The Two Horns of Dilemma

[Wild Rose]

Interesting article, Terry.  Do you know if there are any instances of captured Union officers being held accountable to any state in the CSA for executing the Emancipation Proclamation?

Rose

[Henry Moon]

Hi Rosie: Farther on down in this particular article it mentions the following, and this is all I could find. I will also post the link for the entire article.

NO MORE OFFICERS TO BE EXCHANGED.
Orders have been issued by Jeff Davis that officers of the United States Army captured after the 12th inst. are to be handed over to the Governors of the rebel States within whose jurisdiction they are taken, to be dealt with in accordance with Jeff Davis's recent declaration that they are to be regarded as persons inciting servile insurrection under President Lincoln's emancipation proclamation. General Halleck has issued an order, which may be regarded as retaliatory, commanding that no rebel officers shall be released until further orders.


http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/january/southern-reaction-emancipation-proclamation.htm

[unionblue]

A case in point,

"Consider the personal history of Armaci Adams, a slave born at the very end of the antebellum era who suffered parental loss.

"I was bawn in Gate County, North Carolina but I ain't stayed down dere long."  Adams began her account of her life.  The ex-slave inferred in her statement that as an infant she lived with both her parents in a domestic unit that was similar in structure and function to a nuclear family.  Hunter, "an ole Methodist preacher," owned Armaci and her parents.  When she was only three years old, two catastrophic events drastically changed Armaci's family situation and tore her away from the nurturing world of her parents' home forever: in the same year that her mother died of an unspecified cause, Isaac Hunter decided to sell most of his other slaves South.  Among the first group to leave was, Armaci's father.  The Reverend Mr. and Mrs. Hunter then moved their much-reduced agricultural unit, including Armaci, to a farm in Huntersville, Virginia.  Instead of placing the child in a slave home for rearing, however, the Hunters kept Armaci in their house and raised her themselves.  Within a few months, Armaci had suffered the loss of both of her parents and most of her slave community.

In addition to having to cope with what must have been a tremendous loss, displacement, and abandonment, the young child found herself in the precarious position of having to rely solely on her white owners for care and guidance.  Unfortunately, it was not a situation that Armaci or her new caretakers appreciated or adjusted to well.  The Hunters never developed a close or affectionate attachment to their small ward.  They obviously doubted that Armaci, a young child growing up during the era of a civil war that might well mean the end of slavery, would ever be worth the minimal material support they supplied her.  At one point, their uneasiness about gaining a financial return on their investment even prompted them to try and sell her.  Yet, they were unable to do so because the potential buyer thought her physically handicapped--much of Armaci's body was covered with extensive burn scars that she received while trying to cook her food in a fireplace without adult supervision.  "De...man wouldn't buy me 'cause he 'fraid I won' be no good on account o' de burn scars," she explained.

When the Civil War ended, the Hunters refused to free Armaci.  By that time, she had become an important domestic laborer in their household and the only one of their slaves who remained with them.  Armaci was only seven years old at war's end and did not know that she was free.  Her master and mistress continued to hold and treat her as a slave for six more years.  They even conspired to discourage her father's attempts to find and to take the young girl home with him.  Skillfully employing well-honed techniques of psychological and physical intimidation, they were able to gain and maintain control of Armaci.  The developed an emotional hold over her even though they treated her harshly.  (Years later Adams did not hesitate to characterize both Mr. and Mrs. Hunter as "hell cats," yet it was difficult for her to leave them.)"

Taken from Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves (Charlottesvill: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1976).

Unionblue

[ole]

There is ample evidence that many slaveholders in the antebellum south were quite solicitous and benevolent. Probably to the point of beloved uncle or mammy.

But do let us remember that of the hundreds of beloved mammies or uncles, there were four million unnoticed others.

ole

[unionblue]

To All,

It has been mentioned on another thread the idea that there were millions of loyal slaves who stayed at their masters sides while all the white men of military age went off to war and that this somehow gives credence to the idea of loving slaves towards their masters.

I present the following article.

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2007/112007/11102007/331653/palm

It appears, even when a slave was given the best of circumstances under the institution, the desire to be truely free was a powerful one.

Unionblue

[Wild Rose]

It appears, even when a slave was given the best of circumstances under the institution, the desire to be truely free was a powerful one.

That is mostly true, but it doesn't explain the slaves remaining on the farms during the war.  Why didn't they all leave?  I think it was for different reasons, not all slaves were as educated and capable as the one in the article.  Some were afraid to venture out from the well known, familiar confines of home.  Some were afraid of the insecurity freedom would bring.  Still others simply felt a sense of obligation from a promise made to the master when he left to go to war. 

Rose

[unionblue]

From the book, Runaway Slaves, Rebels on the Plantation, by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger:

"Over the years, plantation slavery has been described in many ways.  Perhaps the classic description was provided by Ulrich B. Phillips.  In his Pulitzer Prize-winning Life and Labor in the Old South, he spoke of the plantation force as "a conscript army" and the plantation as a homestead, a school, a "parish, or perhaps a chapel or ease," a pageant and variety show, and "a matrimonial bureau."  Soon historians, including James Hugo Johnston, Harvey Wish, Raymond A. and Alice H. Bauer, and Herbert Aptheker, began to show that there was another way to view slavery.  It was becoming clear that the plantation was not the smooth, well-managed operation described by Phillips.  Missing from his romantic description were the harsh realities of everyday plantation life, the severe punishments for dereliction of duties, branding, mutilation, stealing, arson, murder, rape, and division of families, including the sale of children.  No discussion of plantation life can be complete without a discussion of these and similar matters.

Some forty years ago, Kenneth M. Stampp succeeded in correcting earlier descriptions of plantation life such as those set forth by Phillips.  He called slaves "a troublesome property" and reminded his readers of the unrest and unhappiness that were all too prevalent even among the most passive slaves.  In turn, they retaliated against unreasonable demands by refusing to obey or even running away...

...Even today important aspect of the history of slavery remain shrouded in myth and legend.  Many people still believe that slaves were generally content, that racial violence on the plantation was an aberration, and that the few who ran away struck out for the Promised Land in the North or Canada..."

This book and others give some reasons why there were "slaves remaining on the farms during the war."

"Why didn't they all leave?"

Maybe they had a family and couldn't move them.

Maybe because of slave patrols and the requirement for written passes.

Maybe because they were black, and because of this single, identifying mark, made it almost impossible for a slave to move alone or in large groups without a white in charge.

Maybe because to get to safety and freedom, it would require a long, dangerous trek, through Confederate lines, soldiers and armed men who would question why they were alone and on the move.

Maybe it was just safer to wait and be liberated by advancing Union armies.

Instead of leaving the only place they had come to know all of their lives and being part of a family, maybe they resisted being slaves by pretending to be sick or refusing to obey orders, an alternative to running.

Maybe there were those who did stay because of the 'insecurity freedom would bring' and perhaps there were those who felt a sense of obligation from a promise made to the master when he left to go to war.

But when one thinks about how far one had to travel to obtain freedom, perhaps with family members ranging form the very old to the very young, and after reading numerous period comments by slaveowners who said they had deluded themselves into thinking their slaves were loyal, I tend to doubt there were many in this last catagory.

Unionblue