Slavery was just as important to the economy in other states as well. They were slaves being made to do labor for the CS Army and Navy. Most Confederate Soldiers didnt own slaves. Enslaved men were sometimes forced into service to build Confederate fortifications, women to serve as laundresses or cooks for troops in the field. When Confederate President Jefferson Davis heard the suggestion, The book is available from Amazon.com. Somewhat true. 25 percent. The confederacys 11 states had 316,632 slave owners out of a free population of 5,582,222. However, a year thereafter, he wrote, I do hereby manumit, emancipate and set free said William Jones from slavery forever.. In 1861, in an attempt to raise money for sick and wounded soldiers, the Census Office produced and sold a map that showed the population distribution of slaves in the southern United States. Mississippi 49%. c C. 12 percent. File Name: Q8912. In these states 50 to 60% of the population was enslaved. Answering: How many Confederate soldiers owned slaves? Rose Lincoln/Harvard Staff Photographer Less than 5% of the whites in the South owned slaves. In addition to that, slightly more than 25% of the men going into the army lived with parents who were slave owners. Many know the stories of slaves being coerced to breed from both oral history and literature. If not, then neither is the Confederate battle flag a symbol of slavery. By the time the war ended in 1865, about 180,000 Black men had served as soldiers in the U.S. Army. By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. The truth is that closer to 20-25% of all Southern soldiers either owned slaves or their fathers did. What did slaves do in the Confederate Army? The 10 Confederate generals who give their names to US Army bases include a bishop who owned 400 slaves, a suspected Ku Klux Klan leader and a fierce advocate of 10 percent. Answer (1 of 20): Most estimates are from 5-8% of white southerners owned slaves. Enslaved and free blacks provided even more labor than usual for Virginia farms when 89 percent of eligible white men served in Confederate armies. Slightly more than 10% of the men who volunteered for the Confederate Army in 1861 owned slaves. The Army of Northern Virginia was the most successful Confederate army during the American Civil War (18611865). Grant did own one slave, a thirty-five year old man named William Jones, in 1858. Confederate Officers were ordered to treat them humanely and protect them from injustice and oppression. All of them agree on these approximate totals: White Union soldiers from Confederate states -- 75,000-100,000. At Austin, Confederate soldiers raided the state treasury in March and found only $5,000 in specie. Enslaved African-Americans constituted 38.67% of the total population of the Confederate states. Using this data, we show that households that owned slaves elded more Confederate Army soldiers, on average, than did non-slaveowning households. That, however, does not tell us the extent of slave ownership. There were five states with over 400,000 slaves just before the beginning of the Civil War. soldier with sword. The average Confederate soldier went to war because he felt his home was being invaded, or On a summer day in 2019, Ms. Marshall sat in their Unidentified Confederate soldier. William Jones, Grant's Own Slave. The claim: Only 1.6% of U.S. citizens owned slaves in 1860. The United Sons of Confederate Veterans was founded in Richmond, Va., in 1896 with the requirement that members be men descended from Confederate soldiers. Both exceeded ratios in the general population, in which one in 20 owned a slave and one in five lived in a slaveholding household. Just because the south had slaves doesnt mean that all of them wanted slavery. Virginia with 490,867 slaves took the lead and was followed by Georgia (462,198), Mississippi (436,631), Alabama (435,080), and South Carolina (402,406). How Did Slaves Support the Confederacy? Thomas Jefferson despite once calling slavery an assemblage of horrorsowned at least 175 enslaved workers at one time. *B. Myth #3: Only a small percentage of Southerners owned slaves. The confederacys 11 states had 316,632 slave owners out of a free population of 5,582,222. 3. Closely related to Myth #2, the idea that the vast majority of Confederate soldiers were men of modest means rather than large plantation owners is usually used to reinforce the contention that the South wouldnt have gone to war to protect slavery. Using this dataset, we show that households that owned slaves fielded more Confederate Army soldiers, on average, than did non-slaveowning households. During the American Civil War slaves and free blacks served the Confederate Army, in many roles and duties. It is a common misconception that all Southern soldiers went to war to preserve slavery. They stayed to fight for their homeland against the Yankees. That, however, does not tell us the extent of slave ownership. The slave buck is one example. However, a year thereafter, he wrote, I do hereby manumit, emancipate and set free said William Jones from slavery forever.. Many black slaves were allowed to hold jobs, own businesses, and own real estate. 526 , designating April as Texas Confederate History and Heritage Month. For my friend, Scribe. Slavery was just as important to the economy in other states as well. Closely related to Myth #2, the idea that the vast majority of Confederate soldiers #1. That disguises the preponderance of slaveholding in the states that were the engine of the drive to secession. "Ninety-eight percent of Texas Confederate soldiers never owned a slave." Black Troops. Unknown C.S.A. Ambrotype is 3.25 x 4.25 inches File Name; Q751. Ambrotype is 2 x 2.5 inches From the Berry-Vasser-Gunter-Crommelin family papers File Name Q 1070 Q1071 Q1072. As Southerners became increasingly isolated, they reacted by becoming more strident in defending slavery. A quota was set for 300,000 black soldiers for the Confederate States Colored Troops. Fully 3/4's of the white people of the South had neither slaves nor an immediate economic interest in the maintenance of slavery or the plantation system. They accompanied the Army of Northern Virginia in its two invasions of the North, in the Antietam Campaign of 1862, and the Gettysburg Campaign of the following year. I would speculate it was a much smaller percentage than those who actually owned slaves, which was 6% of the Confederate population. Were Confederate soldiers terrorists? While it is true that most Confederate soldiers did not own slaves, erroneous single digit percentages are often used to reinforce this myth. By wars end, African-American soldiers made up roughly 10 percent of the Union army. The 12-foot granite obelisk, etched with the names of Delawareans who fought for or gave aid to the Confederate States of America, sits between two banners: the A. On March 13, 1865, with the main Rebel armies facing long odds against must larger Union armies, the Confederacy, in a desperate measure, reluctantly approves the use of Black troops. Some former Confederate states even moved forward under Lincoln's plans, while Congress debated their own legislation. How many of those who fought for the Confederacy owned slaves? In March 1865, the Confederate congress authorized the army to recruit 300,000 black troops. So says Texas State Senate Resolution No. Soldiers at Galveston and Houston began to mutiny. On October 11, the Confederate Congress passed the so-called "Twenty Negro Law", which exempted anyone who owned 20 or more slaves, Ninety-one percent of Confederate soldiers were native-born white men and only 9% were foreign-born white men, Irishmen being the largest group with others including Germans, French, Mexicans, and British. and were 6.4 percentage points more likely to own slaves at all, compared to households whose fathers did not win. NOTE: The population of the Confederate States in 1860 (according to the 1860 census) stood at 9,103,332. Morale was low in Texas in early 1865. Closely related to Myth #2, the idea that the vast majority of Confederate soldiers were men of modest means rather than large plantation owners is usually used to reinforce the contention that the South wouldnt have gone to war to protect slavery. - CNN.com Roland Martin thinks so. What percentage of southern white families owned slaves in 1860? Myth #3: Only a small percentage of Southerners owned enslaved people. In 1860 Percentage of families that owned slaves: South Carolina 56%. How could the War have been fought over slavery when both sides had slaves? These Confederate soldiers were from the 11 states that had seceded from the United States of America and joined the Confederate States of America. Grant did own one slave, a thirty-five year old man named William Jones, in 1858. Apr 11, 2010. State-by-state figures show some variation. Our Senate in 1999 said: Ninety-eight percent of Texas Confederate soldiers never owned a slave.. When the war ended, there were an estimated 400,000 slaves in Texas, more than double the number counted in the 1860 census. Each of these figures is significantly higher than the 1.4 percent cited in the social media post. The others came from many different types of jobs: carpenters, clerks, blacksmiths, students, etc. > In the Army of Northern Virginia, 44.4% of the soldiers came from households which owned slaves. What it portrays the deeply racist scultors vision of a faithful slave dutifully attending to a white master. As the Civil War progressed, desertion amongst Confederate soldiers infected the Confederate Army like a poisonous cancer. Unidentified Confederate soldier in a cavalry uniform. Historian Joseph Glatthaars statistical analysis of the 1861 volunteers in what would become the Army of Northern Virginia reveals that one in 10 owned a slave and that one in four lived with parents who were slave-owners. 83% of Richmonds male slave population volunteered for duty. They fought for the South simply because they were from the South. Harvard Professor John Stauffer, who studies antislavery movements, the Civil War, and American social protest, says that black Confederate soldiers likely represented less than 1 percent of Southern black men of military age during that period, and less than 1 percent of Confederate soldiers. With Robert E. Lee at its head, Thomas J. In 1860, 90% of Americas black population was enslaved, and blacks made up over 50% of the population of states like South Carolina and Mississippi. The Confederacy enacted the first conscription laws in United States history, [3] and the percentage of Confederate soldiers who were conscripts was nearly double that of Union soldiers. Slaveowners were nearly twice as likely to volunteer for the Confederate Army than Map of West Virginia counties by percentage of slave population in 1860. 3. By 1863 the majority of the Confederate troops were conscripts, rather than volunteers, and were enlisted to serve for the duration of the war, a situation similar to that of their Union counterparts. A special ball was held in Richmond to raise money for uniforms for these men. This is why the majority of blacks stayed in the South when the war started. More than half the Confederate soldiers were farmers, although only a very small percentage of them owned slaves. One of them is that (a) not many white Mississippians even owned slaves and (b) that only 6 to 10 percent of Confederate soldiers owned slaves. Most of the southern soldiers were not large slave owners, and many had never owned any slaves at all. U.S. Grant also had several slaves, who were only freed after the 13th amendment in December of 1865. Percentage of slaves in each county of the slave states in 1860. That is a very narrow minded and flat out incorrect assumption. This was about 10 percent of the total Union fighting force. A prominent historian accurately noted that by the late 1850s most white Southerners viewed themselves as prisoners in their own country, condemned by what they saw as a hysterical abolition movement.. A surprisingly high percentage of Negros in the South owned slaves themselves. One source cited the national census to report there were 3,775 black slave owners in the South in 1830 who owned 12,740 black slaves. For additional information we recommend the book Black Slave Owners by Larry Kroger.