"Black History Month"

Frederick Douglass, the famed & often celebrated abolitionist, said in September of 1861...

"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, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels. There were such soldiers at Manassas, and they are probably there still." ... "That the Negroes are numerous in the rebel army, and do for that army its heaviest work, is beyond question. They have been the chief laborers upon those temporary defences in which the rebels have been able to mow down our men. Negroes helped to build the batteries at Charleston. They relieve their gentlemanly and military masters from the stiffening drudgery of the camp, and devote them to the nimble and dexterous use of arms."

Though Douglass' knowledge of such matters was probably not first hand, reports and accounts of the situation on the battlefields down south were so numerous and reputable that, after 5 months of armed conflict, the presence of African-Americans in the service of the Confederate military was "pretty well established.

Annually, in this month of February, the United States officially recognizes "Black History Month," a celebration of individuals of African descent who have made contributions to the country throughout history. There is a portion of "black history," however, that will either be omitted from the remembrances all together. or distorted, if any mention is to be made at all: the honorable service of thousands of African-Americans in the Confederate military during the War Between the States.

The service of these men does not fit the official revisionist-narrative of history, as written by the victors - the fiction that the war was fought over the issue of slavery. These "men of color" who served in gray, both those who were slave at the time of service & those who freely served, were very proud of their service in the struggle for Southern independence. While the Confederate government did not officially declare their eligibility to serve until late in the war, the leaders & men who were on the fields of battle would see them as brothers-in-arms much earlier, and they were heroes in their communities to local whites & blacks alike in the years following the War.

Pseudo-historians who teach that the war was all about slavery will never acknowledge these honorable Confederate veterans as being such. Some revisionist-history commentators run around the internet making a name for themselves arguing against their existence. They'll argue that since so many were only serving because they were forced to as slaves they weren't REALLLY veterans of the Confederate military, but using that argument one could say that everyone who didn't voluntarily enlist in the United States military during the draft years weren't really veterans either! They'll argue against the historical record until they're blue in the face that blacks were only used as cooks & servants, or that they only did the jobs that combat soldiers didn't want to do... my father was drafted to serve in the Army during Vietnam, was trained as a medic but stationed in Germany and used mostly as a carpenter... was he any less of a veteran than those who saw combat? Not according to the many combat vets I know, and not according to the U.S. government! While it's completely false to say that blacks were not often used as combat soldiers, there's virtually no difference between my father and any slave that served never seeing combat.

So throughout this month, as the nation honors the contributions of blacks in various areas of American life throughout history, we here in the SCV Camps of Michigan will be honoring some folks of African-descent who will be omitted from the celebrations by the NAACP, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. In the next few weeks we'll be posting about individual's of color who served in the Confederacy and others who might not have served but still supported The Cause. We'll also be spreading the word about Black Confederates through our Facebook page, where today we are honoring Louis Napoleon Nelson, a black Confederate who served under Gen. Forrest and also was a Chaplain to both white and black Confederate troops. (Visit our Facebook page HERE.)

To all of those men of color who served in the Confederate ranks, and to all of those black families who did their part on the home front to support our boys in gray: We salute you, and we will not allow the pseudo-historians to sweep you under the rug of politically correct revisionism! YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN!

DEO VINDICE!
- Jonathan McCleese
Sergeant-at-Arms, SCV Camp #1321