We make all of this material available to the public for free and we have rotating exhibititions and, of course, many, many public programs. Based on the subject of tonights talk, i thought it was worth highlighting programs that explore africanamerican history. Fourprogram series of legacies of 1619, this year is 400th anniversary of first enslaved africans in british colonies in north america. Perspectives of 17, 18, and 19th centuries. We have 3 more to go. If you have a chance to join us, the next program october 19th, afronative connections. Coffin we will hear from kevin who will talk about African Americans who fought for the confederacy, he argues that the claims would have shocked anybody who served in the war. And 20th century backlash against africanamerican gains in civil rights, we pull some material from collection to small display in reception and if any of you know peter, you know that peter is not a person that does not like to be stumped. He went out and find images in our collection of African Americans fighting for the confederacy. If you look, are of course, not image that is contradict the subject, nice image that is have asterisks around them but interesting in the context of this. After the program if youre interested, im sure peter would be happy to talk more. He published two earlier books. He has also published numerous articles including things in the New York Times, the atlantic, washington post, very active in social media and has strong twitter presence as well as maintaining civil or memory blog. [applause] thank you, good evening, can you all hear me . Before i get started i want to thank everyone at the Massachusetts Historical Society for inviting me, this is this is a real honor, im thrilled to be able to speak here, i mean, this is a room where a couple of years ago i was doing research, its really cool to be back talking about about this book. I dont think i need to remind anyone in the room that right now we are in the midst of a very public, very divisive, emotional debate about race, i mean, certainly since the early summer of 2015, you know, in the wake of the horrific murders in charleston committed by dylann roof, we know what it led, lowering of confederate flags and removal of Confederate Monuments and certainly this is not, you know, a new debate. Certainly the monuments and others have been controversial, but its certainly the murder certainly attracted more to the debate and people committed to respective positions and became more infringed in august of 2017 in the wake of the White Nationalist rally in charlottesville around Confederate Monument to robert e. Lee, highlights the difficulties that americans seemed to always have in confronting the issues of the history of race and White Supremacy in the United States, even a couple of weeks ago, those of you who read the New York Times obviously it upped up on sunday found out incredible magazine, 1619 project, but, of course, that also came with the great deal emotional responses, who were uncomfortable with the New York Times or anyone perhaps sort of reminding us the very foundation or one of the foundations of what becomes the United States, the institution of slavery, so this back in many respects, sort of fits into that broader discussion and so what i want to do tonight is talk about sort of give you a sense of what the book is about and talk about both the inability to come to terms and face honestly the history of slavery and race, but also to talk about the ways in which mainly as white americans not entirely, the lengths we go to distort the past and searching for black confederates is a case study in that broader discussion. And so what i want to do is start with this image, of course, the image that is featured on cover. If you go to the internet, you can find this photograph which now is in the hands of the library of congress, you can find this on hundreds of websites and many of these websites, you can imagine that it is framed around this narrative of black confederate soldiers, its not difficult to sort of imagine why that. If you look at it, what pops out is that you have two men sitting, both of them are wearing uniforms, and, of course, what really jumps out they seemed to be heavily armed, right, so what you have on the right, you have sylus chandler and on the left Andrew Chandler and this has become one of the more popular images supporting the idea that black men, enslaved men and freed blacks fought as soldiers in Confederate Army, how many, similar between 500 roughly and 100,000. Okay. [laughter] i mean, i wish i could really narrow it down for you but that is sort of where people come down on this issue anywhere roughly 500 and 100,000, right off the bat you get a sense that theres something wrong here, problematic with this narrative, but, again, for those people who are committed to this narrative of black confederate soldiers, this is all the evidence they need and what they dont understand, of course, for a number of reasons which i will go into is that, in fact, what youre looking at is image of interracial military service in the confederacy, youre actually looking at an image from the history of slavery because what youre looking at the right, you are looking at enslaved man, he moved with the family to west point mississippi in 1840s and when the war start in spring of 1861 the man on the left Andrew Chandler inlested in 44th mississippi infantry and like many enlisted and officers from slaveholding class, they would have brought a body servant or a camp slave as their personal slave. Hierarchy, likely taken in the studio, early in the war perhaps traveling to the camp. Its likely that what you see in terms of weaponry are studio props, even the uniform that silas is wearing is probably studio prop. Camp slaves did wear uniforms which i will talk about a little bit later. When i look at this photograph now after looking at it how many times now over the last 10 plus years, theres something quite funny about it, right, i end up chuckling quite a bit when i look at it, what i see is not two confederate soldiers, what i see is a young confederate andrew, 17, 18 years old, never went off to car, walks into the studio and sees weapons lying around and first thing that comes out, someone who wants to demonstrate manhood in form of photograph that he will send back to family, he wants to cram in as many weapons as possible. [laughter] right . Can you fit one in coat jacket, stick one there. Its highly unusual as we will see in a second, most of the photographs are enslaved men standing next to their master, but this one ive never seen anyone, another photograph quite like this one, silas is with andrew in september of 1863, silas likely escorted him home and less than a year silas went back to war as enslaved, and this unit was, in fact, one of the universities that escorted Jefferson Davis out of richmond in early april 1865, in fact, its very likely that silas and benjamin were with davis party when he was captured in georgia, silas was literally in the army from the very beginning until the very last day, last days to have civil war in spring of 1865. Its a window into this world of enslaved people and their relationship to the confederacy, tens of thousands of enslaved men throughout the confederacy were impressed by the confederate government to walk on any number projects in 1865. Here is a scene from james island in South Carolina, thousands of them would have worked on earth works, they would have been repairing and and laying rail lines throughout the confederacy, they would have been working in salt mines and working in places like the iron work in richmond producing war material for the confederate war effort, anything the confederacy needed in terms of war production that would support the war effort enslaved men are impressed to do so, to help out. Of course, they have to do this, right, because they are trying to offset the advantages that the United States enjoys, both in terms of population and also the material that are produced to fight a war. Enslaved people are everywhere. Whats interesting about slaves, they are not the men that today commonly referred to as examples of black confederate soldiers, they are nameless, they dont leave much of a record. The examples, of course, that stand out, the ones that are incredible by popular today are the camp slaves, the body servants like silas chandler, another photograph of a camp slave, they would have been everywhere in the Confederate Army enslaved men, working on various military projects but confederate armies also would have included thousands of enslaved men doing various things, both functioning as teamsters, driving trucks, working in hospitals; maintain ing supply lines, anything that the army needs even on battlefield slaves are performing those kinds of functions, but the men who stand out are the ones who stand out here, the camp slaves, they are the ones highlighted both during the war in accounts by confederate soldiers, officers and especially the decades after the war because they are the ones who are maintaining those close ties with their masters in camp throughout war and, again, the camp slaves would have performed any number of functions for their master from dawn to dusk, cooking, cleaning, getting the camp, the officers camp ready to take on long marchs, they would have assisted their masters even on the battlefield, right, so one of the things thats really i think important to sort of understand is as a result of placing the large numbers of enslaved men in the army, it refocuses us on the importance of slavery not just confederacy as a nation, one thing to say the confederacy is fighting for slavery, thats certainly true, its a little bit abstract, you want to give it some meat, one way to do that is focus on the army because confederates every day whether they are in camp, on the battlefield, whether they owned 100 slaves or dont own any slaves, they would have been reminded each and every of the importance of maintaining slavery. There is no Confederate Army, theres no confederate war effort without it be assistance of enslaved people, so one of the things i wanted to do with this book, one thing to tear down a myth, what was the role of enslaved people throughout the confederacy and especially in the army during the war . Lees army, another example, encamped slave, marching north in 1963 culminating in the battle of gettysburg, so they are they are fighting for slavery, slavery follows every Confederate Army and success again to reiterate, its success, ability to do what it needs to do depends in large parton part on enslaved men, whether they own them or dont own them, its absolute nonsense, of course, they all understood the importance of slavery to the war effort. This is another example of the photograph of master and slave. Again, notice wearing confederate uniform, one thing thats interesting to research, what happens when you pluck relationship, relationship between master and slave would have been defined and reinforced over time, what happens when you remove that and not place it in a very different situation within the military, neither party, of course, has any experience, right, how is that contingency, unknown, military life going to impact that relationship, how is it going to stretch over time, right, how enlived men going to sort of push for new privileges . What are masters going to do when they need to push back, they need to sort of reset that relationship and one one of thes that i found that was really interesting ways that enslaved men pushed for more privileges was working for money during free time. What do they do, send it home . Why they did this is not entirely clear, perhaps they wanted to feel more part of the military, perhaps they saw their own presence in sort of military terms, perhaps that would not have been such a would have been approved by their owners, but this is a way in which i think enslaved people are trying to create their own experience during the war. Of course, you know, again, masters quite often have to end up pushing back and some do so in violent ways, one master who has to punish his slave in camp and writes home to his wife in 1864, he says i layed on 400 lashes on his camp slave, so, of course, all of the experiences that are happening on the home front, plantation, they are also happening in camp at the same time its pretty clear to me that some of these men actually do form some kind of bonds of affection and i hesitate to say that because, of course, we never want to lose the fact that we are talking about the master slave relationship but important to keep in mind that they are sharing experiences, far from home, away from their families in many cases, they experience long marchs, they experience really sort of becomes apparent and also experience lack of food and especially disease. Again, i think we need to be very careful and how we characterize these relationships, what were the motives were to helping one another, a lot of that, of course, we dont have the kinds of records that we would like, we mainly are looking at the relationships through lens of the white men and, of course, that is quite problematic in many cases, these men are everywhere, the slaves and camp slaves, they are, again, they are performing the slaves of enslaved people or legal status is of enslaveed men, but theres question about whether or not the confederacy should move forward, slave as soldiers that does not take place until 1864 and what i find always bizarre when youre dealing with people today that are convinced that there are large numbers of men who serve throughout the war, the obvious sort of response is, well, why are they debating this in 1864, whats the process of debate if large numbers of black men are already serving as soldiers and it start in the military itself, clayburn, in 1864 actually does bring the idea of emancipating men if they become soldiers, one of them is horrified by the idea, sends notice to Jefferson Davis, president of the confederacy and davis immediately orders clayburn to shut his mouth, it is much too controversial, there were a few other confederates early in the war who broached the idea, early 1864, even after clayburn is told, lets keep it quiet, within a few months, the cat is out of the bag, more people are beginning to debate this, it is a very public, very divisive debate that takes place throughout the confederacy and you can imagine that people are very concerned about the implications of enlisting slaves, the soldiers, the moment you resort to negro soldiers they will be lost of you, the day you make soldiers of them is tend of revolution, our whole theory is wrong. Thats how cobb was with the army for quite some time, the richmond examiner, plenty of opeds, the negro is fit to be a soldier, not fit to be slave, the employment of negroes as soldiers would be first step but step that would involve all the rest to universal abolition. This debate, this question hits at the very core of what the confederacy was fighting for, right, to maintain slavery and White Supremacy. If we recruit the men as soldiers, clearly, what are we fighting for . Of course, some people came out in favor of it, some of the men in the army came out in favor of it, but most of them do so as a way to preserve the institution of slavery, if you can emancipate limited number, perhaps immediate families, that might be a way to offset defeat but its not going to lead to the end of the institution of slavery as a whole. So this debate continues through 1864, hundreds, if not thousands of opeds and letters and dairies, everyone is involveed. No one involved in this debate, no one that i have ever read in 10 plus years who express an opinion on this question of slave enlistment regardless of their position, no one ever included in their writing their point of view that black men were already serving as soldiers, as far as confederates themselves were concerned, this was a step in an entirely new direction, right, this would take the confederacy in a very dangerous direction, only if robert e lee support of measure did people come around, davis, of course, comes around and plenty of other people and speaks to, of course, prominence in confederacy as a whole. Long story short, pass legislation supporting enlistment in final weeks of the war in 1865, small number of men are recruited, they may have marched broad street in richmond, held in house in prison and theres no evidence that they, in fact, saw any action of the battlefield, the war ends as white mans war, the fact that it takes confederacy as long as it does to finally pass the legislation i think reminds us of how committed they were to the institution of slavery, right, but, again, remember neither the United States or the confederacy is recruiting black men at the beginning to have war, the United States, of course, resist this until early 1863 and its, of course, because how the war is evolving that they make this move, so they are both starting out from the same point, they, of course, end in very different places. Of course, harpers weekly, playing, having fun with the debate, you can, see, of course, this is what most people think is going happen if the confederacy recruits black men as soldiers, they are immediately going to drop their weapons and walk to union lines. This is northern publication poking fun at the confederacy, after the war, again, to remind us, no one knows about black confederate soldiers in april of 1865 and this is a case for decades. Helps to rationalize defeat the lost cause, one part of the narrative, crucial component, war to preserve state rights, constitutional difference but the other part of the lost cause is that slaves remained loyal to them throughout the war and the camp slave is a prominent image throughout this post war period and you can see illustration of Stonewall Jackson in camp and notice to his right you can see the camp slave, right, another image from the immediate post war period, if you look closely youll see a black man lying down by the tent and then in the background youll see, of course, African Americans, including a woman, looks like they are cooking in the back, this seems they wouldnt surprise anyone, black individuals in the illustration illustrations, so if youre thinking of shermans march, think of all the post war accounts where the focus is on the slaves protecting the jewels and the family belongs from sherman men, you have slaves in the army itself, right, they remained loyal slaves, no one is confused about the status of these men and toward the latter part of 19th century confederate veterans are, of course, gathering for reunions across former confederacy and when they do gather for the reunions, black men, former camp slaves are there as well. And they are there for a number of reasons, they are there, of course, because theyre invited, they are sort of the clearest example of, again, memory of the slave, remember at this point in time these reunions, the gathering former confederates, they are bringing together large numbers, thousands of white southerners from all over the place, many of them, of course, born after the war and so they are getting education about the slaves and south, right, the slaves are there, they are the reminder of peaceful Race Relations between white and black people and you can see one man sitting by the table there. Jefferson shields, some of the men are very prominent, they attend multiple confederate reunions, theyre also present because these men are very vocal about their support, not just for the memory of the confederacy but also very outspoken, they were never republicans during the post war period, they are loyal democrats, these are examples for white southerners not just past, the racial hierarchy of the past but the new racial hierarchy thats taking hold during the post war period into the jim crow era, real character, youll see him again, i think, in another photograph, this is my favorite, this is steve perry, he attends at least 15 reunions, interesting example of a camp slave for a number of reasons, i wish i chose the one, hes usually seen carrying chickens, he loves to play the role from the war, right, so he carried chickens as a sign that he was really good during difficult moments when food was scarce, he could actually find food and would carry live chickens with him, he made money at the reunions, but theres some evidence to suggest that everhardt thats how he referred to himself at reunion, name of former master, theres evidence that everhardt understood he was performing a role, right, because when hes not with former confederates the surname of his wife, his children, so it suggest that hes playing a role, you know, when hes away from home and he plays it too a, tee. I should never remain in my place and be obedient to all white people, the light of god shine upon them. Then he says, ive always been a white mans he uses the n word, the yankees can change. So very expressive, very open about his loyalty not just to confederacy but, again, think of the importance of maintaining control in jim crow era, into 20th century and white southerners to have, to show case, like a show, show case the form early enslaved men, they would have sent a message to the black community, this is how we expect you to behave and think about how that sort of sounds at the end of world war i with African American soldiers are coming back from europe having made the world safe or europe safe or democracy, they get off the trains in southern towns in their uniforms carrying weapons, perhaps expecting things will change in civil rights front and, of course, for white southerners this is a threat and so these form early slaved men presents contrast to these younger black men who are expecting change. Youll see everhardt, you will see him holding the confederate flag, the man is wearing a ribbon, popular image on the internet, large number of black confederate soldiers, if you blow the image up and you read the ribbon it says exslave. Right, this is not that difficult to do, to research, just throwing that out there, right . This is from tampa, from a reunion in tampa, florida in 1927, gives you a sense of the numbers that would have been present, they would have slept together, marched together, they were segregate today a large extent during these events, but they were welcomed and i have to sort of accept the possibility that they perhaps look forward to seeing some of the men they marched off, white men and that the same was true for the confederate veterans that they perhaps had established some relationship during the war itself, again, lets remind ourself that is we are talking about the former master slave dynamic, here is another image, 1930s, and, again, i love this image because it gives you a sense of how widespread the image of the camp slave, the body servant was in 20th century, this is from new york newspaper and you can see robert e. Lee and theres robert e. Lees servant cleaning some socks, right, the important is no one is confused about the legal status of these men, no one is confused about whether black men fought as soldiers, no one is talking about it, you dont find any discussion about black men serving as soldiers throughout this period, dedication of monuments during the critical period which you can see, many monuments end up focusing on race and we should keep in mind in this discussion about monuments, they are not just sort of, you know, theyre not history lessons, many of the monuments, of course, distort history of the confederacy and slavery, of course, some examples of possible statutes that could have gone up on the National Mall in washington, d. C. In honor of the loyal that never happened, thankfully never happened but gives you a sense of how widespread, some of the monuments in post war. Dedicated for the Confederate Army, this has been debated quite a bit in recent years. Interesting example is across the patomic and international cemetery, they are involved in this, gave dedication address, it marchs the spot of 465 confederates in and out dc in arlington cemetery, you, of course v to make it a point to walk to the far corner, section 27 i think it is of arlington to see where, of course, the United States color troops are buried but this is in one of the most prominent spots in the entire cemetery, this is i think the largest monument in the entire cemetery and dedicated to men who tried to destroy the United States. [laughter] whats interesting about this, of course, the images around the base of the statute and what i want to point you to, of course, taking child from white confederate officer and, of course, the other one right in here between the two soldiers, you can see what appears to be a plaque man wearing uniform and, again, today you can imagine many people are confused about this, it wasnt confusing for anyone who attended the dedication address or the udc who, of course works the history of it and this is an excerpt from their own handbook about this particular monument and you can see, of course, towards the bottom on the right is a faithful negro body servant following young master, its very clear, right, hes not a soldier, hes a uniformed slave. Okay. So when does this change . Lets skip over this, its blocked and i have to include this, right, sort of a contrast to give you a sense how important the monument is, the only memorial that actually acknowledges, the service of real black union, United States soldiers up until roughly the 1990s, its that rare. So when did this change, right . Sort of graph i put together about 10 years ago, im going give you a quick look at it, if you plug in into google and this program, im not suggesting scientific by any stretch, black confederate keywords, give you a sense of how often it appears, you know, in various kinds of websites and its a fairly recent spike as you can see, whats interesting is its really the success of a Television Mini series roots that kicks this into high gear and i detail this in the book, the sons of confederate veterans, key confederate is concerned about population, americans in large numbers watching Television Series that tells a very different story about slavery, not celebratory lost cause narrative but does dig into the darker sides of slavery. And the response as well as the service of black Union Soldiers and the response to this is, again people who are used to or used to being able to defend confederate ancestors without any kind of pushback, they are word about whether they can do so anymore. Can we still defend confederate ancestors if we have to defend the confederacy because the issue of slavery is on the table. Its not just roots coming out of the civil rights movement, of course, the issue of emancipation new research, the focus of historic sites, they are now focused more on the history of emancipation, slavery, and so its making certain people feel more defensive and the sons of confederate veterans begin to do research into black confederate soldiers and many men they find are people like silas chandler, other former camped slaves that they can refashion, if you will, into soldiers but its not until the internet that it really takes off, right, of course, anyone can post anything, publish anything on the internet, the internet makes us all our own historians, right, as a blessing and a curse and you can distort photographs, supposedly an image of the first louisiana native guard, they never did, never accepted into confederate service, these men were never confederates, photograph of Union Soldiers taken outside of philadelphia that was used as recruitment poster, use today used to recruit black men in union army. It was First Published in civil war magazine in early 70s, but with the internet its everywhere, you can cut and paste it and you can say whatever you want about it and speaks to the inability, and im a teacher doing this, educator, speaks to the inability of most people to sort of effectively search and assess digital sources, we are not teaching, teachers had to do this, they are not teaching their students how to do this, what we do we put keywords on the search and click top image and thats it, thats as far as a lot of people go, thats what led to this disaster in 2011 in virginia, virginia history textbook published for fourth graders, looked at it, turned it civil war section, how am i doing on time just out of curiosity . Okay, good, i want to keep going here. Thanks. Paintings. So this narrative begins to really take off and then, of course, you have a small number, i will leave you to the book if you decide to read this, small number of African American who is have gravitated towards, former ncaap, chapter president , we can talk more during the q a, hes the darling of the sons of confederate veterans because he has embraced this narrative of black confederate soldiers. One way they push narrative is military head stones for former camp slaves that they turn into soldiers, you wouldnt know, of course, that the men are slaves. This is one in union county, north carolina, notice the language, right, union county is confederate, i will move over for the sake of time. Another example, she recently passed away, camp slaves, more about her father and the sons of confederate veterans was more than happy to share what they understood to be history, he was a camp slaved from South Carolina, confederate soldiers, real daughter of the confederacy. In charleston, of course, the sons of confederate veterans were very concerned because everyone is calling for confederate flags to come down, once those images, photographs of dylan roof surfaced with him Holding Confederate flag, here is what they had to say. Historical fact show there were black confederate soldiers, brave men fought in trenches beside their White Brothers all under the confederate battle flag, right, so the narrative is still surfacing after charlottesville, two republican state senators in South Carolina a monument to black confederates on the ground in colombia. We can go into more details in the q a. Im sure you probably have a couple of questions. Thank you so much for your attention, appreciate it. [applause] [inaudible] i know that Jefferson Davis, i believe, had one or two African Americans serving in his Confederate White House who, in fact, were transferring data or information to the union forces, was there any effort to recruit some of these people . I havent seen any. I mean, certainly many of these men and gettysburg is a perfect example. Trying to recross the patomic and all kinds of confusion, many encamped slaves either escaped, many detached from masters and end up in prisons, some of them do end up in union numbers, i dont know exactly the numbers, as far as they are recruited for Intelligence Service or espionage, i havent come across any examples. That might have been possible. Good question. I think you need a microphone. You were talking initially about the fondness between the supposed yeah, yeah. Between the black slaves and masters and i think its, you know, its probably a situation like somebody being very fond of their dog or their favorite dog, rather than a friendship in human terms. I think you actually make an interesting compelling point, in fact, im just going to go back to initial image of of silas. I came in contact with with silas great granddaughter about 10 years ago and weve maintained a relationship since and shes aware of this image and thats how she sees it, to sort of suggest anything beyond that, she doesnt want to go there and when she looks at it she sees somebody slouched over and she would agree with you thats more than likely his perspective. I read too many accounts, you know, over the years and, again, i want to be very careful in how i characterize it because we dont have any accounts of from enslaved men about how they view the relationship and obviously we need that, right, because i think certainly looking at this from the perspective of andrew and certainly a lot of people out there who do want to look at this from andrews perspective and they see what they want to see obviously, its difficult to characterize the nature of that relationship although its much certainly more complex, we certainly have to move beyond whether we are comfortable enough or not beyond simply looking at coercion, certainly its important. Its the center of the master slave dynamic but other things going on im convinced. I hope this is one area where perhaps some more research can be done. Thanks so much for the talk as someone who follows you on social media im very aware of the rather extreme pushback that you get and yeah, a little depressing as fellow history educator, i wonder what kinds of reactions have surprised you . I dont know if i would say surprised, i guess i mean, i often highlight on social media, you know, whether its twitter or my vlog, i highlight the crazies as i like to call them. Just yesterday i was refer today as baghdad bob of civil war, i have no idea what that is, if you have an idea, share that with me. [laughter] i think its a way to diffuse what theyre doing it, having fun at their expense, perhaps, the overwhelming response to what ive done over over the last 10 years specifically with the subject is overwhelmingly positive. The vast majority of people who come under the spell of this narrative, theyre not trying to push an agenda, i think what happens more often than not is usually theyre not they dont have enough historical background so just sort of the narrative is lacking, right, the sort of centrality of slavery to confederacy, that, of course, sticks out, but also when it comes to interpreting the primary sources and, again, you know, i think both blessing and a curse because its all there for us and as an educator i love having access, its incredible by rich but there does need to be little bit dare i say training in how to look at some of the stuff and if you dont have the background your ability to interpret an image like this is going to be severely lacking and so i think, you know, getting out your question, i think people actually appreciate, you know, the information, the help, if you will and to me social media has been i mean, its been my way, the classroom is one thing but for me especially through the vlog, its been a way for me to reach out for people like i said are, i think, they are hungry for to understand this stuff, it is a fascinating subject in a way, gets so many different aspects of Civil War History and also memory of the civil war and, again, i think the response for the last few weeks of the books has sort of reflected that which has been great to see, certainly people who have told me that they will never read it, they would burn their money like one person put it. Thats fine. [laughter] i hope i answered the question. Hi. One of your last slides, union county yeah. There was an asterisk at the bottom and says free persons of color. Yes, one of them, in fact, was a free person of color. The asterisk to one name. One name. The rest are all enslaved but, of course, when you look at this image where does the word slave appear or enslaved, some of them were impressed. Most of them are body servants. Thats the father of mattie kclburn, vested interest, push narrative, black confederate soldier narrative, this is the way you do it, this is prominent public spaces still, now, just activists that ultimately as i argue in the book, the black confederate narrative has been unsuccessful. I could give you an example that the National Park fell for it and i can even tell you, i will leave you to read the book across the river there are two prominent harvard scholars who have fallen for this. And that hasnt helped, right, thats actually really hurt things because a lot of people are more than happy to cite a harvard scholar, there were 3 to 6,000 of them, imagine 3 or 6,000 black soldiers fought for the confederacy. Ultimately where ever it has appeared in mainstream place, museum, book, ultimately it was removed, so this narrative ultimately lives on the internet, thats where it lives, right, along with a lot of other crazy ideas as we all know, it never became mainstream and this was the goal of the 1970s their goal was to preserve the lost cause in the face of what we might call, emancipation is narrative of the civil war, that was the narrative of the entire civil war, right, if there were any black soldiers that were focused on during the centennial it was black United States soldiers and thats an Important Development in civil war memory, this will be with us for some time, but it will never become mainstream im pretty confident of that. When the monuments were made. My question to you is, i would think that the lack of soldiers applying for pension would be pretty powerful dampening for those who are trying to argue the other way, so that what else do you use as goto move to try to help educate people as to so pensions are big part of it, theres an entire chapter in the book about pensions that 5 former Confederate States rewarded to former camped slaves, clearly today some never looked at a pension, the pension must have been for a soldier, when you look at the documents, pensions for former body servants, they have different language but its all pretty much the same and i go into that so the question of what other ways [inaudible] yeah. What tools do you use to help, you know i think the best tools are actually and not necessarily in the book, be what im working with, a lot of traveling working with especially teachers on how to interpret primary sources, i think actually giving people the tools so that they themselves can begin to interpret the documents, i think that becomes, thats whats going to last more than anything else, but, you know, i use monuments in the books obviously, the pensions, the photographs, and and just the word of real confederates, i mean, this was not a this is not a difficult book to research in the sense that i didnt have to go digging that hard to figure out, all right, what are confederates saying about the place of black men enslaved in free blacks in the confederate war effort, its like its everywhere, right, and thats, again, what makes the whole thing so bizarre because, you know, the kinds of theories that are thrown out there today, they never read anything. Thats probably true for a lot of [laughter] yeah. Thank you again. I have a question, the Works Progress administration, they interviewed many former slaves to get their stories while they were still alive. Thats right. Given all the thousands who were camp slaves, was there any attempt to record their stories . Yeah, just a couple that i could find. I think part of the problem is that the a lot of the camp slaves, i mean, so 1920s, just to back up a little bit, most Confederate States did so in early 20s and you can imagine at that point in time very few former camp slaves could take advantage of it because they were no longer alive and i think thats the problem for by the time it gets to 1930s, they would have been older obviously during the war and they are just fewer of them still alive so i found a very small number, but they didnt really add that much to what i was finding in other places, the former camped slaves are pretty consistent throughout the time period as to how they remembered their place in the war, right, but i should also just add to this that some of them do take the opportunities to i dont want to say embellish their accounts, they know they are expected to to, with the lost cause lines but some of them talk about the excitement of the battlefield and you could almost sort of imagine them sort of for the first time perhaps and its not clear whether they are writing their accounts themselves or dictating, but its almost as if their first opportunity to to leave a record of their participation in the war and they want to remember a war quite often that is beyond simply being present as a slave, right, they want to remember something dynamic, dramatic, right. Great questions, thanks. It was great. Thank you. [inaudible] im wondering im sympathetic to your frustration [inaudible] changing the narrative of this piece of history. How do you attend to the fact that people dont make decisions principally based on introduction [inaudible] yeah. [inaudible] we just want to be, right, and values in the place of the world and not that we are missing facts but that are stories that are really important to us for different reasons. I am sympathetic to your frustration because you do this every single day. You say here is the paper and people say i dont care. This might disappoint you, i dont. I think for people who are that wrapped up in their own assumptions, their own political view, their own, whatever you want to describe it, thats not a battle that i want to get involved in. Thats not my fight because i think there are enough people out there like i said earlier who are genuinely interested in learning something about this subject and, you know, i have my students in class. I can sort of obviously engage with them, but the kind of individual that is youre describing, i dont know how to do that and i dont know, certainly ive interacted with plenty of people in, you know, the sons of confederate veterans and even the united daughters of confederacy when we lived in virginia. Begin to unwrap some of whats coloring their own understanding of history. And sometimes theyre not even really engaged in trying to understand history, right in its sort of a veil for Something Else entirely. Either their politics, views on race, whatever. Its very much focused on the present. Yeah, im just not going to go there, for the most part. Yeah. [inaudible] [applause] thanks for coming out. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible] there are books for sale, if you didnt hear that [laughter] [inaudible conversations]
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