March 16, 1865---The Battle of Averasboro (The Battle of Averasborough)

MARCH 16, 1865:      

The Battle of Averasboro (The Battle of Averasborough):

The relative strength of the Union (blue) and Confederate (red) forces at Averasboro is easy to see on this battle map

 

The history of Averasborough, North Carolina, told in brief, is an interesting glimpse into the history of many such small country towns. The town was founded around 1740 on the banks of the Cape Fear River. At the time of its founding, Averasborough represented the navigable head of the river. As such, it became an important market town for inland farmers to sell their produce. Averasborough grew, becoming the third largest city in the State (after Wilmington and Fayetteville), and competing for the honor of becoming the State capital (an honor it lost by one vote, supposedly because the town’s delegates were given spiked cherry juice to drink at the convention and they were too drunk to cast ballots). 

Throughout its history, Averasborough kept attempting to widen the river and bypass the rapids that limited navigation, but before the invention of dynamite there was no way to do so. Instead, a series of locks and canals were built, allowing riverboats to bypass the rapids. On September 11, 1859, a hurricane caused the Cape Fear River to flood, destroying the lock and canal system. Nevertheless, Averasboro (the spelling varies) thrived during the Civil War as a regional Confederate Recruiting Center, a munitions dump, and a hospital town. 

The Battle of Averasboro in a contemporary rendering. The road and the Oak Grove House are recognizable landmarks

The fighting war reached Averasboro on this day when General William J. Hardee C.S.A. received orders from Joseph E. Johnston to attack William T. Sherman’s left wing (now called the Army of Georgia). This represented the first large scale attempt to disrupt Sherman’s March. 

Averasboro today, looking toward the Union lines

Looking toward the Confederate lines. The Old Town Cemetery is to the left, the museum at center

Hardee’s 6,000 troops attacked the Army of Georgia’s 26,000 troops just outside Averasboro. Catching the Union forces by surprise, the Confederates threw them back in three successive waves, causing 700 Federal casualties; however, when a mass of Union reinforcements entered the field, Hardee’s men were hard put to it. Facing the utter destruction of his force, Hardee finally withdrew. He had delayed Sherman for exactly one afternoon at a price he could not afford. 

Janie Smith, a 17 year old resident of Averasboro, described the scene after the battle thus:

Oak Grove House, the last remaining structure in what was Averasboro

The scene beggars description, the blood lay in puddles in the grove, the groans of the dying and the complaints of those undergoing amputation was horrible, the painful impression has seared my very heart. I can never forget it. 

Battle damage is still evident on the Oak Grove House

Averasboro never forgot it either. Of the almost 1,000 Confederates lost at Averasboro, about half were from Averasboro itself. The loss of so much of its young male population was a disaster for the town. Although Sherman did not burn Averasboro, the town’s importance waned after the battle. 

Averasboro suffered the same postwar stagnation that affected so many other rural areas of the South. Its economic fate was sealed when the Atlantic Coast Railway bypassed the town in the 1870s, instituting a stop in nearby Dunn, about seven miles away. Its social fate was sealed during Reconstruction, when Averasboro became the epicenter of Ku Klux Klan activity in the center of the State. After rounds of Klan violence and several spectacular murders / lynchings, the Federal Government took the extreme step of placing troops in Averasboro. The town’s Klan population scattered, some going as far away as Texas. Eventually, the few remaining people of Averasboro moved on. By the early Twentieth Century only the old town cemetery and the Oak Grove House remained to mark the fact that there had been a town named Averasboro.  

Today, Averasboro is a “Point of Interest.” A Civil War Museum stands not far from the battlefield, which was made an Historic Site in the 1980s. During North Carolina’s 1990s economic boom, the City of Dunn annexed what had been Averasboro.

The Battle Museum

March 15, 1865---"Ho! Ho! Jefferson D."

MARCH 15, 1865:      

The Richmond Daily Dispatch republished an article from the Union army newspaper of Charlottesville, Virginia, Third Cavalry Division Chronicle, which first appeared in early March. The Dispatch pointed out the mocking tone of the Union sheet, including an “advertisement offering ‘Two Dollars Reward, Confederate Currency for the whereabouts of Jube, answering to the name of Early’.” 

But with a complete failure to grasp the unpleasant satire intended, and a shocking tone deafness as to its effect on Southern morale (or perhaps the Editor of the Dispatch was a closet Unionist?), the paper also advised its readership that 

“A kind friend has favored us with the following song, as sung by the Charlottesville Glee Club (a Virginia newspaper!) ---

How do you like it as far as you've got? 

Jefferson D, Jefferson D,

Are you glad you began it, or do you wish you had not?

Jefferson, Jefferson D.

People say, though of course I don't know that it's so,

That your spirits are getting decidedly low,

That you're sick and discouraged and don't know what,

But say though — do you like it as far as you've got.

Ho! Ho! Jefferson D,

Things look rather shaky now

'Twixt you and me.

You can't think how sorry I was when I heard,

Jefferson D, Jefferson D,

That your visit to Washington had been deferred,

Jefferson D, Jefferson D,

But I hope you will find it convenient to come

When Abe and the rest of the boys are at home

And I trust you won't mind it, they're such a lot,

If they ask you how you like it as far as you've got.

Ho! Ho! Jefferson D.

On the same day, a North Carolinian Unionist newspaper, the Wilmington Herald of The Union publishes the following account of General Sherman’s actions:

Couriers from General Sherman reached this city this morning, bringing the gratifying tidings of the perfect safety and success of the national army of that distinguished General. The couriers left Gen. Sherman on Thursday morning, at the crossing of the Lumber River, on the main road from Laurinburg to Fayetteville.  He was then advancing, and would probably enter Fayetteville on Friday evening. There was no enemy in his vicinity except a company of scouts in his front, and Butler’s brigade of cavalry handing on his rear. He had had no fighting of any account since leaving Columbia.

At Cheraw, on Saturday last, he had a little brush with some rebel cavalry, but drove them out of the town very easily, capturing seventeen pieces of artillery.  Four more guns were captures next day on the opposite side of the river, Sherman has sworn in and paroled about seven hundred militiamen on his march.  He also has a number of regulars with him as prisoners. He has found an abundance of all manner of provisions on his route, render it necessary to issue no rations except of coffee and sugar.

The march of General Sherman from Savannah to Fayetteville, has been a continued success throughout. . .

Clearly, passion in the South for the Confederate cause is rapidly waning.

Throughout the course of the Civil War, President Lincoln has suffered from a strange recurring dream in which he perceives himself standing at the bow of a great ship traveling through inky black darkness toward a distant and invisible shore at a tremendous rate of speed. This dream has repeated itself so many times that Mary Lincoln has linked it to instances when the Union is about to fight as major battle or when her husband is about to make a momentous decision.

As the war has wound down the President’s health has deteriorated shockingly. Since Christmas he has lost over 30 pounds, leaving his gangly frame and face looking alarmingly lined and cadaverous. His hair, once black, is shot through with gray. General Grant, when he sees the President, tells him that he has “aged twenty years since I saw you last.” Lincoln admits ruefully that, “Some weariness has bit at my bones.” Indeed, immediately after being sworn in as President on March 4^th, he took to his bed, making only token appearances at the evening’s Inaugural Balls, and refusing to leave the residence, He is conducting the war from his bedroom, even holding today’s Cabinet meeting there while he lies abed, and has not gone to his office --- or to his favorite haunt, the telegraph room in the War Department --- in almost two weeks. Couriers are bringing him word of developments.  

The President is spending too many sleepless nights. Since his second term began, Lincoln has been suffering from a fearful nightmare, different from the one that has plagued him all along. In this disturbing dream, Lincoln confides to several people, his dream-self is awakened by the sound of distant sobbing. Moving through a heavy grasping darkness, his dream-self tries to find the source of the sound. Lincoln awakes, sometimes, as his dream-self throws back the covers to get out of bed, or sometimes as his dream-self wanders the gloomy halls of the White House.  Sometimes, the President admits, he addresses a vaguely familiar but faceless phantasm that tells him there has been a death in the White House.

Lincoln excuses away the dream as a tortured recollection of Willie’s death in 1862 --- indeed, there has been a death in his White House, and if it comes to that, his Presidency has been defined by death. But, try as he might, Lincoln cannot shake off the terrible sense of foreboding that permeates the dream. Even in his retellings of it, his listeners are chilled.

Even as Lincoln recounts his nightmare to transfixed listeners, a meeting is called at the Gautier Hotel bar. The famed actor, John Wilkes Booth has gathered a cast of ne’er-do-wells --- among them Michael O'Laughlen, Samuel Arnold, Lewis Powell, John Surratt, David Herold and George Atzerodt --- to discuss his plan to kidnap Abraham Lincoln.

Booth is a hardcore Secessionist. A member of one of the most famous acting dynasties in American history, the strikingly handsome Booth is the son of Junius Booth and Mary Ann Holmes Booth, both English-born. His older brother, Edwin, the most famous of the family, is a devoted Unionist. The popularity of the Booth family is such that both Lincoln and Davis issue them laissez-passer to enable them to cross the front lines at will in order to perform in the cities of their choosing. Edwin often acts as a courier of secret communications between the two governments.

Junius Booth has a checkered past --- before coming to America, before taking up acting, he had abandoned his first wife and children back in Britain. After coming to America in 1821 with his then-mistress, Junius Booth developed an irrational and baseless hatred for the American President, Andrew Jackson. He had written to Jackson several times, threatening to kill the President. In response, the irascible and fearless “Old Hickory” agreed to meet Junius with pistols at twenty paces. Junius never replied to the President’s challenge.

Whether John Wilkes, the ninth of ten children in the family, was raised knowing of his father’s abortive plans to kill the President of the United States is not known. Born on May 10, 1838, he early on showed a flair for the dramatic. His first stage appearance took place in 1855, when he was 17.

The Booths were Maryland slaveholders, and political. Early on, John joined the American Party, also known as the “Know-Nothings,” which was anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-black, anti-abolitionist, and anti-immigrant in its leanings. The Booth family was emotionally split by the Civil War, though not physically separated. John identified entirely with the South, and feared the rise of the “Black” Republicans.

His acting career truly blossomed during the Civil War. He played New York and Washington D.C. and Richmond and a score of other, smaller cities regularly, becoming most famed for his “Brutus” in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. It is known that President Lincoln saw him on stage several times, initially in The Marble Heart. Observers later claimed that Booth glared at Lincoln from the stage while soliloquizing about murder.  Lincoln may have met Booth at an after-party; no one is really sure.

The obvious decline of the Confederacy is bringing out a madness in John Wilkes Booth. He has already contemplated killing Mr. Lincoln. In the summer of 1864, upon Booth’s checking out of his hotel, a charlady found an inscription left in the room that read, "Abe Lincoln departed his life August 13, 1864, by the effects of poison." Unfortunately, no one connected it to Booth at the time.

Always hungry to play heroic roles, he has concocted a well-thought-out if theatrical scheme to abduct the President and carry him South to Richmond, ransoming him for the price of Confederate independence. His co-conspirators agree to move against the President.

Abraham Lincoln has but one month left to live.

March 14, 1865---"A Hebrew Purim Ball"

MARCH 14, 1865:     

Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper covers “A Hebrew Purim Ball” held at the New York Academy of Music (located at E. 14^th St. and Irving Place) on this day. Funds raised are donated to the Union cause.

Philip Sheridan occupies the Richmond suburb of Columbia, putting Richmond in direct danger of assault. As part of his movements, Sheridan does great damage to the telegraph lines and post roads and canals in the greater Richmond region. The destruction is slowed only by bad weather and worse roads. Still, Lee cannot help but recognize the signs that the Union is gearing up for a Spring Offensive.  Lee issues an Order for a General Amnesty, inviting all deserters back into the lines. Numbers of men slowly begin straggling back.

March 13, 1865---The Negro Soldier Act

MARCH 13, 1865:     

After months of vituperative wrangling, the Confederate Congress passes The Negro Soldier Act authorizing the induction of slaves as combat soldiers into the Confederate armies: 

The Myth of the Black Confederate is of relatively recent vintage

AN ACT to increase the military force of the Confederate States.

The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, 

SEC 1. That, in order to provide additional forces to repel invasion, maintain the rightful possession of the Confederate States, secure their independence, and preserve their institutions, the President be, and he is hereby, authorized to ask for and accept from the owners of slaves, the services of such number of able-bodied negro men as he may deem expedient, for and during the war, to perform military service in whatever capacity he may direct.

SEC 2. That the General-in-Chief be authorized to organize the said slaves into companies, battalions, regiments, and brigades, under such rules and regulations as the Secretary of War may prescribe, and to be commanded by such officers as the President may appoint.

SEC 3. That while employed in the service the said troops shall receive the same rations, clothing, and compensation as are allowed to other troops in the same branch of the service.

SEC 4. That if, under the previous sections of this act, the President shall not be able to raise a sufficient number of troops to prosecute the war successfully and maintain the sovereignty of the States and the independence of the Confederate States, then he is hereby authorized to call on each State, whenever he thinks it expedient, for her quota of 300,000 troops, in addition to those subject to military service under existing laws, or so many thereof as the President may deem necessary to be raised from such classes of the population, irrespective of color, in each State, as the proper authorities thereof may determine: 

Provided, 

That not more than twenty-five per cent. of the male slaves between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, in any State, shall be called for under the provisions of this act.

SEC 5. That nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize a change in the relation which the said slaves shall bear toward their owners, except by consent of the owners and of the States in which they may reside, and in pursuance of the laws thereof.

Approved March 13, 1865.

African-American Confederates taking the Oath of Allegiance, March 1865

This is not the law that Robert E. Lee wanted or Jefferson Davis wanted. They wanted emancipation as a concomitant of faithful service under arms, but in the end, the Confederate Congress failed to meet the challenge. This is not, as Confederate apologists and revisionists would make it, “a Confederate Emancipation Proclamation.” Nor is it, as some more responsible historians have said, “understood” anywhere in the law that manumission of the fighting slave was implied. If anything, Section 5 of the law should put paid to such illusions. The Confederate leadership did not, in the end, as some have written, choose their own freedom over the bondage of their slaves. 

Yet, the myth of “Confederate Emancipation,” though recent, has taken on a life of its own. There are those who discuss the existence of thousands of slaves as soldiers under Confederate service during the war. There are those who claim the existence of “negro” combat units. There are documented sightings of negro “soldiers” manning cannons. There are those who state that “thousands” of blacks were put under arms by the Negro Soldier Act. 

All of these assertions are distortions of truths:

A photo, often used by Confederate revisionists to "prove" the existence of African-American combat troops in the Confederacy.

However, the original uncropped photo clearly shows the unit under the command of a white  Union officer.

In 1861 at the outset of the Civil War, a group of freeborn New Orleans blacks, some of whom were slaveholders (and at least one of whom was a dark-skinned Moroccan Jew by the name of Moses Carvalho who had been denied enlistment in the Confederate army), formed their own fighting unit, the Louisiana Native Guards, sometimes called the Corps d’Afrique. The Corps d’Afrique did indeed fight for the Southern cause until objections from other Confederate units led the Confederate Congress to inform the Native Guards that their services were no longer needed. Rather than disbanding, the Corps d’Afrique crossed the battle line en masse on September 27, 1862, becoming a unit in the Union Army. So ended the history of the only black Confederate combat unit to see action before April 1865.  

Likewise in 1861, Frederick Douglass, the former slave and Emancipationist, argued that blacks should be permitted to fight for the Union. He argued,

It is now pretty well established, that there are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops. 

Douglass, of course, spent the war years in the North; had he gotten close enough to combat to see for himself the truth of the existence of fighting black Confederates he would have likely been killed or captured and returned to slavery. He had no doubt heard of the Louisiana Native Guards, and these very men may have been the “many” with “bullets in their pockets” to which he referred. Douglass’ published comments were designed for a Northern audience, a goad to the North to push for the creation of black combat units, the United States Colored Troops. In this, he was successful. In perpetuating the self-congratulatory myths of white supremacists, he would have undoubtedly been satisfied to be less so. 

There were in fact many thousands of Southern black men in combat zones. They were slaves, not soldiers. In the Confederate Army it was not at all unusual for officers and men to bring along a slave or two to act as body servants, doing the mundane tasks of darning their masters’ socks, polishing their boots, perhaps cooking a meal, or drawing a bath. Slaves were also purchased by the government or by the army, or were appropriated as need be, in emergencies. All blacks were routinely assigned to heavy labor details, digging ditches and trenches, unloading boxcars and wagons and caissons, pushing batteries into position, and loading cannons with powder and shell. They distributed supplies, and took over the customary roles of “support troops,” allowing more whites to bear arms. They routinely came under Union fire. There is no record of how many of these men died in service to the Confederacy. 

A young Confederate officer and his "servant." Note that the slave is unarmed.

To call these men “soldiers” is to give undeserved credence to the policies of the South, to ironically, paper over the backbreaking effort with which these slaves served an unthankful Master. These men, enforced into service, were not soldiers. They had no rank, and they were not members of the army. In the eyes of the Confederacy, despite their bravery and effort they had essentially the same status as draught animals. 

Master Andrew and "servant" Silas Chandler posed for this photograph in a studio. Despite the quasi-uniform which some slaveowners provided as an affectation, African-Americans were not legally permitted to serve in combat roles in the C.S.A. until March 25, 1865, when the Negro Soldier Act took effect. The gun and combat knife on Silas' person were certainly unloaded and dull, and belonged to Andrew, who could have been arrested or even hanged for providing weapons to Silas.

Given that there was large available black population slaving (literally) beside white fighting men, it would appear to have been logical to allow black men to bear arms long before March 1865. But historically, blacks were legally forbidden to carry any weapons at all (even tools were routinely locked away when not in immediate use). Arming blacks was a hanging offense, as John Brown had discovered in 1859. Only in deep rural Florida and on the Texas frontier could slaves carry rifles for hunting and for protection. Had a slave at Gettysburg or Antietam picked up a gun even to defend his master, he would likely have been in just as much danger from Johnny Reb as from Billy Yank.

More "proof" of black military units in the C.S.A., this sketch is of the U.S. Corps d'Afrique in 1863 honoring a fallen comrade  

Given the vast sweep and complexity (and weirdness, it must be admitted) of the Civil War, it would be foolish to state that no Southern black anywhere at any time ever hefted a rifle for self-defense, for defense of his family, for defense of his owners (if he was a slave) or in defense of what was, after all, for better or worse, the only homeland he knew. But that is a far cry from claiming that there were standing and officially-sanctioned Confederate black combat units.  The white South’s blind adherence to its traditions and to its peculiar institution forbade even bolstering its army of independence with black strength.

Slaves worked as stevedores and heavy laborers in combat zones. After the Negro Soldier Act took effect, a score of African-American soldiers evacuated Richmond with Robert E. Lee. By the time the A.N.V. reached Amelia Court House, only one man, the unit's color sergeant, was still in the ranks. The rest had fled across Union lines

In the event, Lee and Davis both took steps that their Congress would not take --- but they still stopped short: 

Lee issued a General Orders that stated that “no slave may be taken into combat service against his own will” (though in practice this would have required a slave to challenge his owner’s decisions at the risk of punishment). Lee added that fighting slaves, “shall be afforded, as far as possible, the rights of free men”; that squirrelly phrase, “as far as possible” was a breeding ground of sins.  

Davis issued an Executive Order stating that all black men who served “honorably” shall be “subject to eventual manumission,” though Davis’ eventuality would have undoubtedly come only “with all deliberate speed.”

At all rates, the Negro Soldier Law made no difference to the war effort once it became effective on the 25^th of March.  The Union had already chewed through the South, tearing great rents in its territory and social fabric. Millions of slaves had already been freed by Proclamation and by military action. Others ran away. An unknown number were beyond the reach of Confederate legislation, isolated with their owners in pockets of Confederate resistance and receiving no news from Richmond. Delay spelled doom. It was too late for the South.

The Negro Soldier Law, which may have well swelled Confederate ranks by the hundreds of thousands had it been passed in the Fall of 1864, barely raised a full regiment of men in the Spring of 1865. 

The Congress in Richmond successfully accomplished just one thing in its short history: In its bloviating intransigence, it talked the Confederacy to death.