Enslaved. Including those born free in the north. The senator for a civil war study said Virginia Tech hosted this online talking provided the video. On todays event speaker is doctor Caroline Wood newhall, she graduated with a ph. D. Earlier this year, from the university of north carolina. She joined us just a few weeks ago, at Virginia Tech, as a post doctoral fellow at the Virginia Center for several more studies. I am certainly really glad she is here, and i think you all will be as, well once you hear her talk. Its clear that shes going to bring an awful lot to Virginia Tech, in terms of teaching, research, and outreach programs, as well. She specializes in 19th century u. S. History, including of course, civil war era. But also north american slavery more generally, warfare more generally, as well. Her writing has appeared and several war monitors and Civil War History journals, among other publications. And her big projects at the moment are converting her ph. D. Dissertations into a book, and thats going to be well worth looking out for the years down the line. Its on the very same topic she will speak about tonight. As you can see, the power point is already up, under the rubble, black prisoners of war in the confederate south. Shes going to speak about 30 to 35 minutes, which will leave us plenty of time for discussion. I think another advantage of the zoom for, it is that you can type in your questions using clique even a feature. So you wont be able to use the chat, but you will be able to use the button for questions, and you can type those in any time during the top, after the top. Of course, we may not be able to get all the questions depending on how many you ask, but we will certainly try and address as many as we possibly can. We will wrap things up by about 8 15. Okay, thats all for me. Please join me in whatever the remote version of a round of applause maybe. I dont know, maybe there is a round of applause as i invite doctor wood newhall to begin her top. Over to you. Iraqi, thank you so much, paul. I really appreciate that lovely introduction, and thank you so much everybody, for being here, tonight. It is such a pleasure to be able to share my research with you, and go through some of the details of my findings. This has been a labor for the last six years, and will continue for many years beyond, so im excited to have a conversation with you hear your thoughts about some of what im telling you tonight. And just really try to understand the complexities of what this time period can bring. So, speaking of generous centers and donors, ill be referencing this a few times tonight, but ive got some of the centers and donors who really helped contribute to my ability to be able to do this research. This was a six year long process, no joke. He took a long time in the lot of labor. So really to recognize whats places like the Virginia Center for civil rights steady can do. The john center for Civil War History, instituted African American research, cannot be understated. So i just want to give them a quick shut out, and just make sure that you guys know about them, so you can see what theyre capable of. Join their lists, as well. And just keep having these conversations with, us as we move forward. So, im going to give you an overview of what ill talk about tonight. How im going to address this topic, and go through it. Some of the key concepts all be talking about, just to give you a broad sense of the ways in which i approach this research, how a conduct that research. The resources i had to look out, to put this together. In my findings, basically. What i have interpreted, based on what i came up with through looking through thousands and thousands of records over the last few years. So i will tell you, its not about the civil war, but more broadly, about whats black prisoners and war were able to accomplish themselves. They are direct action in their agency, even within very limited contingent circumstances that they had to navigate throughout the war. So their choices and their actions were just as important as policy, in my opinion. So just a way of explaining some of the terms as, well i will refer to the u. S. Cte, the United States colored troops, the body of black voters who were start fighting for United States. The United States infantry, which was one particular facet of that group. I will also be going through some of the terms that i go over in describing the variety of experiences, like proclamation. Dont worry about those just yet, but i want to put this up on the screen so you have some sense of what im talking about, and how im going to move through this topic. So first and foremost, i want to discuss why black prisoners where in the war in the first place . One question i got very early on in this research was did black bmw exist . Where they all executed upon capture . So, when i revisited my topic, when i first got to grad school, i was looking for some officers, like william marvel, they really sparked my research in thinking about black p. O. W. s more broadly. There was consistent discussions about some being taken alive, but most were presumed to have died in custody. No one tracked their movements since they werent entered in prisons. So i will talk about that in the second. But also, even beyond the idea of studying black prisoners of war was because they werent called black persons before. So i will go into this details later. They werent called lacks soldiers as condensed, neither legitimate nor illegitimate. They may not the confederacy treated black soldiers as profit property, as reclaimed property or recovered property. Property to be distributed in used as necessary. And as property could not be treated, in the same ways as soldiers where, as white soldiers, in particular. So ill go through some of those differences. I referred to them as black prisoners of war, even though the confederacy did not, because that is what they were. A black prisoner of war was a legitimate combatant, armed in the uniform of the United States. Approved as a soldier by the United States, and should have been protected under the laws of war. But within the boundaries of the confederacy, that protection was stripped away. And they were protected in different ways. In some very minor ways, as we will talk about. But that is an important distinction, this idea of legitimacy, and what these men had to do in order to survive. And to navigate through their captivity. So beyond even just looking at black p. O. W. Themselves, i want to get into some of the reasons why i started to look into these men as a large group, and some of my findings that i think really pushed back against some of our existing research. I think theres already existing research on black prisoners of war, some really excellent historiography, particularly by george berke hurt, for example. But theres also a consistent dual narrative, that i keep trying to resolve while studying these men. First, with was an emphasis on battles. And not so much captivity. So we focus on a moment of capture, but not so much the aftermath. What happened to these man who actually did survive capture . Once they were entered into captivity, what happens then . And we know of various examples from the 54th massachusetts, for example, they were hardly in charleston. These were freeman who were held in prisons. But beyond that, what happened to these men who had vulnerability, as formerly and slight men . They were captured by the confederacy, and treated under this property principal. So theres been an emphasis on battles, for very good reason. Black soldiers were very vulnerable, when it came to in countering confederates in battle. There has been great work done on that. But what happens after capture . That is one of the questions, that i really wanted to understand. And not just what happens after capture, but how many of these men even were able to survive. Those basic questions, we just didnt know about, yet. Additionally, i also found that there was this emphasis on a particular space, in the civil war, which were military prisons. Militant prisons are definitely places where we encounter information on black prisoners of war. But beyond that, there were so few numbers reaching prisons, as a whole, out of the men who are known to be taken captive. It was estimated about 800 men, and for example, what happened to the others who didnt make it a prison . And there was this assumption of mortality. It must be part of the equation. And it certainly was. But when i found, in my research, as i went through military service records, i went through pension files, and i will talk about that in detail, tonight. I found that the reality was far more complex, and these sites of captivity and incarceration, went far beyond military presence. Black prisoners worked suggested to a white p. O. W. Had a particular experience as captives in the confederacy. They were held in prisons, treated in certain ways, protected in certain ways. Black prisoners of war did not have that experience to the same degree. They were certainly incarcerated in military prisons. But quite a few were even cleaned by private enslavers. By private citizens of the confederacy. Quite a few were sold from out of these prisons, to entirely new enslavers. And the majority were enslaved by the military. And they were used by the same way as insulate people wear. But the labor in fortifications, for example, that was the utmost used to which black prisoners of war were put. And i argue, basically, this is not a confusing happenstance. The fact that so many men did survive, and were able to navigate captivity, should not be surprising to us. In large part, because the confederacy is its entire reason to existing was to preserve slavery, to protect slavery, and to make use of the slaved people during the war efforts. And the deep dad in visible and awful ways, as well. And they did this by treating black prisoners of war, as property. So that is something i really tried to emphasize in my work. So were gonna be talking about violence and restraint, more violence and is trained are two sides of the same reality of prisoners of war. I was a case for the slavery, violence and restraint could both be applied to enslaved people on. By enslavers. The idea that restraint is mercy, i disagree with. I see restraint as a calculated logic in keeping with what doctor xin has talked about. So restraint is not necessarily mercy, survival is not necessarily an indication or concern for black soldiers wellbeing. But he calculated logic of reclaiming these men, and reconfiguring them as enslaved people. So in this man, for example, said Something Like i or regard capturing blackmon as capturing property and not as capturing soldiers, it is not the policy or interest of the south to destroy the black man. On the contrary, it is to preserve and protect him. He is not being force issues and he wasnt being hypocritical in his own estimation, humid though he said this several months after the massacre were the majority of the black forces didnt fact, i in a moment of catcher. This idea that restraint and violence could be used throughout the water, is vital to the confederacy. So i argue that restraint serve the purposes of confederacy, as much as violent state. And that black p. O. W. Survived, because of this restraint, also made use of their knowledge on the confederacy, in order to navigate it. So the confederacy used past president s of internal slavery in warfare. In the war of 1812, for example, in the second seminal war, there were instances of the United States trying to get compensation for a state and slapped people. Basically, those who escaped to the enemy, so i would a lifetime of labor, in the eyes of the United States. So they sought basically reclamation and restitution. And this continued during the civil war. The confederacy pointed to these past president s as a legal standing for itself, to apply this behavior took black p. O. W. So again, emphasizing that property transfer rather than legitimacy. So, essentially, i went through the records of more than 50 United States regiments in order to find black p. O. W. s. Approximately, records of about 50,000 men in total, i found at least 2300 men were captured. This is just my initial first six years of research, there is still more to be done. Up the hundred 78 regiments there is more to look through. But i have already identified 2300 who were noted as captured. And i found that about 70 of these men survived. More than 1500. Hundreds escaped. Hundreds resisted. And hundreds survived. And outlives the confederacy. And we are able to make use of this after the war, to enter their own forces into the record. So im using this to complicate these existing interpretations, basically. But one of the main reasons why its been so difficult to find black p. O. W. s is because of a prevalence of narratives of white p. O. W. s. So, interesting. One of those infinite spaces, where there was really high mortality rates of white p. O. W. s, and some visual history kurt chiller culture surrounding white p. O. W. s. The knowledge of where they were. White p. O. W. s were caught a fight, their lives were recorded and their deaths were reported. They were known entities. This was not the case for black p. O. W. s. They were not recorded in the same ways, they were not followed in the same ways. They were basically reintegrated into the enslaved population, and the confederacy. So for a long time weve had to rely on the records that have come from these prisons, and from white prisoners to understand whats black p. O. W. s lift through, to begin with. So we have to rely on records from andersonville, where we can see this moment of captivity for these men, and we can see their sufferings. We get a sense of what theyre going through, we can understand their conditions. And this really dictated a lot of the post war discussion, as well, regarding captivity and p. O. W. s also, the suffering that white p. O. W. s went through. White p. O. W. s went through an enormous amount of suffering, in these cases, in these prison camps. As seen by these photographs of men who came out of andersonville, who were so starved that the basically looked like concentration camp victims. And that is a double memory, that has been in the minds of americans when it comes to thinking about personal experiences of the civil war. But we just dont have this for black p. O. W. s. To my knowledge, there is no existing photographs of a black prisoner of war in captivity. So, that is something to be reckoned with. And we also had to rely on a white p. O. W. s on writings, about black p. O. W. s. So we were only getting a snippet of the experience, because they are can tensions with these specific cases. And we have seen particular types of prisoners before i, but we have not seen a vast majority. So this is something to reckon with, when we are thinking about how to go beyond certain spaces to go into different records. And one of the reasons why we have been able to even bring that we can about black prisoners wars from white p. O. W. Us is that so many of them are able to write memoirs. More than 150 men were able to get some sense of memory, of what they went through, in the water. But also, there high mortality rates was so unimaginable, at the time, and their sufferings were unimaginable. So it really penetrated the consciousness of americans. And this is why its been so hard to uncover black p. O. W. , is because we just dont have the same written memories, and the same visual culture that white p. O. W. s did. Why p. O. W. s provided a lot of hopeful information but we cant get wet black prisoners of war as had to state about themselves from their own experiences. But, white p. O. W. s were contained with black prisoners, in several spaces. Notably, charleston with the 54th massachusetts. Something that came out in the midst of my research, whats realizing that the majority of black p. O. W. s that we know about, from these testimonies, from prior historian research, where freeman from the north. Men who had not previously been enslaved. And they were held in these prisons, essentially, in a kind of limbo where they were neither free nor enslaved. They couldnt be exchanged under the terms of the confederacy. They didnt have that right, because they were black soldiers. And black soldiers were inherently seditious and rebellious, and they would incite sleeve rebellions. But theyre experiencing captivity in quite different ways than formerly enslavement. And this is something i really came to find, as i came to meet my research. This wasnt a theory i started off with, this is something that took several years for me to figure out. And basically, when i realized, was that freemen had been the most visible groups of black p. O. W. s. They are also a relative minority. Several hundred men were freeman from the north, who were contained in prisons, like andersonville, and charleston, but thousands of men who had been formerly enslaved were also held captive. And also survived. And they were subjected to military enslavement, to sail, and to reclamation. And in part, because the confederacy argued that they were still out labor to there in flavors. So to think the confederacy is a nation itself, their condition had not changed with their entry into u. S. Territory. And into the u. S. Army. They were basically building on president said by fugitive slaves of 1850. Negating this idea that the u. S. Army inferred anything for these people. Most of my research shows, that to follow the paths of these men who entered into prisons briefly and exceeded them again. What happened to these people who are removed from the state the site of the United States, who were removed from their uniforms, and returned into the in slave population generally throughout confederacy. Again to reiterate, slavery carried over to the war, there was a lot of consistency in how they were approached in the treatment over prisoners. Black prisoners of war, those who have been previously enslaved use their knowledge of enslavement to exist, and to operate within the circumstances of captivity and they were able to make choices. Difficult trice is for sure but those are available to them so this takes me to you know how do i even get to this point. How did i start my research . It started off with the typical resources that, we have available to us for a very long time and particularly, correspondents and policies created by high level politicians for example but you had a lot of understanding of the policies that confederacy created. I started here, i started with the official records of the war basically. And realized immediately, that there was going to be a difficulty with finding these men because were they are not referred to as prisoners of war. Or a soldiers. They are needle slaves, captured. They are captured slaves in yankee uniform these euphemisms were applied to them so i really had to expand my search to understand what was going on on the ground. So prisoners of war was not likable. Basically he started searching through volume of correspondence expanding the entire war, and found very very little, and realized i had to go beyond this set of sources that we have been relying on for so long. I also realized, that with what Jefferson Davis is saying, which started the emancipation proclamation, anticipation of the emancipation proclamation being passed in january of 1863, black soldiers were going to be affected. And how to deal with them. I think interesting lee he makes his argument, that they do have to be delivered, into ways to be considered. In order of the laws of the states, which entailed perhaps some court processes, as well as execution but also just requires essentially keeping these men alive in order to deliver them from battlefield to executive authority of the state. Something to consider. I started pulling on the thread once i was thinking about this, and what was going on with these men but as i went through the official records i kept finding these interesting details and i found out of more than 120 volumes, four instances of testimony from these first person testimonies. Two were from back lacks a lurch from new york, and two from black sergeants who were caught in alabama we. This is about as long and as detailed as you get in the official records. These are two sergeants, and what they tell us, reveals a lot. First that these men are being put to labor by the military. They are be forced to do labor on railroads. Forced to do work for the confederate war effort. And they are being returned to former enslavers. At least 250 according to the sergeants. Sorry Sergeant Leach and sergeant lochner. And some of these men are being claiming to be former enslavers, but in fact they are not. But also these men are being able to escape. And that some of these men are being sent to hospitals in order to be treated. So the small snippets just opened up this whole idea of what was going on on the ground for these men and they were experiencing this variety of captivity. So i started to expand my search beyond the official records i started to find things like general orders number 25. Which basically establish these codes for reclamation. Initially intended for noncombatants. It established these practices that reflected antebellum slavery. Buy advertising for these people in newspapers. I started looking through newspapers, to see if theres anything i can find about these men and whether or not they are being put through these kind of prostheses. And indeed they were. I found several instances in newspapers, and some of them have been spoken up before, but making this connection to general order number 25, that was exciting for me and where these men are being captures, and then theyre being advertised in newspapers. As if they are simply runaway slaves, to be reclaimed. Regardless of having worn the uniform of the United States. It didnt matter, once they were in the boundary of the confederacy, thats whats seem to matter. And what mattered most, is upholding private property rights. So these are the way, in which general order number 25 was upheld. The there is one of the daily huntsville confederate, in 1863 and as well as in the aftermath, in 1864. There are several newspaper articles that reference this. They show these men being named, and these former enslavers being named, and theyre being advertised to commit reclaim and take them out of these prisons. Basically the confederacy, is trying to propagate this process essentially. Of being reclaimed by former enslavers. And whats fascinating, and something im still trying to work on, and still learning a lot about this topic as i go all the silences and gaps in the historical record, its how these men gave up such information . Why did the man reveal the name of former slaves, if they had been formerly enslaved . What did they get out of that . Were they forced to do it . Where they doing it voluntarily . Was there a mix of the two . I assume, the latter. But there is very little documentation about this because these were simply on spoken prostheses. Slavery and how is was enacted was very often in formerly done, and this continued during the civil war. Which is why its been so difficult to find these men in these records. So beyond the newspapers, i definitely found certain instances, but again, this is coming from white people. White people are recording what theyre doing. But why do black p. O. W. Themselves do . And i started looking through the military service, records just to try to identify what it could. And what i found was that i had to look for these memorandum, the p w. Records. Were basically i looked through every single habitual record, every regiment, the arm of ancestry. Com, and see if i could find who had been at least reported to some degree as having become captive, at one point or another. And sometimes, i was really lucky, and i could find these things about memorandum. This man was captured from a troop, in the fall of 1864. By forces, dont quote me on, that but wants hes captured, hes been enslaved by a middle level officer. And he was sent to work on that officers plantation. Not only sent to work there, and claimed by this man for his labor, but kept there until december of 1865. So sometimes these men were well contained until well after the end of the hostilities, which opened a whole other range of things for me. And theres several that i have found who definitely experienced this to some degree or another. And, unfortunately, most of the no talk about. It but ill get to that in a second. So these where where i started. Yet, again, so many of them being spoken for. And its not their own testimony about whats happening. So i turned to the pension files. Thanks to my colleagues in graduate school, like eric berke who suggested this, as well as my advice there, they suggested that i really need to work to these files and see if i can find anything from these men, directly. And that is exactly what i ended up doing. And by cross referencing and compare the military records, i found 2300 men or so, more than 1500 of whom seem to have survive. 715 of these were able to clean pensions after the war, or apply for pensions. So that was a group of 750 men who potentially gave voice to their captivity experiences. And the pension files are incredible resources. They can range from a few pages, to hundreds of pages long. Its all this process of amanda trying to essentially get some kind of compensation from the federal government, after the war. Particularly, if he had been injured or had developed some disability of some kind, drawing the war itself. At least up until the next 90, when things were expanded. There was a lot of information about medical records, they had to submit medical examinations. And, most importantly for me, affidavits. These men had to speak to pension agents, essentially, oneonone, and talk about and confirm the facts of what they went through during their military service. If i was lucky, and a lot of these men to talk about it to some degree, they mentioned their captivity. When they were captured. What happened to them. Where they were incarcerated. Sometimes how they were treated, whether the escaped or not. The people with whom they were incarcerated, because they had to get witnesses to also affirmed these facts. It literally took a community to create a pension file. So theres all of this depth of information that still has to be board out from these files. But this is where i started, essentially. To find with these members were saying oneonone. And i found home in from the 44th, who was reclaimed by his former in flavor from alabama. He was taken back to the farm, and basically ran back home, after being hired out initially. He was brutally punished by his former slavery, who was actually in the house of representatives to the confederacy for a little while. But he was also able to win privileges back, even though he was a reclaimed soldier. Even though he had actively resisted the confederacy. He was still allowed to marry and enslave women, visit, her nine miles away, get a passover weekend to visit her. And ultimately, he escaped again with. Her they never communicated again with their families. So these were the kind of stories that started to emerge, as i went through these pension files. So i was able to acquire about 350, i had gone through most of, them and really started to build this kind of holistic picture of what was going on. Beyond the prisons, what was happening after reclamation . After people had been sold . There are several men like richard french, from the seventh u. S. Ceo, who was sold out of a president president western virginia ended up in north carolina, imprisoned enslaved by a hotelier. He acted a supporter, essentially, for the rest of the water. And ultimately, he moved down to louisiana afterwards. Men like samuel brooks, who had been captured at the battle of fort pillar, he was one of the several dozen survivors and four pillow, who was then sent down into mobile, alabama. Where he labored as a blacksmith, for the rest of the war. And then aid was aided by a white irish woman to escape. So all of the various complaints here, these are still slivers of these mens lives. This is just about their military service. It doesnt give us a full picture of who they are, but they went through, from their birth to their death. But it does give us something to start working with. And to really expand upon when we know, about military service for black man. And particularly for formerly and slip by formerly enslaved black man who just didnt have the privilege to write out their experiences. Whose lives werent codified in records. Their births, their marriages, their deaths. Before the war in after the war. Former enslavers may aid their claims but they certainly didnt ate them by codifying their lines to any degree and state records. They always held on to that information and retain that power. And that was something that black prisoners continuously had to negotiate after the wars and. But, they were able to undertake direct action. And make these difficult choices in order to survive, which i really do want to emphasize. Its that their survival is not an indication of magnificence, but a combination of a lot of different factors into context. It reveals the complexity of what was going on on the ground. And so, luckily, through the pension files, i have been able to expand a little bit on the photographic history of black prisoners before. No there is a serious series of photographs about black prisoners, one here from the 44th. And this photograph is often referenced as these clear cut effective with military service did for black americans. Particularly, those who have been formerly enslaved. A picture in his enslaved close. And then the after effects of his investment in the u. S. Army. And so what it meant to enslave a person, to suddenly become a citizen, and a soldier. What effect that had. He was also a prisoner of war. He was captured along with civil several hundred other men. We dont have his photograph for while he was an activity captivity. Maybe he was interned in his in slave close. We dont have much beyond that. This is one of the few photographs in existent. I was able to find that, its a photo with one man who is with other men. This is his photograph that he uses, during his application process. To identify him to his comrades. To people with whom he had been employed. Anyway to identify him, is how this photograph was used. And ahead not been opened since 1904. I was excited to be able to find this. Had assistance, from archivists, and the National Archives they were incredible, they help me locate some of these men, and navigate the difficulties of figuring out how to pull their files and go through them. Basically this work has only just begun and i am hoping to find more photographs of them like richard french. But i think his photograph, is important for another reason, not just that we have this photograph of him, after the war but thats his photograph, really emphasizes. And when these men were able to do after the war. During the war and prior to the war. How they were able to navigate, these highly contingent, terrifying circumstances in order to survive. And not only to survive, but into their own perspectives in the historical records. Push back against the silencing of their lives, and the historical records. And we have now hundreds of voices to work with. But we will open up a lot of different avenues of research. And im quite excited to look through that. We can reckon fully with the implications of federal policy, and slavery in there. And understand what it was to have violence and restraint take place during the war. Thank you so much for your attention during this time. And i will quickly, and this is a closeup i forgot about that one. I did a closeup of his photo so you can better see. The original was the card as i found it in the archives, but i was able to fiddle with the color and a bit. So this is richard french. Of the 44th. He was very, you know he was a great man basically, and he went through some incredible things. That i cannot begin to imagine. I want to emphasize that, his photograph can give us some sense, of what was possible during the civil war. And do not make these rush assumptions of what was happening two men, because when we get perspectives of people who talk about them, so theres a lot more to be found. There is a lot of Exciting Research to be done here, and i cannot wait to find out more and see what happens with this research as i move forward with the project. I wanted to give you all my Contact Information as well, and if i do not get to your questions during the q a, please reach out to me and contact me and follow me on twitter, and its an incredible institution, and with that i want to say thank you so much. I look forward to hearing your questions. And also having a conversation with everyone. Thank you. I guess i should end the presentation. Thank you so much caroline that, was wonderful and if i listen carefully, i can almost hear people around the country clapping. That was really nice job. Fascinating top topic and fascinating presentation. And we have a good number of questions, but feel free to keep them coming in in the q a. Use the qanon button, and i guess i will select a couple first to get started with. Then we can get through as many of these as we can. One of the questions, that a couple of different people have asked actually, in regards to the distinction between family and enslaved black man, and freed pacman and whether there was effort on the part of the confederate authorities, to really distinguish between those groups. Yes so, again this is a continued process, that i am trying to figure out, but ive definitely found some correspondence, especially from secretary of war from the confederacy in his communications with some of these civil war governors particularly governor bottom from South Carolina where they were have difficulty figuring out how to navigate and treating freemen from the north versus formerly enslaved men. And they wanted to try the men they had captured in charlestong connections that could be made in talking particularly about black military experiences into the 20th century. Any particular contingencies, that black prisoners of war throughout history have had to deal with. Essentially because of their lack of protection under laws. The discrimination against them. And i dont happen to know all that much about history into the 20th century wars when it comes to that, but i know there are people who are doing that kind of work, and its something that im interested in. One thing i would love to do for a future book, be on the first, book is expand this temporally. Go beyond the civil war period, both ways. Go into the past, and go into the future. Or should not say the future but the president. Think about the various connections and the ways in which the laws were applied, the ways they were violated and what it means to be a black soldier. Just generally speaking. Its a great question all. And i dont have specifics for you yet but give me a few years. Law. Jonathan is asking, and i suspect this may be a difficult thing to pin down exactly, but he is asking to have a sense of roughly the proportion of black soldiers who were taken prisoner, versus executed as soon as they were captured by the confederates . No, but i am still struggling with that and thats stuff tough thing to figure out in large part because of how these men are being spoken of and how they are being recorded as black prisoners of war. Its tough to determine who is captured, in those first moments after capture so people talk about it but the numbers are not very clear. So something i have to revisit, and im going through the when i go to the service records, and other records when it comes to casualties is really trying to figure out, maybe the finer points of who was a prisoner, and who dies inaction, versus who dies in captivity. Out of the records, i found there are around at least 700 men who died in captive captivity that i know of, and i suspect many of them were in the immediate aftermath. Colonel johnson, he was a white officer, he was exchanged two days after his capture, and 600 men are returned in slavery. And he notes that at least six men were killed in the immediate aftermath. Another one talks about how he was part of a mass escape, where he escapes with 21 other men, 21 except for him were killed, drowned on the river on the way while they were escaping. There are way there is a way of figuring that out, but i havent got there yet the numbers are tough to determine. Im hoping to have something more definitive there. Numbers are kind of in flux, and they are difficult. But based on the numbers that i found, i think there is really star evidence of survival as well. And i emphasize that. And also i can speak to that a bit more surely about know then the other one. I know it does happen, and a variety of other places this happen, but its hard to figure out because again, a lot of euphemisms are used. Died of retaliate, died in captivity, i dont know when i dont know how. That is definitely an ongoing process to try to figure out. Yes, thats a tough one. Well this is a question from me, even though there are other questions, and will get to them. But im curious about, uniforms. You mentioned several times in your top, and just really fascinated me when you talk about uniforms, such a powerful symbol. And the African American men, were bona fide soldiers, and that in international law, that apply to them. And particularly when they return to the confederate states, what happened to the uniforms . Presumably they were not allowed to continue wearing them, or to own them in any way. But whats actually happened . So, i guess this is just going to be my stock answer for everything, it is complicated. Some get keep, them some dont. So to one person i mentioned, hes a particular instance, hes talking about the removal of his uniform. That happens after his reformation. And he is brought back, these brought by his former enslaver, to the farm next to theirs, and intentionally has his uniform strip, and is close replaced, and in proper safe close as he says. He was able to hold on to his buck his belt buckle, and she exchanges close for him, so theres a lot going on thats unspoken, but he also references, that other soldiers had their uniform stripped, almost immediately after capture. Some of them were in a sorry state, and visibly rendered as inslee people. The removal of the uniform, was a powerful means of negating their service and their freedom and their independence. I think that happened quite a lot. Im not totally sure about total numbers where that happens, but it definitely happens a lot to black p. O. W. s. Part of why i think there is such difficulty, in the able to locate their captivity, because if we have photographs, of captive black p. O. W. , they will be hard to find, because theyve been probably stripped of their uniforms. Its hard to identify them as such. But that was definitely an intentional tactic. Both in the military, and private citizens used as a means of you know sending a message obviously to insulate people as well. Which is there they are consequences for doing this, and youre going to watch and see it. Yes, yes powerful things. And the and what she says this is fantastic exclamation point which is really nice to see were they segregated from white prisoners . Or theyll of medical treatment. Somebody else actually is interested in the medical treatment as well . Yes i have a whole chapter on medical treatment in my dissertation, ill talk about that in a second. And it also just depended on the prison and a lot of black p. O. W. s experiences were so contextual and so dependent on where they ended up, and theres authority there and who they have to deal with so there are men who are placed with white officers as a means of degrading the white union officers. Thats an intentional tactic that the confederate used. A lot of the time they were segregated. That happens in charleston they are kept on a separate floor, and they are interacting sometimes on the ground, were you know without activity. I dont andersonville, there was a group of men who congregated around the black p. O. W. s, and it seemed they were self segregating. I dont know the dynamics going on there. But they were mentioned as gathering around the southern gate. They were being taken out for burial duty, digging graves for the prison. They were working alongside, but kept separate from local enslaved people. And theres also some resentment with white p. O. W. s who are able to exit the prison, and one of the few forms of relief to be able to perform that labor, someones black p. O. W. s are in the mix, thats taken away from them. So in some ways black peeled abuse have more mobility, than white p. O. W. Sometimes a better fed better treatment, so its really interesting. And super complicated. And it depends on what prison they were entered into, and with the structure of that was, and by the time they got two and prisons were such a mess. I know you know. That law. Turner was particularly nasty, and really run the gamut. And it seems like there was segregation no. And intentionally mixing these people, as a way to insult the white soldiers. Theres a question about another kind of, research tactic i guess, that i suspect maybe another time consuming one, and he is asking have you ever tried, to look for letters from the confederate soldiers, who captured black union soldiers, or guards or you know is that even possible . Or is at just too difficult. I imagine it could, be and i really have not looked into confederates very much, who were in charge ive been mostly looking at the higher level guys, and thats an oversight that i have. Not looking at the common soldiers who would dealing with this. Miss inslee with their reactions are, but thats something to consider. Thats a great question. But now i have not. I dont know whats going on there. I assume it would be interesting that. Well we will forgive you for that one, youre doing absolutely everything already, so the nice thing about this dissertation, and turning into a book is that you can do some additional research, and fill in some gaps, and i think its great to have these questions and suggestions we. Yes thank you everyone these are awesome questions. Im going to take these forward as i move and i work on the manuscript so thank you. So mark asks are there any examples, of native american soldiers being captured and how their treatment is compared to the black p. O. W. Yes i know that native americans were definitely involved, particularly in the western theater. Im not as sure about the eastern theater. There were several instances, where native americans were fighting for the confederacy. In fact are involved in some of the atrocities towards black soldiers. Notably at poison spring. So i know, they are involved but i do not quite know the numbers of capture, i have not looked into that and thats something im hoping to talk to other people about i know some people are doing that work, and im hoping to talk with him about that because thats an under studied area. And i dont know much about that. I think there were some native american p. O. W. s it andersonville, but my knowledge about that is very much serviceable at best. One participant is asking if theres evidence, that black prisoners were tortured in the prisons, and i can imagine other forms of extreme violence being inflicted upon them, other examples of that. Yes absolutely, so one of the issues of being forced to work for the confederacy, as an slave labor is that a lot of these men, were performing dangerous labor, particularly around mobile, theyre having to mount guns, they are working in mobile bay, they are shivering and cold and starving essentially. They are already being treated quite harshly, by the military, but i know there several instances where men are attacked, essentially without provocation. By guards, there is a man from the 27th that was held in the lindbergh prison, and said in the middle of the night he got up to go urinate, and cannot tell the you know because in the dark, and hes attacked by confederate guard, who tries to stop him with his bayonet. He managed is to fight him off, and since it was dark he manages to not be identified after. So he manages to make it through the rest of his captivity without being a tegan iced by that guard. And i think that speaks volumes about the very difficult circumstances that they had to operate under. Survival is not in a safety, its just survival that point. And this happens to a number of men. They are targeted and attacked by the guards. And im sure other racist retaliation, anger, hatred even if they didnt know these men. And i dont have many more specifics beyond just general brutality, and working quite hard, but i know that is happening. But i dont know very much about the stocks being used, for example i know that was an use before, but definitely it was demanding where they were, and there is a man in the 54th at andersonville, who is caught trying to forge a cast, and he is illiterate, he is trying to forge a pass, and thats a trespass essentially, so he is ordered to be whipped. I think 500 times. And the soldier who is whipping him, mitigates that. He acts like hes going to whip him 500 times, but doesnt. And this is the soldier talking about this. There is some mitigation of violence, by confederates themselves, but they are still participating and enforcing it. So it is definitely happening. Theyre being brutalized, but a lot of different ways her people. So sam or flora, he asked a question about the postwar situation, and what did black peeled abuse going to do after the war, or did they just scatter and each person does his own thing . Most people, return to where they had been from originally, so people had families, in the communities they they have to return to. You know there are examples of some one person that escaped tennessee, they did see their family again, but a lot of these people are still dependent after the war, and they have to navigate their interpersonal relationships, with the people who had them enslaved prior to the war. Thats who they know. And we see the jim crow laws being implemented, they have to enter into these really strict contracts, and most are reentering into physical labor, working inquiries, working as tenant farmers, working in various capacities like that, and in the north theres a bit more diversity, some get to work in drugstores, or do merchant type work, and its a little different in the south, where they are very much relegated to that farmworker, physical labor. We saw but a lot of them though it returned to those communities essentially. And we start out, theyre not all of them remain. Some of them ultimately move to different places. But least in those first few years, after the war theyre returning to their families. And trying to let you know try to reestablish ties. And go from there. Post war period is very complicated, and im looking forward to drawing that i wore. Because theyre still i dont know. I guess the nature of the sources, i guess where you rely on the pension records, its sort of like survivor you know my survivor, because the guys were still alive decades after the end of the war, they were the ones who i guess were most likely to have led successful lives and healthy lives afterwards. Yes, and you see a lot of struggles with these men to. A lot of them were in abject poverty for the russia lives. Even though they got pensions, they were barely eking out a living. Because they are affected, by their service, or their instabilities after the war. And because they have to rely on physical labor, and they cant do as much as able bodied men as they are described, so its really hard to make a full wage. So lot of these men are really struggling. Thats why the pensions were so necessary, and why so many do end up applying after the war. And they need it they need that support that extra support, so you do see instances of them having to rely on their communities for charity for example, and i think that might be one of the reasons why a lot of former enslavers, do support their pension files. Because confederate soldiers did not get federal pensions, and the fact that these former enslavers are supporting black soldiers and getting pensions after the war, its interesting. And in part i think its because they are trying to get them off to the dependency of White Communities after the war. Because they dont have that same claim to their bodies in their labor, that you know they want to kick them to the curve a little bit. Thats my guess. So just kind of thinking out loud, i can imagine some situations where, white person is the landowner and the former black p. O. W. , rents the land, or is a sharecroppers, and so the land owner has a vested interest, in their Financial Health of the renter. Yes and if they cant work as much, because they are severely disabled, that makes things you know self interested for the tenant farmers for sure. And thats what happens with a couple of men, where they you know had their claims because theyre hiding their wounds and injuries from their employers. And their employers dont know their wounded to the level they are. So its really really complicated. Yes imagine. And i guess one final question, and this came in an email, before you talk. So you did touch on it a bit, indirectly during the top. But i will ask it anyway. So somebody, was asking about the end of the civil war, and the wrapping up of slavery. And hes interested in, the moment where confederate, agreed okay slavery is over, and enslaved people are now free, and hes interested in kind of when did that happen. Was there moment were that documentation was issued at the time, and what is your response to that . I dont know. Given what ive seen, several men being held basically captive. Even after the war has ended, summer being held until 1867. So well after the war has technically ended. Even after andrew johnson, was had declared the civil war had ended. And its also part of the reason why its difficult to find some of these men, because they are still held in captivity to some degree. Even though technically, they are not combatants anymore. And that is definitely going on, and i dont know about specific documentation, but my feeling is that, former confederates, are really former confederates. They are still confederates for life in a lot of ways. They still see themselves as entitled to black labor, and black bodies and we see that through the rise of the prison system in the postwar as well. So the way in which slavery just evolves, it doesnt really end in my opinion it just transforms and shifts. So i dont quite know about that specific documentation of that, but i have some guesses. I think that was a great answer, the idea that slavery didnt have an end point it evolved and shifted in different forms of domination. I think that youre exactly right there, and i think its a good way to answer the question. So unfortunately, we have done most of the, questions not quite all of them but we are just about out of time, so i really want to thank you caroline very very much for your presentation, and sharing your expertise through the q as echelon as well. And i want to thank the audience members for being here and attending the event, also for asking such great questions. We yes thank you. Yes it is. All new material for the book. And lots of new things to think about and, thats great and as i said between the dissertation in the book, and theres that scope for doing new things and questioning things out so its great to have some new ideas and i really really appreciate carolines presentation, and the audiences questions so thank you very much. We