davis tried the duration of the wary to introduce more efficient command structures, but the South was always behind the Union in that respect.
@@heyfitzpablum OK, but I was referring to the individual states which had a lot of control over their own regiments as opposed to the Confederate national government. I don't necessarily agree with your assessment about Confederate command structure since most of the Confederate commanders AND president were USMA graduates. Their armies structure was a product of West Point just like their Union counterparts. And those states allowed various regiments to field armed Black companies of combat troops early in the war. I believe as the war went on those Black troops integrated into the white units and all Black units were disbanded, probably due, at least in part, to a constant shortage of stands of arms (musket, bayonet, cartridge box and cap box) which would obviously go to White units first. There ARE records of Black soldiers being armed in White units. Don't forget though, a soldier is still a soldier if he is in a support role as armies ALWAYS have more troops in combat support than in actual combat. When I was in the Army it was calculated that there were seven support troops for every combat soldier.
That quote, "Just kill them all was NOT from Robert E. Lee! It was actually from Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. And even he did NOT refer to black soldiers from either side, but rather, referred to Union soldiers profaning (putting dirty words on) church walls!
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was a religious fanatic and would NEVER utter such non-sense! He did however take his school cadets, arm them and send them into battle because "God told him to" I'm so glad I did not live in those times and my child was not one of his cadet's.
@TheGuitarReb The Cadets fought at the Battle of New Market in April of 1864. Stonewall Jackson died on May 2, 1863. Breckinridge who was the youngest Vice President to Serve in the Office was the General that reluctantly sent the VMI Cadets to plug the line at the Battle of New Market. The Cadets themselves decided to Charge across a muddy freshly plowed field. Their shoes got stuck in the mud. They changed a Artillery Battery that was hitting the Confederate Line's. They caused the Union Retreat and the Confederates won the Battle. The Battle of New Market is a story of Honor and Bravery. The Fallen Cadets are Honored every year at the VMI.
You can tell this gentleman was a politician. So many words spun in so many directions before getting to the actual point of the letter. Things haven't changed that much.
Most Politicians are the same but they practice to deceive the ignorant masses by obfuscation and PR sound bites or accusations aided by a Bias media who refuse to call them on falsehoods.
Orwell's 1984 was ultimately about the destruction of the English language, which is proceeding apace. It's destruction is one of the larger reasons civil discourse is collapsing.
Lincoln: (Speaking to a group of freed Black men - 1862) “You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both…as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence.... It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated.” !
@@claudefields5941 NOTHING...nothing at all wrong black living among black. Racial identity is god's will. HE made different races and intended each respective race to live among their *own* ppl. No genius is needed to see this. This forced integration system has been a complete catastrophe.
Folk’s Lincoln was talking to people that had just been freed I guess and 3/4 couldn’t read or write, because they had been slaves all their lives. Suddenly they are free and dropped off, and most just went back to farming or menial labor.?
@@les3449some people as above still believe high school history and take it as truth. They lack initiative to go outside what they have learned. People who follow blindly are ignorant.
Beating around the bush and not getting to the point while writing a letter seemed to be an art unto itself during the mid 19th century. Good God man just say it.
This video proves 2 important facts. First, holding on to slavery was the cause of the South losing. England and France would have rushed too help the South if they gradually emancipated the slaves. The second is that Lee wanted to fight for slavery, which he did not. Lee’s opinion of the fighting abilities of black troops is far beyond both the American Armies of Ww1 and Ww2.
A TOTAL LIE!!!!GENERAL LEE…ONE MOST HUMBLE AND GOD FEARING MAN..IN USA HISTORY..READ THE PATRIOTS BIBLE…ABSOLUTELY TRUE-UNLIKE THIS MALARKEY FROM HELL.DR.BRYANT LANE ORDAINED MINISTER 41 YEARS AND NOVICE BUT SERIOUS HISTORY BUFF…CALLED RESEARCH AND THINKING THROUGH THE FACTS…FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS AND CANNOT BE CHANGED.
That's because they did little to nothing else but read and write all day. Today, we're bombarded with many activities and media platforms. A 24 hour day appears miniscule at best.
The question is, when did this correspondence take place? From what I know of Lee's opinion of slavery, while he had owned a few slaves, mostly inherited) he was not really in favor of it- considering it a evil for whites. My understanding is, when his wife inherited Arlington, she also inherited about 200 slaves, and they were supposed to be manumitted 5 years after the will went into effect. He attempted to do it earlier for at least some, but apparently was barred from doing so by Virginia law. He in fact did do so as soon as he legally could in 1862, when it was pretty much a moot point anyway
So Lee's opinion was to use Black troops before the Federal government did. He never said "Kill them all" as your race baiting, inflammatory, bigoted title implies.
My guess would be the letter was written sometime during '42 - '43, by which time the war had become, to a degree, a war of attritional mass, and the South's position increasingly desperate.
@@georgefitzhugh5408 Yeah, seems pretty delusional to be talking of such things so late. Anyway, apparently I was way off... Glad I stated clearly it was a guess!
Lee actually opposed slavery. He was asked to lead the Union Army at the out set of the war. Lee inherited 189 slaves from his father in law. Lee freed them. The national archives has letters Lee wrote condemning slavery including a letter to his wife.
That's not true. Actually Lee and his wife owned slaves. It is factual that Lee was brutal to his slaves. He speaks about Christianity but chose not to live by the word of God. He was everything but a gentleman or Christian.
@@williamanderson1091Lee was a very good and intelligent man. He was imperfect. This was a system that all people were born into. Very few white people were slaveholders. A small wealthy population owned slaves. This was a brutal war. Following the war, The entire south lived in abject poverty until the end of WW2.
Lee had to be told by courts in 1857 and 1862 to give up his slaves. He also only considered arming blacks once he needed more troops than could be rounded up through conscription. He worked his slaves harder than normal, in the eyes of his fellow slaveowners.
Lee was a visionary whose opinions on this subject should have been adopted much earlier in the war. Slavery was dying institution in the Western world. It is to the South's detriment that this fact was not recognized earlier. Perhaps, the Civil War could have been averted or its damage lessened. It's a crying shame that so many died when they didn't have to do so.
Please reference the opinions of black soldiers during later wars. In fact, blacks were not even allowed to fight at the beginning of WW1. They were thought to be incapable. The French asked for our black troops and were given 2 battalions. These two battalions were feared by the Germans and the most decorated units of the war
The very few Foundational Black American soldiers that served in the Confederate Army were for the most part FORCED to serve in the Confederate Army under the threat of death and they were placed on the front lines like firing targets They were not allowed to protect himself with arms. At first the Confederate Army told Foundational Black American soldiers that they would be freed if they served but then the Confederate Army took their word back. So of course no person and they right mine woukd fight for an army that has raped, robbed murdered and enslaved them and their ancestors for hundreds of years. Also the Confederate Army should be named the Army of traitors to enslavement of fellow human beings because that's exactly what they were. #FBA-#ADOS-#FREEDMEN-#CUTTHECHECK-#B1-#REPARATIONS
Nathan Bedford Forrest had several Black men in his Cavalry. He was a slave owner and trader, yet had no qualm with them fighting alongside him. After the war, he said "Those boys stood by me through thick and thin, better Confederates never lived". There were somewhere around 18000 Black men who wore the grey, near as i can tell. A lot of these had been under arms long before it was officially allowed in 1865. This was because many of the unit commanders did it on their own initiative, lime Forrest did. The attitude was "I need soldiers, to hell with it, if they're willing to shoulder a pack, pick up a rifle and go into the fire, I'll sign 'em on, I need men! ". They served alongside White soldiers in most cases, no segregation in the Confederate Army as in the Union. I do remember hearing about all Black units of free men of color (as they were known then) from Louisiana, but the segregation there was voluntary. They ate the same shitty rations, got the same pay (yeah, the money was worthless, but they got the same pay), suffered the same hardship and privation their White counterparts did. After the war, they were welcome at the unit reunions as any other veteran, I've also read they'd stayed at the same hotels and dined at the same table with their White comrades in arms during the post-war reunions. Mind you, this being in the Jim Crow South when color lines just weren't crossed. This seems to be an issue the freaks people out. You'd have to wonder "Why on earth would a Black man fight for the Confederacy?". Think of it this way, why did millions of Black men and women out on the suit during WWII? They lived in a segregated nation and were reduced to second class citizen status. I suspect a lot of it was "Yeah, it's far from perfect, but it is home, it's the only country I've got".
Don't forget WWI, where more hundreds of thousands of black Americans volunteered to risk their lives serving their nation in the highest regard that any man may serve. But that was for a different country, wasn't it? This context is the Civil War. For the sake of argument, I'll concede you all you said about Forrest, if you concede that he was the anomaly, the exception. That if Forrest was one out of 100, the other 99 wouldn't dream of arming slaves and would publicly thump the melon of any white man that suggested it. Agreed? I'll assume yes. You forgot one aspect in your last offering of why many black men put the uniform on for WWI and WWII. Equality. They took the same risks as the white man so that they may draw up to equality with the white man, especially in the eyes of the government which called for men in the first place. This is where your Forrest example gets benched. The institution of slavery had a solid foundation of inequality supporting it. Forrest trusted his men enough to arm them, but most of the confederacy saw blacks as inferior. A slightly smaller number than most thought arming negroes would give them opportunity to rebel and fight for their freedom, as had happened in Haiti and with Nat Turner. Then there's the other factor. You guessed around 18,000 black men served the confederacy directly. While I think this number an over estimation, I'll use it nonetheless and ask you: why did more than ten times that number volunteer for service in the Union Army? Countless numbers of them, lacking the trust of an N.B. Forrest, risked life and limb to escape the south specifically to join the Union army. Your answer to why blacks would fight for the confederacy is inaccurate and the inaccuracy shows your bias. Quite obviously it was not the only country they had. During the civil war the country was split in two, with one ersatz country seeking to maintain their status of slavery, while the other primary country sought to eliminate it. In a country that was eliminating slavery, service in that country's army seemed to offer 'equality'. In the post-war south, once confederates controlled their state governments, equality was the primary attribute they sought to deny emancipated blacks. The white supremacy embedded in your post was the main fuel for the segregation and second-class existence they put up with. They knew the 'whole nation' wasn't that way however and with each subsequent war they felt, 'maybe this time' risking all as soldiers do, will be enough to gain equality, not advantage, not better-than, not hand out and not affirmative action... just equality. After some 30,000 blacks gave their lives to save the nation; the fact that that same nation's military took 80+ years just to integrate its ranks, while the states and counties many of them called home still segregated, disenfranchised and frequently assaulted and murdered them, meant they still had some way to go.
Very few did. But you have to remember that these weren't people with free access to information. They couldn't get a copy of the emancipation proclamation, read it and know what it meant. That said, it's 2024. I'm African American as well. I don't understand why so many of my people sell drugs to our own community, rob and loot our own stores, kill our own children, rape our own women etc. I personally know someone in the hospital shot by a stray bullet for what?
If a slave didn't have the full information of what's going on it could have been enticing to some of them. Information moved slower back in the 1800s and if you were a slave and presented with an opportunity for you and your family to be free by enlisting with the Confederacy, it might seem enticing to join if you didn't have awareness of the war dynamics where the Confederacy was struggling and about to be defeated. The Juneteenth celebration is actually a observance of slaves in Texas finding out they were free more than 2 months after the Civil War ended. Despite moving slower back then, information did get out which is why very few slaves took the bait to join the Confederacy
Amazing how history repeats itself. This conversation could have taken place between Roman leaders about if the Germanic slave tribes should serve in the Legions.
I don’t know where the source is from, but I do know that what is being attributed to Lee in this video is false. This letter is actually from Confederate General Pat Cleburne…not Lee. Jefferson Davis and the Confederate administration did receive the letter, and they were so upset with the suggestion that Davis tabled the idea and never brought it up for debate.
It's not which news agency broach the topic but more so the equality of the factual answer. Ask yourself is democracy for the few or the many? If answered for that point primarily no further answers are required
@@quixote51 wrong, wrong!-- the media is untruthful with an agenda purposely slanted to the far left, this has been going on for years, they must just report the facts, NO personal opinions
@@richardstephens5570 1 Peter 2:16 16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 1 Corinthians 7:21 21 Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you-although if you can gain your freedom, do so. 1 Timothy 1:10 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers-and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine These verses tell immorality of slavery. The Bible is confusing because it conflicts itself, but these clearly state it’s wrong. Also the Bible says to treat slaves well, how did Lee and his peers in the south treat there slaves? With sexual abuse, branding and lynching any slave who dared escape?
The Emacipaton Proclamations effect on the Civil War often gets overlooked. The document became effective more than two years before the end of the war. Most focus on how it freed the slaves in areas in rebelllion essentially the confederacy. The other thing that it did was to allow for the enlistment of more than 200K black soldiers for the Union forces. The Union was eventually able to get to 2 million soldiers whereas the Confederates peaked at 1 million. The proclamation also led to many slaves leaving their southern plantations or refusing to work. This took away a large portion of supplies and support that the south relied on. Many slaves simply ran way abandoning the plantations. Many slaves had been workng as cooks, etc for the Confederate army. The confederates lost a good deal of this support. Former slaves also served as spies. Essentially the proclamaton reeked havoc on the south and the confederate Army. Lee and many southerners inially were against black soldiers since it would be hard or impossible to return them to slavery after the war.
this is a great post--the Emancipation Proclamation was indeed a serious document that was the beginning of the ending of the South. The only thing I would add is that it was also a PR move that linked the Union to Abolition and made the European supporters of the CSA. like the UK, drop their support as the UK was anti slavery.
The legacy of the Haitian slave rebellion has had a profound effect on America which is the main standard bearer of white supremacy. Consider the 2nd amendment, the siege of vickberg, the treatment of black soldiers in ww1 and ww2, the financial contribution by wealthy southern in moving black people to Liberia, Lincoln 's plan to find a place in which to settle black people, and etc were inspired by black people slaughtering those white slavers in Sainte Dominique. Even today, those thoughts still haunt America like a spectre that cannot be exorcized
Yes, the slaves in Haiti slaughtered 25000 whites in a few days and repelled several European attempts to re enslave them--Haiti was a nightmare for the US South--a remainder that some of the violence and death they meted out to the enslaved people might come back on the oppressors.
Evidently, he thought a lot of them. A very dynamic force, with a powerful impact one way or the other. Indecisiveness on the topic amounted to a certain loss for the south...
I wouldn't say it's in decisive because how practical would it have turned out.. you really think at the end of the day you're going to get a large enough force of slaves to fight for themselves to continue to be slaves LOL
@@bronxbomerpito7286 They could have had a chance if they could have used the narrative of a controlled but expeditious transition from slavery with property and employment strategies and painted Lincoln and the north as unjust, unwarranted invaders. They were a separate culture and could have relied on theirhuman relationships. Neverforget many slave were the offspring of slave masters. The economics involved would have been enough to sustain them through a a controlled situation with far less lives and property losses than their lost cause of unjust opulence...
@@MacroX1231 LOL, many a slave were the offspring of slave masters?! Are you for real? They sold their little biracial kids all the time. SOLD THEM. Most of those mixed race people were not treated special and their white parentage was NOT acknowledged. They sometimes worked in the house or yard but they were still enslaved.
@@MacroX1231what? Many of the black soldiers who fought for the north had recently moved there from (you guessed it) the south, also why would they fight for being slowly integrated when Lincoln promised immediate freedom? Although Lincoln couldn’t start his plan
As a young man in college I read about this nonsense and laughed out loud during class. White people back then were so backward it's hard to believe slavery lasted centuries. The idea that you would think Black people who are held in bondage would then fight to save your way of life shows how we were perceived as less than human. As soon as enough southern black men had guns they would have started shooting white folks. There is a reason why written history illustrates how brave and efficient Black soldiers fought for the North. Many who signed up did so not realizing they would be paid. Many were ready to fight for free. But they were paid, and paid so poorly it was almost a free service.
Black soldiers fighting to keep slavery, Stonewall Jackson is like putting dirty clothes on the church wall mean Black are not good enough to fight to keep himself in slavery
@@johngaither9263 Lee at least got TO THE POINT. This guy walked the fence so bad, to come down on the right side of an argument. Thing Lee was saying, was slavery was pretty much over, either us defending it or the north stopping it. But the south wasn't going to stop it, due they would have made peace at Hampton Rds.
So, Robert E. Lee was a man of morals, and he obviously fretted over the dilemma. Clearly, he didn't want to force slaves to fight in battles, whereas the North freely used them as pawns. Nor did he like the idea of the North using blacks for that purpose. It would be like that invading army using children as human shields. General Lee did not want to shoot at innocent people. You never hear of any Northerners regretfully using black soldiers in the Civil War. In fact, the Northerners were proud of their immoral acts. Invasion, Assimilation, Insurrection, Sherman's March of Firey Destruction, etc. Looting, Killing, Rape, and Spreading Lies were the weapons of the North. If anyone is not aware, the North benefitted financially from slavery. Not the South. Human trafficking was conducted by the North. You won't find any records of Southerners selling slaves to Cuba or Columbia. Otherwise, they would be titles of chapters in history books. So many misinformed people love to point their fingers at the South.
Stonewall Jackson actually taught black children in his Sunday school. He went around to slave owners and actually convinced them to allow their slaves to attend because he felt that it was cruel not to allow them to learn about God. This was at a time when allowing blacks formal learning was not just frowned upon, but in many areas of the South, illegal. People writing about Jackson rarely mention this.
My dude, the Bible is disgustingly pro-slavery. Of course a slaver like Jackson would want his slaves and neighbors' slaves to learn about the BibIe. It would make them more accepting of their lot in life. 1 Peter 2 - 18 "Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh."
For some context, these letters were written in January 1865. Lee's proposal to allow the use of black troops was adopted on March 13, 1865. The Civil War was over less than a month later on April 9th, 1865. Lee's emancipation proclamation was signed January 1, 1863. So for two years The first black soldiers were enlisted February 1863. So for two years the Confederates had seen the results of the union using black troops and, on the bring of collapse, they decided to try it themselves.
I saw the movie Gone With The Wind and I was shocked to think that those big black men said they was going to dig for the South. They said they would stop those Yankees.
The novel "Gone With the Wind" (1936), by Atlanta native Margaret Mitchell, is not a documentary-quality historical novel; it is a historical romance, written by an author soaked in a 'Lost Cause' environment that took (and to this day takes) for granted that enslaved people did not mind being slaves because that life was grand, or sweet, or somehow, despite the lack of freedom and abundant hardships and attitudes against them, appreciated by the enslaved. So of course those big, black, enslaved men would say that in the novel-- and in the film (which was remarkably faithful to the novel).
Bobby Lee hated anything black, only reason why he would have considered using black soldiers was because how effective he saw black soldiers were in the field. The system of white supremacy that the southern society was built on was the major obstacle to incorporating black soldiers into confederate ranks. Some confederate states even threatened to leave the confederacy if this was done. So..bobby Lee was hampered with other states not wanting to see this, but in the end we did see some black troops being drilled in the streets of Sumter S.C. in the spring of 1865.
Alot of slaves were put to work in the Confederate Army as Engineers, digging entrenchments and building wooden bridges. Their issued weapons were usually a pick & shovel.
Title is a lie, not ever mentioned in the otherwise good content. Change the clickbait thumbnail and get legitimate views for your content and not your race baiting lie of a thumbnail.
*WE HAVE TO FIGHT and CONTINUE TO FIGHT FOR REPARATIONS.* More than 180,000 Brave Black American men served as Soldiers in the *U.S. Army (Union Army) and fought for Freedom in the Civil War*. This was over 10 percent of the total Union fighting force. Most-about 90,000-were former enslaved Black Americans from the Confederate states. About half of the rest were from the loyal border states, and the rest were free Black Americans from the North. Also Black Americans comprised 25% of the Union U.S Navy. Yet, only one percent of the Northern population was African American. Clearly overrepresented in the military, African Americans played a decisive role in winning the Civil War. African Americans fought in every major campaign and battle during the last two years of the war earning 25 Medals of Honor. U.S. Black Troop regiments captured Charleston, the Cradle of Secession, and Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. Lincoln recognized their contributions. He declared, “Without the military help of the Black freedmen, the war against the South could not have been won.” And without the Emancipation Proclamation, these soldiers and sailors would have had little reason to fight for the Union. 80,000 Black soldiers died fighting in the Civil war.
How is the title clickbait? It states "what General Lee thinks. " It doesn't say what he thinks. Have to watch the video for that. I take it those who claim clickbait did not like what the content in the video gave us. Lee's letters and public statements before vs after the war or what audience it was intended for might make his words or ideas different. Whoo on here is scholarly enough to study his lifetime of letters or statements to know what he thought???
Lee opposed the country being split into 2 and he freed all the slaves he ever had and viewed slavery as a barbaric act. Lincoln asked Lee first to be head general of the entire Union army but refused because he wouldn't fight his own state.
Who here, in all honesty was compelled by a desire to comprehend in all totality the intention of this correspondence and whom herein with great fortitude was made to reprise each section twice or thrice till the words were understood or at least coherent. Translation: who had to play back each sentence 2 or 3 times to understand wth they’re talking about.
Lee said he couldn't bring himself to fight against his home state of Virginia. That is why he fought on the side of the south. The war was about states rights vs federal rights. The south fought for states rights.
Robert E. Lee opposed slavery from a philosophical perspective yet was powerless to make substantial changes systemically. Lee called slavery a moral and political evil. Yet, while both Lee and his wife were disgusted with slavery, they also defended the South against abolitionist demands for immediate emancipation for all enslaved.
An estimated 20 to 40 thousand black men fought for the Confederacy. 200 thousand plus were in logistics (freight drivers, cooks, bridge building etc) they also served in many of the home guards. This AI-generated mis-representing of history is very dangerous.
Wrong. BS. No more than 30,000 African-Americans served in any positions within the CSA Army. By the Conscription Acts of 1862, they were limited to non-combatant roles. The CSA Congress did not pass a law allowing the recruiting of African-Americans for combat duty until January 1865. Only two companies were initially formed in Richmond. At their first drill, white women and children threw refuse at them. Both companies disappeared during the retreat to Appomattox. The non-combatant positions were some time filled by free men of color, but usually, especially teamsters hired by the CSA War Department, were slaves hired from their owners. (ie. the owners were paid, not the slaves). There were three major surrenders of Confederate armies during the war, and at Vicksburg and Appomattox, the number of slaves holding non-combatant positions did not exceed 22,000. There were a large number of fortifications built by slaves locally and temporarily hired from their owners. The states were restricted by the Militia Act of 1792 as amended and accepted as law by the CSA Congress to white males between 17 and 55. There were no Home Guard African-Americans because most were running away to the US Army by 1863. Over 150,000 African-Americans served as free men in the US Army, along with 50,000 serving as teamsters and in other non-combatant jobs. Over 30,000 served in the USN.
Using slaves as soldiers is not unusual in history. The Turks took Greek boys as slaves. Raised them as Muslims and trained from childhood to be slaves. The were then used to suppress the the Greek population and expands the Ottoman deep into Eastern Europe. Alexander used many slave soldiers for his empire building. These are just two examples of a common practice over the centuries by many empires..
The South should have freed the slaves and then fired on fort Sumner that way the north couldn't say they were fighting to free the slaves then I would have started recruiting them for the southern army the South where the probably won
Three or four sentences could have been the totality of that conversation, and been far more plain. I understood it all, but, it was a flowery verbose way to get it said. I think it was important to them to sound highly intellectual to one another. It is no wonder some officers misunderstood orders given before or during battles. A sparsely worded but direct and emphatic command, would have been far clearer than that nonsense, when writing out orders.
Some but not a lot. Southern whites were generally very poor. Many conscripts for the confederacy didn't own boots. Situations varied. Some native indians were slave holders such as Cherokee and Seminole. After slavery ended blacks took up indian culture and amalgamated into the indian way of life. Many indians and blacks had children together. It's sort of a mixed but i am well versed. I have also traced my family history and all the descendants I've found never owned slaves. Some of mt Irish descendants were however indentured servants to German people as a fee for passage. I am well versed on my American history. The majority of slaves were owned by a small wealthy group. In the south , wealth was in real estate and slave holding , and durable goods as opposed to gold and cash. It is a long and complex topic.
That would have been rich. Black men fighting with the men that were fighting to keep them in bondage. Glad white southern men would never allow that to happen.
Hey, the same white men who owned 20 slaves excused themselves from military service. Replacing themselves with boys as you as 13 and old men up to 60. The rich who owned slaves were benefiting all the way around. I guess that is why there were so many guerilla bands of southerners against the CSA.
They weren't fighting to keep them in bondage moron... Slavery remained Legal all over the U.S. Lincoln only free Those in states he controlled so he could use them as yankee soldiers. Also... Free and Slave Black men fought for the South Individually anyway alongside Their white Brethren. Its very Well documented... all you have to do is pick up a book and learn to read.
@@TheGuitarReb Beautiful way on putting that!! You post helps to explain the seemingly _cognitive dissonance_ of why a black man would fight for the south. They were fighting for their homeland. End of story.
This black soldier issue has a wrong context...freedom in the North, Enslaved in the South - meaning the issue isn't understood. There was no need for blacks to engage in combat for the Confederacy, because working on the Plantations kept them alive and they weren't subject to Prisoner of War camps, starving to death next to being made cripples or killed in action. Another issue that made the Plantations a very good deal to stay on, was the tactical objective of the Union to wage total war against the helpless Confederacy. This total war was called: SCORCHED EARTH. The Southern people were burned, killed, raped and were kicked out of their homes and starved. After the war the starvation continued as the Union held food supplies back. The life expectancy rate on the Plantations was rising ever more during the war and after the Victory of the Union. The black Union soldiers in comparison risked their lifes for a fragile promise of emancipation that never appeared in their lifes, being killed in action, taken to a prisoners camp, or surviving the war as cripples. Hence there were not too many blacks that had an interest to fight for the Confederacy. But that would change in the future, as the first world war approached. Book Reference: War Crimes Against Southern Civilians by Walter Cisco. /// A Study In American Freemasonry by Arthur Preuss. /// The Rape Of Justice by Eustace Mullins. /// Mullins New History Of The J's by Eustace Mullins. ///
All men and women alike may be condition to be infantry soldiers, it's a matter of time, resources and attitudes of trainers and recruits during war or peace.
Well the title wasn't mention at all but the crux of the message was sour when concerning the slaves basically: we will chide them to believe in a cause of freedom and when its all over back to work as usual.
Lol…that’s not Robert E. Lee’s correspondence. That’s from General Patrick Cleburne. Lee and Davis were horrified when this letter made the rounds. It shocked the Confederate administration so badly that Davis shoved that letter in a drawer and never responded to it.
@@bigshagg3815 of course. The notion that Lee would’ve put rifles in the hands of slaves is highly risible. Come on. The guy was a dyed in the wool Virginian. He would’ve never let anyone darker than a paper bag anywhere near a rifle. After all, he knew how he himself had treated slaves.
That has to be the wordiest letter in history. The man obviously loved to write
If those blacks could read and write, they would have wanted to become writers too.
The confederate government did not allow blacks to be soldiers until January 1865. By then it was way too late for them to have any effect on the outcome of the war. Those blacks in the areas already occupied by union forces were considerable and had no interest in returning to and serving the south again. About 180,000 volunteered for the union army. In an attempt to gather volunteers the confederacy was barely able to recruit a single regiment. Lee pointed out how offering freedom for their service would merely accomplish what Lincoln desired in the first place.
Nathan Bedford Forrest's body guards were BLACK Confederates. He did not have the elite officer attitude because he was not a graduate of West Point. R.E. Lee was former Headmaster of West Point. Some of Gen. Nat's white troopers were more afraid of him than they were of the Yankees.
Lee was the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.
Forrest was in the Army of Tennessee, and not of the Virginia elite class.
Government is controlled by those with power. The Civil War was also known as "The Rich Man's War".
There were several races and ethnic groups that served for the Confederacy.
The victorious wrote the history, and wanted people world wide to believe that it was all about slavery and nothing else.
ie: Russia vs. Ukraine
@@TheGuitarReb Interesting. But Nathan Bedford Forrest went on to become a founder of the KKK, of the Night Riders, to spread terror and keep blacks down and cringing after the Civil War. NBF was brutal. Lee preached graciousness...
That didn't stop the individual states from employing them, which they did. The Confederate national government didn't control the Southern states like the Union's federal government.
@@les3449 True that. The South was represented on the field of battle by the CSA forces (Confederate States of America) which we are all familiar with, but also the PAOV (Provisional Army of Virginia) and other groups which had separate command structures. Jefferson Davis tried the duration of the wary to introduce more efficient command structures, but the South was always behind the Union in that respect.
@@heyfitzpablum OK, but I was referring to the individual states which had a lot of control over their own regiments as opposed to the Confederate national government. I don't necessarily agree with your assessment about Confederate command structure since most of the Confederate commanders AND president were USMA graduates. Their armies structure was a product of West Point just like their Union counterparts. And those states allowed various regiments to field armed Black companies of combat troops early in the war. I believe as the war went on those Black troops integrated into the white units and all Black units were disbanded, probably due, at least in part, to a constant shortage of stands of arms (musket, bayonet, cartridge box and cap box) which would obviously go to White units first. There ARE records of Black soldiers being armed in White units. Don't forget though, a soldier is still a
soldier if he is in a support role as armies ALWAYS have more troops in combat support than in actual combat. When I was in the Army it was calculated that there were seven support troops for every combat soldier.
That quote, "Just kill them all was NOT from Robert E. Lee! It was actually from Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. And even he did NOT refer to black soldiers from either side, but rather, referred to Union soldiers profaning (putting dirty words on) church walls!
Thank you!
More like William Anderson, Stonewall Jackson was a Christian Zealot or it may have been Union Gen. Phillip Sheridan killing Indians.
The early and often overlooked existence of graffiti 😂!
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was a religious fanatic and would NEVER utter such non-sense!
He did however take his school cadets, arm them and send them into battle because "God told him to" I'm so glad I did not live in those times and my child was not one of his cadet's.
@TheGuitarReb The Cadets fought at the Battle of New Market in April of 1864. Stonewall Jackson died on May 2, 1863. Breckinridge who was the youngest Vice President to Serve in the Office was the General that reluctantly sent the VMI Cadets to plug the line at the Battle of New Market. The Cadets themselves decided to Charge across a muddy freshly plowed field. Their shoes got stuck in the mud. They changed a Artillery Battery that was hitting the Confederate Line's. They caused the Union Retreat and the Confederates won the Battle. The Battle of New Market is a story of Honor and Bravery. The Fallen Cadets are Honored every year at the VMI.
You can tell this gentleman was a politician. So many words spun in so many directions before getting to the actual point of the letter. Things haven't changed that much.
Victorians were SO long-winded!! Nobody can seem to get to the point! 😅
Most Politicians are the same but they practice to deceive the ignorant masses by obfuscation and PR sound bites or accusations aided by a Bias media who refuse to call them on falsehoods.
Oh my God the first dude spent 4 and 1/2 minutes trying to start to get to the point LOL..
Just what I was thinking.. What the hell is he talking about??😂😂
They sound quite stately improper. More importantly, intelligent.
Orwell's 1984 was ultimately about the destruction of the English language, which is proceeding apace. It's destruction is one of the larger reasons civil discourse is collapsing.
Lincoln: (Speaking to a group of freed Black men - 1862) “You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both…as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence.... It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated.” !
Lincoln's biological father was a half-breed Indian by the name of Abraham Enloe. His step father was Tom Lincoln, a near-do-well drunkard.
That’s right.
Lincoln stated the Case for Seperation that Elijah Muhammad made..and Minister Farrakhan made in a Speech last Week...
@@claudefields5941 NOTHING...nothing at all wrong black living among black. Racial identity is god's will. HE made different races and intended each respective race to live among their *own* ppl. No genius is needed to see this. This forced integration system has been a complete catastrophe.
Folk’s Lincoln was talking to people that had just been freed I guess and 3/4 couldn’t read or write, because they had been slaves all their lives. Suddenly they are free and dropped off, and most just went back to farming or menial labor.?
The click bait title does the video no just it actually was interesting
Blacks were in the Army Of N. Virginia - as whatever you want to call them. Blacks did receive CSA pensions.
No.
Wrong.
You're right on both counts.
@@ZOMBII11 it is you and LawrenceRoss1906 that are wrong.
@@les3449some people as above still believe high school history and take it as truth. They lack initiative to go outside what they have learned. People who follow blindly are ignorant.
That lawyer @0:18 reminds me a bit of Bill Murray.
I thought the same thing.
He was" Bill Murray 's" great grandfather " Ellijah, funny man." Murray!
GREAT call!
Beating around the bush and not getting to the point while writing a letter seemed to be an art unto itself during the mid 19th century. Good God man just say it.
The title if this video is misleading and a lie.
This video proves 2 important facts. First, holding on to slavery was the cause of the South losing. England and France would have rushed too help the South if they gradually emancipated the slaves. The second is that Lee wanted to fight for slavery, which he did not. Lee’s opinion of the fighting abilities of black troops is far beyond both the American Armies of Ww1 and Ww2.
Yes, it is.
A TOTAL LIE!!!!GENERAL LEE…ONE MOST HUMBLE AND GOD FEARING MAN..IN USA HISTORY..READ THE PATRIOTS BIBLE…ABSOLUTELY TRUE-UNLIKE THIS MALARKEY FROM HELL.DR.BRYANT LANE ORDAINED MINISTER 41 YEARS AND NOVICE BUT SERIOUS HISTORY BUFF…CALLED RESEARCH AND THINKING THROUGH THE FACTS…FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS AND CANNOT BE CHANGED.
How do you kno was you alive back than hell we All just go by what we read
You say the title is a lie, So Robert E. Lee didn't "think" anything about Black people at all?
This shows how long winded educated people were in those days, in their written correspondence.
That's because they did little to nothing else but read and write all day. Today, we're bombarded with many activities and media platforms. A 24 hour day appears miniscule at best.
You said it! Jeezus H. Christ! Get to the point and STFU.🤣
The question is, when did this correspondence take place?
From what I know of Lee's opinion of slavery, while he had owned a few slaves, mostly inherited) he was not really in favor of it- considering it a evil for whites.
My understanding is, when his wife inherited Arlington, she also inherited about 200 slaves, and they were supposed to be manumitted 5 years after the will went into effect. He attempted to do it earlier for at least some, but apparently was barred from doing so by Virginia law. He in fact did do so as soon as he legally could in 1862, when it was pretty much a moot point anyway
So Lee's opinion was to use Black troops before the Federal government did. He never said "Kill them all" as your race baiting, inflammatory, bigoted title implies.
My guess would be the letter was written sometime during '42 - '43, by which time the war had become, to a degree, a war of attritional mass, and the South's position increasingly desperate.
Lee's reply was 11 Jan. 1865, rather late in the War. Hunter's letter was 7 Jan. 1865. Rather too late to change the outcome of the war.
@@georgefitzhugh5408 Indeed. Still found it interesting that they did in fact start to raise units with slaves a couple of months afterwards
@@georgefitzhugh5408 Yeah, seems pretty delusional to be talking of such things so late. Anyway, apparently I was way off... Glad I stated clearly it was a guess!
Lee actually opposed slavery. He was asked to lead the Union Army at the out set of the war. Lee inherited 189 slaves from his father in law. Lee freed them. The national archives has letters Lee wrote condemning slavery including a letter to his wife.
Lol…Lee opposed slavery like I oppose barbecue.
That's not true. Actually Lee and his wife owned slaves. It is factual that Lee was brutal to his slaves. He speaks about Christianity but chose not to live by the word of God. He was everything but a gentleman or Christian.
What are you smoking?
@@williamanderson1091Lee was a very good and intelligent man. He was imperfect. This was a system that all people were born into. Very few white people were slaveholders. A small wealthy population owned slaves. This was a brutal war. Following the war, The entire south lived in abject poverty until the end of WW2.
Lee had to be told by courts in 1857 and 1862 to give up his slaves. He also only considered arming blacks once he needed more troops than could be rounded up through conscription. He worked his slaves harder than normal, in the eyes of his fellow slaveowners.
I'm an African American and he was my relative. I'm soooo indifferent to him.
He put my favorite guy John Brown to the Gallows 😪.
Brown murdered blacks who refused to help him.
Imagine fighting for a country where you had absolutely no rights as a human being whatsoever. Crazy when you think about it..
Lee was a visionary whose opinions on this subject should have been adopted much earlier in the war. Slavery was dying institution in the Western world. It is to the South's detriment that this fact was not recognized earlier. Perhaps, the Civil War could have been averted or its damage lessened. It's a crying shame that so many died when they didn't have to do so.
It may have been dying in the western world, but not in the American South. Not even close.
Lee was a slave owner who fought to preserve slavery. He was NOT the anti-Hitler German general .
Isn't it always the case?
Slavery was not even close to dying in the US. It was becoming more profitable. Why the South seceded and went to war.
The north had factory slaves
So the content of the article is entirely different from the title. Well, that has never happened before.
Please reference the opinions of black soldiers during later wars. In fact, blacks were not even allowed to fight at the beginning of WW1. They were thought to be incapable. The French asked for our black troops and were given 2 battalions. These two battalions were feared by the Germans and the most decorated units of the war
The very few Foundational Black American soldiers that served in the Confederate Army were for the most part FORCED to serve in the Confederate Army under the threat of death and they were placed on the front lines like firing targets They were not allowed to protect himself with arms. At first the Confederate Army told Foundational Black American soldiers that they would be freed if they served but then the Confederate Army took their word back. So of course no person and they right mine woukd fight for an army that has raped, robbed murdered and enslaved them and their ancestors for hundreds of years.
Also the Confederate Army should be named the Army of traitors to enslavement of fellow human beings because that's exactly what they were.
#FBA-#ADOS-#FREEDMEN-#CUTTHECHECK-#B1-#REPARATIONS
Nathan Bedford Forrest had several Black men in his Cavalry. He was a slave owner and trader, yet had no qualm with them fighting alongside him. After the war, he said "Those boys stood by me through thick and thin, better Confederates never lived".
There were somewhere around 18000 Black men who wore the grey, near as i can tell. A lot of these had been under arms long before it was officially allowed in 1865.
This was because many of the unit commanders did it on their own initiative, lime Forrest did. The attitude was "I need soldiers, to hell with it, if they're willing to shoulder a pack, pick up a rifle and go into the fire, I'll sign 'em on, I need men! ".
They served alongside White soldiers in most cases, no segregation in the Confederate Army as in the Union. I do remember hearing about all Black units of free men of color (as they were known then) from Louisiana, but the segregation there was voluntary.
They ate the same shitty rations, got the same pay (yeah, the money was worthless, but they got the same pay), suffered the same hardship and privation their White counterparts did.
After the war, they were welcome at the unit reunions as any other veteran, I've also read they'd stayed at the same hotels and dined at the same table with their White comrades in arms during the post-war reunions. Mind you, this being in the Jim Crow South when color lines just weren't crossed.
This seems to be an issue the freaks people out. You'd have to wonder "Why on earth would a Black man fight for the Confederacy?".
Think of it this way, why did millions of Black men and women out on the suit during WWII? They lived in a segregated nation and were reduced to second class citizen status. I suspect a lot of it was "Yeah, it's far from perfect, but it is home, it's the only country I've got".
Don't forget WWI, where more hundreds of thousands of black Americans volunteered to risk their lives serving their nation in the highest regard that any man may serve. But that was for a different country, wasn't it? This context is the Civil War.
For the sake of argument, I'll concede you all you said about Forrest, if you concede that he was the anomaly, the exception. That if Forrest was one out of 100, the other 99 wouldn't dream of arming slaves and would publicly thump the melon of any white man that suggested it. Agreed? I'll assume yes.
You forgot one aspect in your last offering of why many black men put the uniform on for WWI and WWII. Equality. They took the same risks as the white man so that they may draw up to equality with the white man, especially in the eyes of the government which called for men in the first place. This is where your Forrest example gets benched. The institution of slavery had a solid foundation of inequality supporting it. Forrest trusted his men enough to arm them, but most of the confederacy saw blacks as inferior. A slightly smaller number than most thought arming negroes would give them opportunity to rebel and fight for their freedom, as had happened in Haiti and with Nat Turner.
Then there's the other factor. You guessed around 18,000 black men served the confederacy directly. While I think this number an over estimation, I'll use it nonetheless and ask you: why did more than ten times that number volunteer for service in the Union Army? Countless numbers of them, lacking the trust of an N.B. Forrest, risked life and limb to escape the south specifically to join the Union army. Your answer to why blacks would fight for the confederacy is inaccurate and the inaccuracy shows your bias. Quite obviously it was not the only country they had. During the civil war the country was split in two, with one ersatz country seeking to maintain their status of slavery, while the other primary country sought to eliminate it. In a country that was eliminating slavery, service in that country's army seemed to offer 'equality'. In the post-war south, once confederates controlled their state governments, equality was the primary attribute they sought to deny emancipated blacks. The white supremacy embedded in your post was the main fuel for the segregation and second-class existence they put up with. They knew the 'whole nation' wasn't that way however and with each subsequent war they felt, 'maybe this time' risking all as soldiers do, will be enough to gain equality, not advantage, not better-than, not hand out and not affirmative action... just equality.
After some 30,000 blacks gave their lives to save the nation; the fact that that same nation's military took 80+ years just to integrate its ranks, while the states and counties many of them called home still segregated, disenfranchised and frequently assaulted and murdered them, meant they still had some way to go.
You're a liar.
Answer this? Why did American Germans, kill German Germans.
Pro Nathan Bedford Forrest propanganda.
When asked why the South fought the Civil War, Forrest replied: "It was to keep our n*gg*rs". Also note Forrest founded the KKK.
I'm black brother and I don't know why they would fight with the confederates to stay in slavery.
Real Talk...
Fear of a punishment worst than death is one of them.
Very few did. But you have to remember that these weren't people with free access to information. They couldn't get a copy of the emancipation proclamation, read it and know what it meant. That said, it's 2024. I'm African American as well. I don't understand why so many of my people sell drugs to our own community, rob and loot our own stores, kill our own children, rape our own women etc. I personally know someone in the hospital shot by a stray bullet for what?
If a slave didn't have the full information of what's going on it could have been enticing to some of them. Information moved slower back in the 1800s and if you were a slave and presented with an opportunity for you and your family to be free by enlisting with the Confederacy, it might seem enticing to join if you didn't have awareness of the war dynamics where the Confederacy was struggling and about to be defeated. The Juneteenth celebration is actually a observance of slaves in Texas finding out they were free more than 2 months after the Civil War ended. Despite moving slower back then, information did get out which is why very few slaves took the bait to join the Confederacy
Amazing how history repeats itself. This conversation could have taken place between Roman leaders about if the Germanic slave tribes should serve in the Legions.
Can anyone give a link to the original source? I found it interesting and would like to see more. Thanks.
I don’t know where the source is from, but I do know that what is being attributed to Lee in this video is false. This letter is actually from Confederate General Pat Cleburne…not Lee. Jefferson Davis and the Confederate administration did receive the letter, and they were so upset with the suggestion that Davis tabled the idea and never brought it up for debate.
The title reminds me of the way the media lies.
Especially, nowadays
You mean Fox and Newsmax? You got that right!
@@Sunbeard.9 no, we mean lying CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, the Washington post, NY times, daily news
It's not which news agency broach the topic but more so the equality of the factual answer. Ask yourself is democracy for the few or the many? If answered for that point primarily no further answers are required
@@quixote51 wrong, wrong!-- the media is untruthful with an agenda purposely slanted to the far left, this has been going on for years, they must just report the facts, NO personal opinions
Lee used the words Chrisian and slavery in the same sentence. Nothing could be more unchristian than Southern slavery
Truth.💯
The Bible is not anti-slavery. Leviticus 25:44-46. Peter 2:18.
@@richardstephens5570 1 Peter 2:16
16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves.
1 Corinthians 7:21
21 Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you-although if you can gain your freedom, do so.
1 Timothy 1:10
10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers-and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine
These verses tell immorality of slavery. The Bible is confusing because it conflicts itself, but these clearly state it’s wrong. Also the Bible says to treat slaves well, how did Lee and his peers in the south treat there slaves? With sexual abuse, branding and lynching any slave who dared escape?
@@Jean_Jacques1489:09
As opposed to Northern slavery?
The Emacipaton Proclamations effect on the Civil War often gets overlooked. The document became effective more than two years before the end of the war. Most focus on how it freed the slaves in areas in rebelllion essentially the confederacy.
The other thing that it did was to allow for the enlistment of more than 200K black soldiers for the Union forces. The Union was eventually able to get to 2 million soldiers whereas the Confederates peaked at 1 million.
The proclamation also led to many slaves leaving their southern plantations or refusing to work. This took away a large portion of supplies and support that the south relied on. Many slaves simply ran way abandoning the plantations. Many slaves had been workng as cooks, etc for the Confederate army. The confederates lost a good deal of this support. Former slaves also served as spies.
Essentially the proclamaton reeked havoc on the south and the confederate Army.
Lee and many southerners inially were against black soldiers since it would be hard or impossible to return them to slavery after the war.
this is a great post--the Emancipation Proclamation was indeed a serious document that was the beginning of the ending of the South. The only thing I would add is that it was also a PR move that linked the Union to Abolition and made the European supporters of the CSA. like the UK, drop their support as the UK was anti slavery.
In the Words of General James Longstreet, "We should have Freed the Slaves an Then Fired on Fort Sumter!"
Did he really say that or was that Tom Berringer?
@@dinahnicest6525 He said it.
@@tonymickens8803Longstreet didn't say it in real
The legacy of the Haitian slave rebellion has had a profound effect on America which is the main standard bearer of white supremacy. Consider the 2nd amendment, the siege of vickberg, the treatment of black soldiers in ww1 and ww2, the financial contribution by wealthy southern in moving black people to Liberia, Lincoln 's plan to find a place in which to settle black people, and etc were inspired by black people slaughtering those white slavers in Sainte Dominique. Even today, those thoughts still haunt America like a spectre that cannot be exorcized
Yes, the slaves in Haiti slaughtered 25000 whites in a few days and repelled several European attempts to re enslave them--Haiti was a nightmare for the US South--a remainder that some of the violence and death they meted out to the enslaved people might come back on the oppressors.
Sadly Nothing has really changed.
Probably one of thee most ignorant comments I have ever read on here.
Congratulations.
You must be miserable.
Evidently, he thought a lot of them. A very dynamic force, with a powerful impact one way or the other. Indecisiveness on the topic amounted to a certain loss for the south...
I wouldn't say it's in decisive because how practical would it have turned out.. you really think at the end of the day you're going to get a large enough force of slaves to fight for themselves to continue to be slaves LOL
@@bronxbomerpito7286 They could have had a chance if they could have used the narrative of a controlled but expeditious transition from slavery with property and employment strategies and painted Lincoln and the north as unjust, unwarranted invaders. They were a separate culture and could have relied on theirhuman relationships. Neverforget many slave were the offspring of slave masters. The economics involved would have been enough to sustain them through a a controlled situation with far less lives and property losses than their lost cause of unjust opulence...
@@MacroX1231 LOL, many a slave were the offspring of slave masters?! Are you for real? They sold their little biracial kids all the time. SOLD THEM. Most of those mixed race people were not treated special and their white parentage was NOT acknowledged. They sometimes worked in the house or yard but they were still enslaved.
@@MacroX1231what? Many of the black soldiers who fought for the north had recently moved there from (you guessed it) the south, also why would they fight for being slowly integrated when Lincoln promised immediate freedom? Although Lincoln couldn’t start his plan
Lee was strongly in favor of emancipation, as a timely process. His proposal was to have all slaves freed by the end of the war.
No he wasnt
Fake
His letter speaks for itself. the woke crowd don't like it though.
BS!!!
Lies
Click bait
More like shit bait and lost cause shit bait at that
I wonder if Lee almost fell asleep reading the first 5 min of the letter.
As a young man in college I read about this nonsense and laughed out loud during class. White people back then were so backward it's hard to believe slavery lasted centuries. The idea that you would think Black people who are held in bondage would then fight to save your way of life shows how we were perceived as less than human. As soon as enough southern black men had guns they would have started shooting white folks. There is a reason why written history illustrates how brave and efficient Black soldiers fought for the North. Many who signed up did so not realizing they would be paid. Many were ready to fight for free. But they were paid, and paid so poorly it was almost a free service.
Black soldiers fighting to keep slavery, Stonewall Jackson is like putting dirty clothes on the church wall mean Black are not good enough to fight to keep himself in slavery
Wow. I never realize that Lee was so Pragmatic and Clear thinking. He is an interesting Guy.
This lawyer is taking the long way around the barn. I listened to it and it put me to sleep. Get to the point.
It was how cultured men of the south and even some in the north were expected to correspond at the time.
That'a what Lawyers do.
@@johngaither9263 Lee at least got TO THE POINT. This guy walked the fence so bad, to come down on the right side of an argument. Thing Lee was saying, was slavery was pretty much over, either us defending it or the north stopping it. But the south wasn't going to stop it, due they would have made peace at Hampton Rds.
So, Robert E. Lee was a man of morals, and he obviously fretted over the dilemma.
Clearly, he didn't want to force slaves to fight in battles, whereas the North freely used them as pawns.
Nor did he like the idea of the North using blacks for that purpose.
It would be like that invading army using children as human shields.
General Lee did not want to shoot at innocent people.
You never hear of any Northerners regretfully using black soldiers in the Civil War.
In fact, the Northerners were proud of their immoral acts.
Invasion, Assimilation, Insurrection, Sherman's March of Firey Destruction, etc.
Looting, Killing, Rape, and Spreading Lies were the weapons of the North.
If anyone is not aware, the North benefitted financially from slavery. Not the South.
Human trafficking was conducted by the North.
You won't find any records of Southerners selling slaves to Cuba or Columbia.
Otherwise, they would be titles of chapters in history books.
So many misinformed people love to point their fingers at the South.
Where did you find this information?
@@jacobmorales1283 Lots of research.
@@slaveryandushistory9386And yet all of it is incorrect!
Lost Cause nonsense.
Sounds accurate, throughout history, the victor tells the story as to their advantage, to the victor go the spoils
Stonewall Jackson actually taught black children in his Sunday school. He went around to slave owners and actually convinced them to allow their slaves to attend because he felt that it was cruel not to allow them to learn about God. This was at a time when allowing blacks formal learning was not just frowned upon, but in many areas of the South, illegal. People writing about Jackson rarely mention this.
My dude, the Bible is disgustingly pro-slavery. Of course a slaver like Jackson would want his slaves and neighbors' slaves to learn about the BibIe. It would make them more accepting of their lot in life.
1 Peter 2 - 18
"Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh."
It was cruel to not allow them to learn about God but it was o.k to keep them in slavery? I wonder what Jesus would say about that.
He still fought for the right to enslave and mistreat us.
"I'm running out of infantry, I'll take anyone!"
~Robert E Lee 1865
For some context, these letters were written in January 1865. Lee's proposal to allow the use of black troops was adopted on March 13, 1865. The Civil War was over less than a month later on April 9th, 1865. Lee's emancipation proclamation was signed January 1, 1863. So for two years The first black soldiers were enlisted February 1863. So for two years the Confederates had seen the results of the union using black troops and, on the bring of collapse, they decided to try it themselves.
Since Lee is dead, I kind of doubt he thinks about anything.
Good one
I saw the movie Gone With The Wind and I was shocked to think that those big black men said they was going to dig for the South. They said they would stop those Yankees.
Thousands of slaves worked as laborers for the Confederate armies.
The novel "Gone With the Wind" (1936), by Atlanta native Margaret Mitchell, is not a documentary-quality historical novel; it is a historical romance, written by an author soaked in a 'Lost Cause' environment that took (and to this day takes) for granted that enslaved people did not mind being slaves because that life was grand, or sweet, or somehow, despite the lack of freedom and abundant hardships and attitudes against them, appreciated by the enslaved. So of course those big, black, enslaved men would say that in the novel-- and in the film (which was remarkably faithful to the novel).
Bobby Lee hated anything black, only reason why he would have considered using black soldiers was because how effective he saw black soldiers were in the field. The system of white supremacy that the southern society was built on was the major obstacle to incorporating black soldiers into confederate ranks. Some confederate states even threatened to leave the confederacy if this was done. So..bobby Lee was hampered with other states not wanting to see this, but in the end we did see some black troops being drilled in the streets of Sumter S.C. in the spring of 1865.
Alot of slaves were put to work in the Confederate Army as Engineers, digging entrenchments and building wooden bridges. Their issued weapons were usually a pick & shovel.
Not getting into politics of slavery, I'm very impressed with the writings of Victorian English. Long-winded but rich texture.
Title is a lie, not ever mentioned in the otherwise good content. Change the clickbait thumbnail and get legitimate views for your content and not your race baiting lie of a thumbnail.
The channel stole the video, so do you think he would change the presentation.
@@STho205 how would I know he stole the video? I just commented that the thumbnail is a total lie.
@@MikePluto he didn't produce any of these videos. They are just reposted from documentaries produced years ago.
@@MikePluto so don't waste your breath. He did what he wanted to do, fully aware.
@@STho205 yeah, man…I didn’t know that. Sounded pretty polished work for the thumbnail though. Should have seen that as a red flag.
Robert E Lee enjoyed unwarranted adulation for too long
*WE HAVE TO FIGHT and CONTINUE TO FIGHT FOR REPARATIONS.* More than 180,000 Brave Black American men served as Soldiers in the *U.S. Army (Union Army) and fought for Freedom in the Civil War*. This was over 10 percent of the total Union fighting force. Most-about 90,000-were former enslaved Black Americans from the Confederate states. About half of the rest were from the loyal border states, and the rest were free Black Americans from the North. Also Black Americans comprised 25% of the Union U.S Navy. Yet, only one percent of the Northern population was African American. Clearly overrepresented in the military, African Americans played a decisive role in winning the Civil War. African Americans fought in every major campaign and battle during the last two years of the war earning 25 Medals of Honor. U.S. Black Troop regiments captured Charleston, the Cradle of Secession, and Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. Lincoln recognized their contributions. He declared, “Without the military help of the Black freedmen, the war against the South could not have been won.” And without the Emancipation Proclamation, these soldiers and sailors would have had little reason to fight for the Union.
80,000 Black soldiers died fighting in the Civil war.
excellent post--and all FACTS and not Lost Cause fanatasies.
@@lillybart-s9i Thank You
This is why people shouldn't use RUclips for history lessons.
He left his position as Secretary of War in the Union to fight to preserve slavery in the South. What else do we need to know?
Trying to prove their education.
Proving insecurity in the process.
imagine if someone spoke to you today using all of them damn words
How is the title clickbait? It states "what General Lee thinks. " It doesn't say what he thinks. Have to watch the video for that. I take it those who claim clickbait did not like what the content in the video gave us. Lee's letters and public statements before vs after the war or what audience it was intended for might make his words or ideas different. Whoo on here is scholarly enough to study his lifetime of letters or statements to know what he thought???
He probably thought…… “why didn’t we think of that?”
Hilarious
Hilarious
Lee opposed the country being split into 2 and he freed all the slaves he ever had and viewed slavery as a barbaric act. Lincoln asked Lee first to be head general of the entire Union army but refused because he wouldn't fight his own state.
Who here, in all honesty was compelled by a desire to comprehend in all totality the intention of this correspondence and whom herein with great fortitude was made to reprise each section twice or thrice till the words were understood or at least coherent.
Translation: who had to play back each sentence 2 or 3 times to understand wth they’re talking about.
Our captivity is ending AHAYAH has redeemed Jacob
Lee said he couldn't bring himself to fight against his home state of Virginia. That is why he fought on the side of the south. The war was about states rights vs federal rights. The south fought for states rights.
Ok? One of those fights to to own human beings against there will, basic thinking will bring you to this conclusion.
Notice the eloquence of the language of these letters compared to our SMS text message generation. Yo , wyd. Nuttin, u?
School Kids: You love to hear yourself speak?
Robert E. Lee opposed slavery from a philosophical perspective yet was powerless to make substantial changes systemically. Lee called slavery a moral and political evil. Yet, while both Lee and his wife were disgusted with slavery, they also defended the South against abolitionist demands for immediate emancipation for all enslaved.
But if he treated his slaves like animals
Why are you lying for this old dead evil man?
If he was against it why did he treated his slaves like beasts?
@@Jean_Jacques148 He wasn't they want to try to re-write history.
Could this guy beat around the bush any more than this?
4:43 and isn't done talking.
I'm sure General Lee was very amused by this.
The final Yapper boss you must defeat.
they let them fight....but with no fire arm...they gave them shovel.
General Custer and Sherman both Generals not only hated black soldiers but the whole race let's not pick and choose please
We aren't picking and choosing, we are commenting about the decisions
that THEY made.
Man these guys can TALK 😢😢😢😢
When the truth comes out , some people are going to be real hurt
What did ol Bobby Lee think of his horse?
History is just a sign of the times just like every day is !! We need to get over it and move on to the future !
Good God, the first guy used 500 words to express something that could have been said in 20 words!
Antebellum burned 😂
I never knew this, once again if we are going to teach history things like this truth would have ended alot of foolish thoughts , Black and White.
What he thinks? "Thinks" is present tense. He's deceased. Who writes this?
An estimated 20 to 40 thousand black men fought for the Confederacy. 200 thousand plus were in logistics (freight drivers, cooks, bridge building etc) they also served in many of the home guards.
This AI-generated mis-representing of history is very dangerous.
Wrong. BS. No more than 30,000 African-Americans served in any positions within the CSA Army. By the Conscription Acts of 1862, they were limited to non-combatant roles. The CSA Congress did not pass a law allowing the recruiting of African-Americans for combat duty until January 1865. Only two companies were initially formed in Richmond. At their first drill, white women and children threw refuse at them. Both companies disappeared during the retreat to Appomattox. The non-combatant positions were some time filled by free men of color, but usually, especially teamsters hired by the CSA War Department, were slaves hired from their owners. (ie. the owners were paid, not the slaves). There were three major surrenders of Confederate armies during the war, and at Vicksburg and Appomattox, the number of slaves holding non-combatant positions did not exceed 22,000. There were a large number of fortifications built by slaves locally and temporarily hired from their owners. The states were restricted by the Militia Act of 1792 as amended and accepted as law by the CSA Congress to white males between 17 and 55. There were no Home Guard African-Americans because most were running away to the US Army by 1863. Over 150,000 African-Americans served as free men in the US Army, along with 50,000 serving as teamsters and in other non-combatant jobs. Over 30,000 served in the USN.
THE BLACK SOLDIER WAS THE DIFFERENCE IN WINNING THE CIVIL WAR. THERE IS NI DOUBT OR BEBATE ABOUT THAT FACT. 1 💪🏿
Lee never said that. Stop with the lies and propaganda.
The way they spoke? Just get to the point already.
Using slaves as soldiers is not unusual in history. The Turks took Greek boys as slaves. Raised them as Muslims and trained from childhood to be slaves. The were then used to suppress the the Greek population and expands the Ottoman deep into Eastern Europe. Alexander used many slave soldiers for his empire building. These are just two examples of a common practice over the centuries by many empires..
Difference is the Black slaves would shoot their commander and flee to the north for freedom.
The South should have freed the slaves and then fired on fort Sumner that way the north couldn't say they were fighting to free the slaves then I would have started recruiting them for the southern army the South where the probably won
You need to use quotes or you are plagiarizing
Three or four sentences could have been the totality of that conversation, and been far more plain. I understood it all, but, it was a flowery verbose way to get it said. I think it was important to them to sound highly intellectual to one another. It is no wonder some officers misunderstood orders given before or during battles. A sparsely worded but direct and emphatic command, would have been far clearer than that nonsense, when writing out orders.
Some but not a lot. Southern whites were generally very poor. Many conscripts for the confederacy didn't own boots. Situations varied. Some native indians were slave holders such as Cherokee and Seminole. After slavery ended blacks took up indian culture and amalgamated into the indian way of life. Many indians and blacks had children together. It's sort of a mixed but i am well versed. I have also traced my family history and all the descendants I've found never owned slaves. Some of mt Irish descendants were however indentured servants to German people as a fee for passage. I am well versed on my American history. The majority of slaves were owned by a small wealthy group. In the south , wealth was in real estate and slave holding , and durable goods as opposed to gold and cash. It is a long and complex topic.
That would have been rich. Black men fighting with the men that were fighting to keep them in bondage. Glad white southern men would never allow that to happen.
Hey, the same white men who owned 20 slaves excused themselves from military service. Replacing themselves with boys as you as 13 and old men up to 60. The rich who owned slaves were benefiting all the way around. I guess that is why there were so many guerilla bands of southerners against the CSA.
They weren't fighting to keep them in bondage moron... Slavery remained Legal all over the U.S. Lincoln only free Those in states he controlled so he could use them as yankee soldiers. Also... Free and Slave Black men fought for the South Individually anyway alongside Their white Brethren. Its very Well documented... all you have to do is pick up a book and learn to read.
Black Bondage included a home, family, health care and so forth. Today we call that "Social Security" Nowadays everyone is under government bondage.
Stop thinking like an npc. Nothing is ever black and white (no pun intended).
@@TheGuitarReb
Beautiful way on putting that!!
You post helps to explain the seemingly _cognitive dissonance_ of why a black man would fight for the south.
They were fighting for their homeland. End of story.
This black soldier issue has a wrong context...freedom in the North, Enslaved in the South - meaning the issue isn't understood.
There was no need for blacks to engage in combat for the Confederacy, because working on the Plantations kept them alive and they weren't subject to Prisoner of War camps, starving to death next to being made cripples or killed in action.
Another issue that made the Plantations a very good deal to stay on, was the tactical objective of the Union to wage total war against the helpless Confederacy.
This total war was called: SCORCHED EARTH.
The Southern people were burned, killed, raped and were kicked out of their homes and starved.
After the war the starvation continued as the Union held food supplies back.
The life expectancy rate on the Plantations was rising ever more during the war and after the Victory of the Union.
The black Union soldiers in comparison risked their lifes for a fragile promise of emancipation that never appeared in their lifes, being killed in action, taken to a prisoners camp, or surviving the war as cripples.
Hence there were not too many blacks that had an interest to fight for the Confederacy.
But that would change in the future, as the first world war approached.
Book Reference:
War Crimes Against Southern Civilians by Walter Cisco. ///
A Study In American Freemasonry by Arthur Preuss. ///
The Rape Of Justice by Eustace Mullins. ///
Mullins New History Of The J's by Eustace Mullins. ///
All men and women alike may be condition to be infantry soldiers, it's a matter of time, resources and attitudes of trainers and recruits during war or peace.
So Lee favored gradual emancipation. Fight for trhe South and you will free. That has to lead to emancipation, even if South wins.
Well the title wasn't mention at all but the crux of the message was sour when concerning the slaves basically: we will chide them to believe in a cause of freedom and when its all over back to work as usual.
He also used black soldiers..fo target practice...he once killed 17 in two days
General Robert E Lee open a school for blacks. He didn't say that Stonewall Jackson did.
Lee could not open a school for blacks before the 14th and 15th Amendments as it was Virginia law against educating slaves.
A school to keep us as slaves? how kind.
Clickbait, last time i watch this channel.
So from reading the comments here seems like this might be historically inaccurate.. is it on purpose or just negligence?
The homies were lied to about fighting for the union with the idea being freedom which would’ve never happened if the union had won…
0ookay.
Here’s is the most important statistic, 650 thousand people died in this war.
Possibly more. Many Confederate records were lost.
Don't forget they never surrendered❤️🖤💚
Yes they did.
Takes an hour long letter to just say yes to using slaves as troops.
Civil war Robert is Irish and Lincoln is English with ancestry same same nationals, who mistreated Africans and Native West Indians.
Lol…that’s not Robert E. Lee’s correspondence. That’s from General Patrick Cleburne. Lee and Davis were horrified when this letter made the rounds. It shocked the Confederate administration so badly that Davis shoved that letter in a drawer and never responded to it.
That sounds more like it 😄
@@bigshagg3815 of course. The notion that Lee would’ve put rifles in the hands of slaves is highly risible. Come on. The guy was a dyed in the wool Virginian. He would’ve never let anyone darker than a paper bag anywhere near a rifle. After all, he knew how he himself had treated slaves.
This story is capping Robert Lee was George Washington grandson both melnated men
The title is indeed misleading. Harder to address the desperate inquiry and Lee’s delusional reply.
These guys write like a C- English student trying to meet the minimum word count for their essay.
John 3:16 you need to somehow be black for a week just to see how strong u are you
Forest was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Doesn't sound like someone I'd like to learn the bible from.