January 2, 1864--- ". . . We immediately commence training a large reserve of the most courageous of our slaves . . . "

JANUARY 2, 1864: 

   

The Irish-born and openly gay Major General Patrick Cleburne C.S.A. dares convention once again and broaches a subject that no Southerner has dared voice to date, that being the arming of slaves to fill out badly-thinned Confederate ranks. His letter to his superior, General Joseph E. Johnston, reads in part:

Dear General,

Moved by the exigency in which our country is now placed we take the liberty of laying before you, unofficially, our views on the present state of affairs.  The subject is so grave, and our views so new, we feel it a duty both to you and the cause that before going further we should submit them for your judgment and receive your suggestions in regard to them . . . 

We have now been fighting for nearly three years, have spilled much of our best blood, and lost, consumed, or thrown to the flames an amount of property equal in value to the specie currency of the world.  Through some lack in our system the fruits of our struggles and sacrifices have invariably slipped away from us and left us nothing but long lists of dead and mangled.  Instead of standing defiantly on the borders of our territory or harassing those of the enemy, we are hemmed in to-day into less than two-thirds of it, and still the enemy menacingly confronts us at every point with superior forces.  Our soldiers can see no end to this state of affairs except in our own exhaustion; hence, instead of rising to the occasion, they are sinking into a fatal apathy, growing weary of hardships and slaughters which promise no results. In this state of things it is easy to understand why there is a growing belief that some black catastrophe is not far ahead of us, and that unless some extraordinary change is soon made in our condition we must overtake it . . . If this state continues much longer we must be subjugated . . . 

We can see three great causes operating to destroy us:  First, the inferiority of our armies to those of the enemy in point of numbers; second, the poverty of our single source of supply in comparison with his several sources; third, the fact that slavery, from being one of our chief sources of strength at the commencement of the war, has now become, in a military point of view, one of our chief sources of weakness . . . 

[T]he President of the United States announces that "he has already in training an army of 100,000 negroes as good as any troops," and every fresh raid he makes and new slice of territory he wrests from us will add to this force . . . 

Our single source of supply is that portion of our white men fit for duty and not now in the ranks.  The enemy has three sources of supply:  First, his own motley population; secondly, our slaves; and thirdly, Europeans whose hearts are fired into a crusade against us by fictitious pictures of the atrocities of slavery . . . 

In touching the third cause, the fact that slavery has become a military weakness . . . [a]part from the assistance that home and foreign prejudice against slavery has given to the North, slavery is a source of great strength to the enemy in a purely military point of view, by supplying him with an army from our granaries; but it is our most vulnerable point, a continued embarrassment, and in some respects an insidious weakness . . .  [W]hites can no longer with safety to their property openly sympathize with our cause.  The fear of their slaves is continually haunting them . . . 

[S]lavery  is comparatively valueless to us for labor, but of great and increasing worth to the  enemy for information.  It is an omnipresent spy system . . . Even in the heart of our country, where our hold upon this secret espionage is firmest, it waits but the opening fire of the enemy's battle line to wake it, like a torpid serpent, into venomous activity . . . In view of the state of affairs what does our country propose to do?  In the words of President Davis "no effort must be spared to add largely to our effective force as promptly as possible.  The sources of supply are to be found in restoring to the army all who are improperly absent, putting an end to substitution, modifying the exemption law, restricting details, and placing in the ranks such of the able-bodied men now employed as wagoners, nurses, cooks, and other employe[e]s, as are doing service for which the negroes may be found competent."  Most of the men improperly absent, together with many of the exempts and men having substitutes, are now without the Confederate lines and cannot be calculated on.  If all the exempts capable of bearing arms were enrolled, it will give us the boys below eighteen, the men above forty-five, and those persons who are left at home to meet the wants of the country and the army, but this modification of the exemption law will remove from the fields and manufactories most of the skill that directed agricultural and mechanical labor, and, as stated by the President, "details will have to be made to meet the wants of the country," thus sending many of the men to be derived from this source back to their homes again . . . 

The supply from all these sources, together with what we now have in the field, will exhaust the white race, and . . . still we have no reserve . . . [a]dequate[ ] to meet the causes which are now threatening ruin to our country . . . 

[W]e propose, in addition to a modification of the President's plans, that we retain in service for the war all troops now in service, and that we immediately commence training a large reserve of the most courageous of our slaves, and further that we guarantee freedom within a reasonable time to every slave in the South who shall remain true to the Confederacy in this war.  As between the loss of independence and the loss of slavery, we assume that every patriot will freely give up the latter — give up the negro slave rather than be a slave himself.  If we are correct in this assumption it only remains to show how this great national sacrifice is, in all human probabilities, to change the current of success and sweep the invader from our country . . . 

Will the slaves fight?  The helots of Sparta stood their masters good stead in battle.  In the great sea fight of Lepanto where the Christians checked forever the spread of Mohammedanism over Europe, the galley slaves of portions of the fleet were promised freedom, and called on to fight at a critical moment of the battle.  They fought well, and civilization owes much to those brave galley slaves.  The negro slaves of Saint Domingo, fighting for freedom, defeated their white masters and the French troops sent against them.  The negro slaves of Jamaica revolted, and under the name of Maroons held the mountains against their masters for 150 years; and the experience of this war has been so far that half-trained negroes have fought as bravely as many other half-trained Yankees.  If, contrary to the training of a lifetime, they can be made to face and fight bravely against their former masters, how much more probable is it that with the allurement of a higher reward, and led by those masters, they would submit to discipline and face dangers . . . 

Negroes will require much training; training will require much time, and there is danger that this concession to common sense may come too late.

P. R. Cleburne, major-general, commanding division

January 1, 1864---Equal Pay

JANUARY 1, 1864:   

The coldest New Year’s Day on record. Toledo, Ohio reports a temperature of -24 degrees Fahrenheit. Eleven feet of snowpack is reported, along with massive drifts driven by 60 mph winds. The deep freeze over the Midwest reaches down into central Alabama and lasts all week. In some locales, mercury thermometers freeze.

 

 

The U.S. Congress finally authorizes equal pay and uniform allowances for all men under arms, white and black.

December 31, 1863---New Year's Eve: The Last Full Calendar Year Of War Begins

DECEMBER 31, 1863:
         

As 1863 passes into history and 1864 dawns, throughout the Confederacy, people brace themselves for future privations anticipated. Confederate war clerk J. B. Jones wrote in his diary: 


Flour is now held at $150 per barrel. Captain Warner has just sold me two bushels of meal at $5 per bushel; the price in market is $16 a bushel. I did not go to any of the receptions today, but remained at home, transplanting lettuce plants, which have so far withstood the frost, and a couple of fig bushes I bought yesterday. I am also breaking up some warm beds for early vegetables, preparing for the siege and famine looked for in May and June, when the enemy encompasses the city. I bought some tripe and liver in the market for the low price of $1 per pound. 


The Richmond Examiner, a staunch friend of secession, was so forlorn as to headline the words: "To-day closes the gloomiest year of our struggle.” 

On this dark New Year’s Eve of 1863, and as the last full calendar year of the Civil War begins, only a scruple of the most hardcore Confederate fire-eaters still believe that the Confederacy can win its war of independence solely through force of arms. Overlapping this small circle is another, whose members believe that the scales of war can still be tipped in the Confederacy’s favor by the intervention of a European power. Among this fading cadre of believers, France is still considered the most likely intervenor, if only to protect its imperial interests in Mexico. 

Most Confederates no longer have unbending faith in either Confederate arms or in Confederate foreign affairs. The summer’s military disasters at Gettysburg and Vicksburg and late autumn defeats in Tennessee, combined with Robert E. Lee’s clear hesitancy to join battle with the Union during the Mine Run Campaign, have convinced almost all Southerners that mere force of arms will not vouchsafe the South a victory. 

The South, indeed, is struggling mightily just to maintain its war machine, often at cost to its noncombatant civilian population, who find their food stocks seized and valuable possessions expropriated --- at least those they have not yet sold for the food the army seizes. This expropriation policy is a failure. Aside from embittering Confederates against their own government, the Confederacy’s horses are starving, its gunboats are shipping water, and its fighting men are oft-times barefoot, underarmed, and underfed. The British decision, coming in the end days of ’63, to halt all arms trading with the Confederacy means that the South’s primary source of war materiel is now beyond the pale.

 

After two years of war, the South’s chief domestic arms manufactory is still the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. The South has not done nothing, but it has done little, to expand its arms manufacturing capabilities. A few small-scale machine shops and artisans have become weapons designers and builders, but they lack the raw materials needed to forge plowshares into swords on any scale. This means that, beside itself, the South has only three uncertain sources of arms --- foreign nations via blockade-running, the United States, via weaponsmiths willing to engage in illegal arms trading, and the U.S. Army, via raid and capture of military supplies. In short, the South’s intended victory depends on the North’s bristling army.

Most Southerners are becoming more and more convinced that the only way to secure independence is through negotiations with the Union.  And though they don’t know what that portends --- most are holding out for complete independence, while an increasingly vocal few are proposing an economic consolidation with the North that will allow the South to maintain its political autonomy and its “peculiar institution” of slavery --- all Southerners understand that the chief stumbling block to a negotiated peace is Abraham Lincoln, with his bewildering, seemingly-fanatical insistence on maintaining the Union and abolishing slavery, both entire. 

The Peace Democrats and Copperheads of the North are also bewildered. Earlier in the war they wished for the “erring sisters to depart in peace,” and throughout two years of bloodletting they have worked diligently --- sometimes treasonously --- to end the war. The Peace Democrats want a negotiated settlement and reunification. The Copperheads want an end to the war without conditions. Many would prefer to see an independent South maintain its peculiar institution if for no other reason than they are enjoying financial gain by and through the toil of slaves. 

In 1862, when the tide of the war was at low ebb for the North, the Peace Democrats and Copperheads pressed noisily for peace --- why spill rivers of blood in a losing cause? Now, in 1863, with the tide of the war running at flood for the North, they noisily press for peace --- why spill rivers of blood in a winning cause? 

Is it merely for the slaves?

Most Northerners agree with Lincoln. The Union must be maintained. But few whites anywhere really understand his position on Emancipation. Few 19^th Century American whites, North or South, perceive blacks as complete human beings. At best, many opine, they make excellent servants and hard workers --- in short, charming housepets --- when properly trained. 

  

Only a few see a race of mankind in enforced anguish. 

Although the Peace Democrats were soundly defeated in the 1863 off-year elections, this has not undone their cause. Indeed, as 1864 progresses, they will become louder, more well-organized, and more focused on attacking President Lincoln as the author of their continuing woes --- and, as they insist, merely for the slaves!

 

Abraham Lincoln finds himself at the center of the vortex of this cyclonic war. Having gone to war on a platform of Union, he will not yield on this issue. And having declared the Emancipation of slaves as a military expedient, he now wishes to confirm that expedient by amending the Constitution to abolish involuntary servitude. The idea of re-enslaving those he has freed is anathema to him, and the idea of not extending Emancipation to all people held in bondage is equal anathema. At core, Lincoln tells his confidants, he made a promise and he cannot break it. Many members of his Administration are amazed at the President’s seemingly childish insistence on keeping a promise. 

But Abraham Lincoln already understands something that his contemporaries and even his closest friends will fail to grasp for some months yet --- that this Civil War is no longer about “rebellion” alone, or a mere political realignment, or “Union” or “slavery”. It has become a battle for the soul of the United States, and the path that soul shall walk in the future. Lincoln understands that an expedient peace with the South under current conditions will only be a truce --- even if it lasts 1000 years, it will rot the heart of the nation. To maintain slavery is to drink another dose of that slow-acting poison that has led to this historical moment. And this historical moment is about whether a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” shall perish or not. A Southern victory --- even a minor concession --- will spell a victory of privileged aristocracy over Everyman, and will end the American Experiment. Lincoln, the Everyman extraordinary, will not permit that on his watch, he will not be America’s Deathsman. 

Unlike all his predecessors but for the Founders, Lincoln understands that the United States of America is truly unique. The “original gorilla,” “King Abraham Africanus The First,” the “Dictator,” is truly the first American Exceptionalist.