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div id="post_message_9596275" style="font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #f5f5ff;"emExcerpt from "By Necessity: Race Relations in the C.S.A." br /© 1981 Dr. Justin K. Armbrusterbr /© 1981 University of Clemson Pressbr /Clemson, South Carolina, C.S.A./embr /br /Though the Razorback Offensive is generally considered the point where the fulcrum of the Great War shifted decisively in favor of the Confederacy, there is little doubt that the early discovery of the simmering Red Negro rebellions of 1915-16 averted a threat to internal security that would have crippled the war effort. br /br /Then an artillery sergeant in the First Virginia Howitzers, future general Jacob "Jake" Featherston was credited for sounding the alarm about his commanding officer's colored servant Pompey. Interrogation of the suspect revealed the existence of cells of Negroes who had come under the influence of Socialist rhetoric. The so-called Red Negroes had sleeper agents not only in the Army of Northern Virginia, the wall protecting Richmond from Yankee incursion, but throughout the entire Confederacy. They were in the process of gathering arms and they were past ready to lash out at a system that had long oppressed them. What damage might have been done could only be left to speculation, but had the Red Negro rebellions been allowed the time to consolidate, only the most optimistic prognosticator foresees a Confederacy that would have seen eventual victory on the field of battle. br /br /The discovery of the uprising sent a shudder through the entire Confederacy, and it was a teaching moment for the entire society. Suspicion of secret Red cells lasted until deep into the Second Great War, and it is a virtual certainty that not much more than the heads were cut off the ones that were certainly discovered. How many of the rest of the Confederacy's blacks sympathetic to the Marxist cause will never be known. It was a tenuous moment, one of those upon which all of history might have pivoted. br /br /Whatever the truth of this matter, the Red Negro uprisings were defused in large part before they ever got off the ground. Only a few, such as the Congaree Socialist Republic in South Carolina, managed so much as to fire shots at their white masters. Led by a resourceful band of servants of the Marshlands Plantation, this band of Marxist rebels, as most others like them, were quickly extinguished. br /br /Distrust remained, but in parts of the Confederacy where the Red cells had been discovered and quickly eliminated, Negroes largely remained docile and hard-working. At a time where the military situation was deadlocked on all fronts, the idea of allowing Negroes to join the Confederate Army was no longer the half-serious whisperings of increasingly nervous politicians. Manpower was always at a premium, and the stalemate would almost certainly favor the United States in the long run. People openly considered the question of arming blacks and putting them on the lines. Much strife had already resulted from blacks entering factory work and taking jobs vacated by conscripted whites. The war effort would be even worse without their contributions. br /br /The Negro Military Service Act of 1916 was signed into law by President Gabriel Semmes on May 29th of that year. br /br /To this day, no one other than Col. George S. Patton knows, for certain, the identity of the black private whose suggestion of massing tanks for a directed strike at enemy lines formed the nucleus of his Razorback Offensive. Patton's legend as a military officer began with the slashing success of this operation, but throughout the remainder of his life, he never failed to credit the soldier, though always insisted that he would have identified the name of that soldier had the soldier not requested anonymity. True to his sense of personal honor, Patton similarly took the secret to his grave, never noting the name even in his diaries or other personal documents. br /br /While the identity of the soldier will probably never be known, what is much more certain is that tapping the vast pool of black manpower for the Confederacy kept the lines together long enough for Razorback to be planned and deployed. What is also just as certain is that the black soldiers of the Confederacy served as ably and doggedly as their white peers under fire, and however reluctant, the recognition of this fact by Confederate whites was what put the country on its first steps towards the true normalization of relations between whites and coloreds./div
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div id="post_message_9596275" style="font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, 'lucida grande', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #f5f5ff;"emExcerpt from "By Necessity: Race Relations in the C.S.A." br /© 1981 Dr. Justin K. Armbrusterbr /© 1981 University of Clemson Pressbr /Clemson, South Carolina, C.S.A./embr /br /Though the Razorback Offensive is generally considered the point where the fulcrum of the Great War shifted decisively in favor of the Confederacy, there is little doubt that the early discovery of the simmering Red Negro rebellions of 1915-16 averted a threat to internal security that would have crippled the war effort. br /br /Then an artillery sergeant in the First Virginia Howitzers, future general Jacob "Jake" Featherston was credited for sounding the alarm about his commanding officer's colored servant Pompey. Interrogation of the suspect revealed the existence of cells of Negroes who had come under the influence of Socialist rhetoric. The so-called Red Negroes had sleeper agents not only in the Army of Northern Virginia, the wall protecting Richmond from Yankee incursion, but throughout the entire Confederacy. They were in the process of gathering arms and they were past ready to lash out at a system that had long oppressed them. What damage might have been done could only be left to speculation, but had the Red Negro rebellions been allowed the time to consolidate, only the most optimistic prognosticator foresees a Confederacy that would have seen eventual victory on the field of battle. br /br /The discovery of the uprising sent a shudder through the entire Confederacy, and it was a teaching moment for the entire society. Suspicion of secret Red cells lasted until deep into the Second Great War, and it is a virtual certainty that not much more than the heads were cut off the ones that were certainly discovered. How many of the rest of the Confederacy's blacks sympathetic to the Marxist cause will never be known. It was a tenuous moment, one of those upon which all of history might have pivoted. br /br /Whatever the truth of this matter, the Red Negro uprisings were defused in large part before they ever got off the ground. Only a few, such as the Congaree Socialist Republic in South Carolina, managed so much as to fire shots at their white masters. Led by a resourceful band of servants of the Marshlands Plantation, this band of Marxist rebels, as most others like them, were quickly extinguished. br /br /Distrust remained, but in parts of the Confederacy where the Red cells had been discovered and quickly eliminated, Negroes largely remained docile and hard-working. At a time where the military situation was deadlocked on all fronts, the idea of allowing Negroes to join the Confederate Army was no longer the half-serious whisperings of increasingly nervous politicians. Manpower was always at a premium, and the stalemate would almost certainly favor the United States in the long run. People openly considered the question of arming blacks and putting them on the lines. Much strife had already resulted from blacks entering factory work and taking jobs vacated by conscripted whites. The war effort would be even worse without their contributions. br /br /The Negro Military Service Act of 1916 was signed into law by President Gabriel Semmes on May 29th of that year. br /br /To this day, no one other than Col. George S. Patton knows, for certain, the identity of the black private whose suggestion of massing tanks for a directed strike at enemy lines formed the nucleus of his Razorback Offensive. Patton's legend as a military officer began with the slashing success of this operation, but throughout the remainder of his life, he never failed to credit the soldier, though always insisted that he would have identified the name of that soldier had the soldier not requested anonymity. True to his sense of personal honor, Patton similarly took the secret to his grave, never noting the name even in his diaries or other personal documents. br /br /While the identity of the soldier will probably never be known, what is much more certain is that tapping the vast pool of black manpower for the Confederacy kept the lines together long enough for Razorback to be planned and deployed. What is also just as certain is that the black soldiers of the Confederacy served as ably and doggedly as their white peers under fire, and however reluctant, the recognition of this fact by Confederate whites was what put the country on its first steps towards the true normalization of relations between whites and coloreds./div