black-on-black fighting

[revwardoc]

My personal expertise on American military history is the 17th & 18th centuries which means I don't know a helluva lot about the civil war. Being from the Bay State I do know about the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, but since there were also black troops fighting for the south, were there any actions involving black regiments from both sides pitted directly against each other?

[Tamaroa]

Dan, I'll check into it but I don't think so. Most if not all Cconfederate Blacks were in the Pioneer corps which meant they did most of the digging for fortifications and trenches. Blacks fighting Blacks would have been rather a poignant sight. Something akin to Meagher's Union Irish Brigade at Fredricksburg attacking the 2nd South Carolina which was also Irish. There is a heart wrenching scene in Gods and Generals with the Confederate Irish cheering the Union Irish as they were cutting them down. Yet another incident occurred at Sharpsburg where the 1st Maryland CSA fought directly opposite the 1st Maryland USA. Our Civil war is chock full of such incidents.

Here is a list of units that Black troops served in but they were not ALL black regiments:
Units In Which Black Confederates Served


Tenn. Infantry

1st
2nd
3rd
6th
7th
8th
9th
12th
13th
14th
15th
16th
17th
18th
19th
20th
23rd
24th
27th
28th
30th
31st
42nd
43rd
45th
46th
47th
48th
50th (Old)
51st
54th


Tenn. Cavalry


1st
2nd
3rd
4th
6th
7th
8th
9th Battalion
11th
14th
21st
48th

1st Confederate Infantry

Kentucky Infantry

6th
12th

Kentucky Cavalry

2nd

Alabama Infantry

5th
12th
31st

Alabama Cavalry

11th

Georgia Infantry

10th
46th

Forrest?s HQ

Gen. Hoke?s HQ

Miss. Infantry

6th
9th
14th
15th
29th

Miss. Cavalry

3rd

1st Miss. Light Artillery

N. Carolina Cavalry

5th

Texas Infantry

17th

White?s Battery

Manley?s Battery

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I ran across this article on the net. It states that companies were raised. the word regiment is not used. I think the article is a little slanted, yet nevertheless it gives you another point of view:

The Black soldiers who served in the
Confederate Army are the real forgotten men...



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Private R.M. Doswell was hastening back to his unit after carrying an order when something attracted his attention. The young Virginian had just spotted one of the new Confederate companies of black soldiers, "a novel sight to me." the black Confederates were guarding a wagon train near Amelia Court House on the retreat from Richmond.
Doswell reined in about 100 yards to the rear of the wagon train and watched in fascination as a Union cavalry regiment formed up to charge. The black Confederates fired their weapons like veterans and drove back the overconfident Federals. The horse soldiers re-formed for another charge. This time they broke up the wagon train and scattered the defenders. The black soldiers were captured and disarmed. Doswell suddenly realized his own danger and rode away without being noticed. The date was April 4, 1865. Five days later, Lee would surrender his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House.
The Couragous black soldiers who served in the various Northern armies have been much publicized and praised. Their brothers who fought for the South have been almost totally ignored. In actual fact, black Americans marched to war with the Southern armies from the very beginning in early 1861. In contrast, the Federal government refused to allow black men to serve in its ranks until well into the conflict. It was 1863 before the North began using black troops in any large number, and only then after considerable opposition.
Why did black men become soldiers of the south? It is often forgotten that while slavery was the major underlying cause of the Civil War, its abolition was not the original objective of the US government. In his inaugural address of March 4, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln stated that he had "no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." The attempts by overzealous generals such as John C. Fremont and David Hunter to free the slaves in the areas they occupied were promptly countermanded by Lincoln. The man in the White House had enough problems without pushing slave-owning Union loyalist in the critical border stares into the arms of secessionists.
Many Northern soldiers felt the same way, declaring that they would stop fighting if the war turned into a crusade for abolition. Before crossing the Ohio River in 1861 into what would become West Virginia, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan had issued a proclamation to reassure the inhabitants, "Not only will we abstain from such interference," he wrote, "but we will on the contrary with an iron hand crush any insurrection on their part." Even General Ulysses S. Grant had said that if he "thought this was was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission, and offer my sword to the other side."
Faced with such an attitude from the hostile North, the black Southerners had little reason not to be loyal to their home section. The slaves had nothing to gain from a Northern victory, and free black men might actually stand to lose such rights and property as they already had.
The 1860 census counted 240,747 "free Negroes" in the slave states, 15,000 more than lived in the free states to the north. Almost half a century earlier, free black Southerners had fought under Andrew Jackson to help defeat British invaders at the Battle of New Orleans. Not surprisingly, many also volunteered to defend their homes against the new threat from the North. No accurate record has been kept of black units that served the South, since most of them were state militia and never mustered into the Confederate Army. However, contemporary newspapers mention black units as being present at Charleston, Mobile, Nashville, New Orleans, Bowling Green, Ky., and Lynchburg, Va. Not one of these militia units appears to have been actively engaged in combat, though many did perform service on the front lines. Quite often this was as laborers in the construction of fortifications, a task also performed by slaves.
While free black men may have been accepted into the Confederate Army, the question of allowing slaves to enlist was another matter. As early as July 11, 1861, W.S. Turner of Helena, Ark., had proposed to arm and equip a regiment of slaves from his area for the Confederate Army. The offer was not accepted. In fact, such proposals struck at the very basis of slavery. To admit that slaved could be turned into good soldiers was to recognize black equality. If that was the case, slavery was wrong. Nevertheless, thousands of slaves served in the Southern army as noncombatants such as cooks, teamsters and musicians, or as personal servants to white Southerners.
Many of the slaves did on occasion take up arms and become combatants. An Englishman serving with the South wrote that one "might as well endeavor to keep ducks from water as to attempt to hold in the cooks of our company, when firing or fighting is on hand." Despite ordering his black cook to remain in the rear during the First Battle of Manassas, the English Confederate found him on the firing line, rifle in hand, shouting "Go in, Massa! give it to 'm, boys! Now you've got 'm, and give 'em Hell!" The soldier wrote, "If the Negro is really so unhappy as Northernern orators proclaim, why do our servants go into battle with us? - how comes it that officers cannot keep them from the front?"
The remainder of the article is here:

http://www.civilwarhistory.com/slave...oldiersCSA.htm


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Bill

[Jerry D]

A good article well worth readin'

[revwardoc]

Thanks, Tamaroa. I appreciate your research and reply.