The conscription laws of the Confederacy allowed a Slave to take your place if the Confederacy drafted you (the slave had no choice in the matter), you could also buy your way out of the conscription. It was the same rule used initially on the Union side I believe the Union corrected it later at the behest of Lincoln but I am not sure. I know the Confederacy had the rule until the very end. The myth that some blacks supported the Confederacy is a myth that the South attempted to perpetuate with staged photos, news articles, etc. Most of them have been shown to be inaccurate. Including the infamous picture of blacks in Confederate uniform taken in New Orleans…that was proven to be staged.
It’s the same as the rumor the Civil War was a state rights issue vs an issue over Slavery. From the very onset of the war it was about slavery. The South sponsored gangs of people funded by wealthy landowners in the Deep South to infiltrate territories about to become a state and persuade them via intimidation or just plain outright lies they had to legalize slavery. The North was attempting to ban the practice and the South was promoting it and had their not been a Civil War the South would have tilted the balance in the Congress via their new state recruitment program. Thats how Texas got sucked into it. Unfortunately East Texas was where the majority of the population was and Far East Texas were the large cotton plantations that needed the slaves. Western and Northern Texas were opposed to the Confederacy. The first Texas Governor that was opposed to the Confederacy had to resign after the Legislature was tilted against him. However he didn’t resign before warning the state what was comming. All his predict
CMStPnP: Some great, informative posts. BTW, in his wonderfully well-written atutobiography, Grant stated that the Mexican War was really a prelude to the Civil War, as both shared the core factor - slavery. There is also evidence that the reason Texans sought independence from the Mexican government (which had invited them as settlers) was because Mexico was increasingly seeking to oppose slavery in Texas, which was part of Mexico.
Try reading the Congressional report. Forrest was in charge. And other acts of treachery are also shown. Were it not for Sherman’s leniency towards Forrest, he would have been charged, convicted and hung. Your knowledge of history appears to be limited to revisionist “Lost Cause” garbage and apologias and anecdotes.
He was skilled at many of the things he did and I believe he was quite rational. So was Reinhard Heydrich. But both were evil and did despicable things. As the saying goes, "Looks can be deceiving."
And therin lies the core of the argument. There was a PBS documentary I watched a few years back that was about how reliant the Nazi movement was on ole’ Schicklgruber’s charisma for it’s success. “He may smile and smile and still be a villain” said someone famous once. There’s also the great line from Schindler’s List “It’s not just good old fashioned Jew-hating talk. It’s policy now.”
My point? It’s all too easy to slide down the slope and do things that you never dreamed of being capable of doing. All it takes is a sense of…how shall I describe it…license. A pardoning.
Description of video Battle of Brice’s Crossroads - Forrest’s Greatest Victory
Join National Park Ranger Matt Atkinson as he explores the controversial Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest entered the service as a private and surrendered as a Lieutenant General. Along the way, this uneducated backwoods fellow learned the art of war, culminating in the year 1864 with the controversy at Fort Pillow, his greatest victory at Brice’s Crossroads, and an all-out effort by General William T. Sherman to thwart “that devil Forrest.”
I only see one link to anything regarding Ft Pillow. However I recommend the book “Fort Pillow” by Professor Emeritus of American History, Harry Turtledove, University of California, for an in depth ana
Care often needs to be taken with historical material from this general period, and Wyeth was associated with the Confederate ‘side’. The introduction seems to indicate that he took more than usual pains to report impartially on Forrest’s history.
But I do have to wonder about Forrest’s testimony regarding his role in the formation of the early Klan, as Wyeth’s account is at odds with much of the Confederate-side account of Forrest’s participation. On the other hand, if the story regarding his response to Rocky Semmes’ arrest is correct (and I see no reason to disbelieve it) Forrest doesn’t seem like a man who would lie to save his own skin or even reputation; he would rather have trotted out the Southern-by-the-grace-of-God line about how the Klan was intended to protect the helpless against the predations of the Brownlow government, etc. … but then went sour as bad influences took over.
The klan was reborn in 1915 due to the Leo Frank case in Georgia. The film, “They Won’t Forget” from 1937 (Lana Turner’s debut film) is based on it. An innocent man was lynched after a female employee of his pencil factory was found dead at the bottom of an elevator shaft. Frank was from the North and Jewish so he had two strikes against him. Only a few years later the klan marched in Washington D.C.
That’s putting it mildly, to say the least. “John Allan Wyeth was born in Alabama, and served as a private in the Confederate cavalry until his capture two weeks after Chickamauga. After the war he became a surgeon. He died in 1922.”
