Slavery During the Civil War

Slavery is sometimes called "an inevitable evolvement". I remember studying in school about the  "Trade Triangle" during colonial America. New Englanders would take rum to the West Coast of Africa where they would sell it and pick up slaves. They took the slaves on the "middle passage" to the West Indies, where they would trade them for molasses. Then the molasses were taken to New England and the process began all over again.

Needless to say, slavery existed as a legal right in the colonies before the American Revolution. but it gradually declined in the North. Unfortunately, because of the large land holdings in the South, slavery  continued there until the war and some states, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware still had slaves even then. Slavery wasn't totally abolished until 1868.

According to an 1860 census, only 31% of families owned slaves and 75%of those owned less than 10 and often worked beside them in the fields. The Confederate Constitution, according to an article I read, banned the overseas slave trade, and permitted Confederate states to abolish slavery within their borders if they wanted to do so.

The CSA's highest ranking generals, Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston were not slave holders and did not believe in slavery. By 1864 the Confederate States began to abandon slavery and there are some indications that even without a war, the "peculiar institution" as it was often called, would have ended on its own as it did in most other countries.

 

Last Casualty of The War Between the States

 Cathy Wright, Curator at the Museum of the Confederacy-Appomattox is the  editor of  Lee's Last Casualty: The Story of Sgt. Robert Parker, 2nd Virginia Cavalry. The book is composed of the letters that this young Confederate cavalryman wrote to his wife Rebecca back home in Bedford County, Virginia.

 

Parker describes his life as a soldier and tell how local communities worked together to provide whatever the military needed, but more importantly, his faith was evidenced in these letters. Parker felt the war was a supreme test in which God would look deep into the souls of Northerners and Southerners and that they needed to give themselves to country and to God in order to succeed on the battlefield.

 

He was torn between his sense of duty to his family and farm and his loyalty to the Confederacy.

His steadfastness was due in great part to his family, who instilled in him the will to continue fighting. Sadly, although he had survived many campaigns from 1862 onward, he was struck down during the last charge at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, and is thought to have been the last man killed in action in the Army of Northern Virginia.

Conscription During The Civil War

I did not know until I read  recently that the Confederacy was the first to initiate conscription. Jefferson Davis proposed the first Conscription Act on March 28, 1862 and it was passed into law the next month, according to wikipedia, a year before the federal government did the same.

The compulsory draft was view as a violation of the people's rights, which is the very reason they went to war in the first place. What an irony! Under the Conscription Act, all white men between 18 and 35 were liable for a three year term of service. The Act also extended the terms of service for one year soldiers to three.

In September, 1862, the age limit was raised to 45, but men who worked as druggists, civil officials, railroad or river workers, telegraph operators, or teachers were exempt. Actually my Grandmother's father, Absalom Leonidas Davis, was a teacher in North Alabama, and I read in Grandma's book that he was exempt and did not have to fight.

In the Confederacy something called the "Twenty Negro Law" permitted one owner or overseer of any plantation to exempt themselves from military service (wikipedia again). This proved extremely unpopular with many Confederate soldiers and contribute to the oft-spoken adage of "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight".

Although both sides resorted to the Draft, the system did not work effectively in either. The problem of desertion was aggravated by the inequitable inclinations of conscription officers and local judges.

Sometimes these officials even (gasp) accepted bribes. Attempts to effectively deal with the issue were frustrated by conflict between state and local governments on the one hand and the national government of the Confederacy on the other.

About conscription, the famous Daniel Webster in 1814 said this: "Is this, sir, consistent with the character of a free government? Is this civil liberty? Is this the real character of our Constitution? No sir, it is not...Where is it written in the Constitution ...that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war, in which the folly or wickedness of government may engage it?"

Did You Know Nicola Marschall Served in Confederate Army?

I wrote two blogs this week about Nicola Marschall, thought by many to have designed the First Confederate Flag and the Uniform. Did you know, although he was exempt from the military in his native Prussia due to deafness, he joined the Confederate army shortly after the war started?

He served most of the war, although the records are fragmentary, as are those of so many Confederate soldiers. Mr. Stark Young in his book Southern Treasury of Life and Literature gives us the best overall picture: "When war was declared Mr. Marschall enlisted as a private of volunteers, going with his command from Marion to garrison Forts Morgan and Gaines, at the mouth of Mobile Bay. There he served for a time, then returned to Marion on a furlough. while at home, on the advice of a friend, an officer, he employed a substitute for a year and three months.

Then came the call for more volunteers, and again Mr. Marschall enlisted, this time in the Second Alabama Regiment of Engineers. he served with Colonel Lockett, a son of Mrs. Napoleon Lockett, under General Polk, just preceding the fall of Vicksburg.

Mr. Marschall served then in the Confederate army until the curtain was finally drawn at Appomattox." All of this is from a paper written by Owsley C. Costlow, titled The Life of Nicola Marschall.

In his introduction Costlow says " This then is the story of the man who came from Prussia to give his adopted land a flag and uniform also helped us in our struggle."

The Story of the Disabled Confederate Veteran and Your Taxes at Work

Graydon Rust has written a fascinating story in the AUM Historical Review (Winter 2013) about Alabama's Confederate pension system. It seems one third of the 95,000 men that Alabama sent to the war effort (I mean The War for Southern Independence) came back disabled, many having lost either a limb or their sight.

They could expect no help from the federal government since they were on the losing side, so the Confederate states had to create their own welfare legislation with treasuries depleted and life in shambles. Relief was slow in coming, but ultimately, according to Mr. Rust, "Alabama's Confederate Pension system played a significant role in the history of the state - encompassing a large part of the state treasury, influencing the cultural cohesion of its citizens, and even setting a precedent for future welfare programs".

Are you surprised to know that the tax to assist Confederate veterans and their widows continues today?  It raises $400,000, which goes to the Confederate Memorial Park near Montgomery in Marbury, Alabama. Its director, Bill Rambo says "if it wasn't for the way we are funded, the story would not be told. The kids in school are only getting one side of the story - the winner's side".

Rust says: "Whether this statement is true or not, the story of the Confederate veterans and that of the welfare programs that supported them after the war live on through the park and the taxes that support them."

The Confederate Flag and the Uniform

If you read my last blog you know that Nichola Marschall is credited by most people with designing the Stars and Bars and the Confederate Uniform.

 

In his own words, he told of how Mrs. Napoleon Lockett of Marion, Alabama asked him to make the design for the flag. He said that he took pencil and paper and made three different designs. The first was of two red stripes and one white with a blue field bearing seven white stars - indicating the number of States that had then seceded - in the upper left hand corner. The other two were similar.

 

She thanked him and then asked for a design for a uniform. He remembered back in Prussia, his native land, seeing fine-looking Austrian sharpshooters in gray uniforms and how impressed he had been with them. Based on this he made several rough sketches indicating the gray color, and also different colors on the collars to denote the branch of service.

 

He said: "It did not occur to me that I had done anything worthy of note. I simply made the sketches at the request of Mrs. Lockett. I knew no more about them from then, until I found that the uniform and one of the flags had been adopted by the Confederacy".

 

Marschall died at the age of 88 in Louisville, Kentucky. A tribute was written about him which appears in his daughter's scrapbook. It read: "The last time this writer saw the delightful man he had grown old and feeble and was going slowly down the street in the sunshine, going home, and not so long after that he did go home, regretted, honored and beloved by all who had the privilege of knowing him".

 

Learning More About The First Confederate Flag

As you know if you read our blogs regularly or have visited the First White House of the Confederacy in Montgomery, Alabama, we fly the First Confederate Flag, aka the "Stars and Bars" on the grounds of our building.

This flag is thought to have been designed by Nichola Marschall, a portrait painter and artist who was born in Germany, but emigrated to America and spent a great deal of time in Marion, Alabama.

His patron was Mrs. Napoleon Lockett, ancestor of several of our White House Association members. She supposedly asked him to draw several sketch for the flag and one of these was accepted by the Confederate Government.

The Stars and Bars was  first raised in front of the Alabama State Capitol, which at that time was the seat of the CSA on March 4, 1861 by President John Tyler's granddaughter, Miss Letitia Tyler. Descendants of her are also in the White House Association today.

 

Here is the design showing seven stars, representing the original seven states that seceded. Marschall also designed the Confederate Uniform, basing it on the Prussian Uniforms he remembered from his years of living in Germany.