Black Confederates

 

 

Sergeant A.M. Chandler of the 44th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, Co. F., and Silas Chandler, family slave, with Bowie knives, revolvers, pepper-box, shotgun, and canteen

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

 

 

SLATE.COM has posted an interview with the author of a new book about supposed black confederate soldiers, Kevin Levin:

 

"...one of the things I found most interesting is trying to understand what happens when you pluck the master-slave relationship from the setting of the plantation, where the expectations are set, into a new environment. Andrew had never been off to war; Silas had never been off to war. How does that relationship stretch and contract in relationship to some of the uncertainties of camp life, long marches, and especially the battlefield?

And what I found is, not surprisingly I guess, enslaved men like Silas and others used that opportunity to gain increased privileges. So when they had free time they would work for money, doing odd jobs for other people. Some of them end up buying their own uniforms for any number of reasons. They’re able, some of them, to send money home to their families. Some of them stretch the relationship to the breaking point and end up running off, either to the Yankee army or elsewhere."