Confederate General Patrick Cleburne’s Proposal to Arm and Free the Slaves
by Daniel Mallock
(copyright, 2008)
Two concepts were at the heart of Confederate war aims. Major General Patrick Cleburne, division commander in the Army of Tennessee, came to see these goals as in conflict with one another. As Major Anderson lowered the flag at Fort Sumter in April, 1861, few could know that the war would become so devastating and costly. Even fewer in the South would come to accept until far too late that, where slavery and Southern independence were concerned, the former must be abolished to ensure success of the latter.
By late 1863, upholding the dual concepts of slavery and Southern independence had, for a few in Confederate service, become clearly self-defeating. The Emancipation Proclamation of late 1862 changed the tone of the war for many in Europe from a War of Independence to a crusade to end slavery. As a result recognition and assistance from Britain or France became increasingly unlikely. In addition, and more ominously, northern blacks and escaped southern slaves were being actively recruited into the Union armies. After the Confederate defeat at Missionary Ridge, November, 25, 1863, Patrick Cleburne concluded that the South could not achieve independence without first abandoning slavery then recruiting slaves to fight in the Confederate army.
For Confederate patriots like Cleburne, the idea that slavery must be abolished for Independence was a pragmatic reality. With an understanding gained from experience that manpower shortages were at the core of Confederate setbacks, Cleburne would propose a revolutionary idea to the leaders of the Army of Tennessee that, had it been implemented, might have changed the course of the war.
Something Must be Done
After the route of the Army of Tennessee at Missionary Ridge and Chattanooga, late November, 1863, the fortunes of the Confederacy in the West had taken a drastic turn for the worse. Soon after the battle, Braxton Bragg had resigned command of the army and gone to Richmond by order of Jefferson Davis, leaving General William T. Hardee in temporary command. Several months before, Cleburne had been the “best man” at Hardee’s wedding. With the acrimony and political infighting that had plagued the army under Bragg’s command apparently removed, Cleburne may have believed the time was right to publicly present his radical ideas- he would suggest nothing less than the eventual abolition of slavery, and a plan to solve the South’s manpower crisis by recruiting slaves into Confederate military service in exchange for their freedom.
After the defeat at Missionary Ridge, Cleburne had earned the official thanks of the Confederate Congress for saving the army from further disaster by his successful command of the rear-guard, most particularly at Ringgold Gap. As the Army of Tennessee rested at Dalton, Georgia, Cleburne was busy working on a paper at his headquarters at Tunnel Hill, ten miles to the north. Following his former law partner and friend Major General Thomas Hindman’s recent example, Cleburne wrote a lengthy paper which would later be known as “Cleburne’s Proposal” or “Memorial”. The January 2, 1864 meeting of senior commanders of the Army of Tennessee at which this paper was read would not be a pleasant one.
Precedents and Dark Omens
It had long been quietly discussed in Confederate leadership circles that slavery should be sacrificed to secure independence. An early proponent, General Richard S. Ewell (later one of the top commanders in the Army of Northern Virginia) suggested, after the Confederate victory at First Manassas in 1861, to President Jefferson Davis that the best assurance of future success was “emancipating the slaves and arming them.”1 Davis strongly rebuffed the suggestion. While Ewell’s controversial and daring suggestion of emancipation pre-dated Cleburne’s, it was a privately spoken, not a public, plea.
Major-General Thomas Hindman, the former firebrand democratic orator, lawyer, and politician from Helena, Arkansas was the first to publicly suggest arming the slaves and offering them freedom in exchange for combat service. He was well-qualified for the task, as Colonel Sam Williams of the 17th Arkansas wrote later of Hindman’s oratory skills, “I must say that as a speaker for the masses I never heard his superior.”2 Cleburne had been a long-time colleague and loyal friend to Hindman.
During the sometimes violent political conflicts in 1858 Helena, Hindman had asked Cleburne to accompany him to the home of a political rival where Hindman believed he might be assaulted, or worse. Cleburne agreed. As the two men walked to their destination, both armed, they were ambushed. A gunfight erupted during which Cleburne and Hindman were shot and seriously wounded, with Cleburne not expected to live.3 Hindman would do much more than stand by Cleburne’s side during the meeting at Dalton, he would go so far as to set a precedent by suggesting in print the essential points of the message that Cleburne would deliver officially several weeks later. There is no direct evidence that the two Generals worked together on Hindman’s public suggestions or Cleburne’s Memorial, but it is not at all unlikely.
Writing as “Culloden” Hindman published an open letter in the Memphis Appeal (at that time published in Georgia) arguing that the time had come to arm the slaves and give them freedom in exchange for their service. “Culloden” wrote, “let him feel that he defends his country as well as ours”4 This extraordinary letter appeared in early December, 1863. Several weeks later “Cleburne delivered his Proposal to an astounded audience of senior Confederate officers.”5
As the army rested and re-supplied during the winter of 1863-4 in Dalton, General Hardee declined permanent command. General Joseph Johnston, despite his difficult relationship with President Davis was given the position. With his friend Hardee still on the scene, and a well-loved general newly in command, Cleburne made his move. Having practiced law (partnering with Hindman in Helena) prior to the war, Cleburne was fully capable of formulating the elegant and rationalist argument that could lead to only one conclusion – slaves must be armed and put in the army, and slavery itself abolished if independence was to be won.
Cleburne was not an iconoclast. His rational and articulate Proposal demanded nothing less than a complete social, political, and military shift in the South whose purpose was not abolition for its own sake but rather as a means to independence. A pragmatist, realist, and risk taker on and off the battlefield, Cleburne saw abolition only as a means to a much desired end.
The potential negative consequences for Cleburne and his supporters that the Proposal represented was clearly understood by all of them. In fact, Cleburne’s “aide’s tried to dissuade their friend and commander from advocating the proposal because it would damage him and destroy his prospects for promotion to Lieutenant General. They pointed out that a corps was then without a commander. Cleburne responded in view of the grave crisis he was duty bound to present the proposal to the authorities regardless of the effect upon his career.”6
Writing many years later to a Richmond newspaper, Irving S. Buck, a Cleburne aide and an early biographer, wrote that “Cleburne naturally felt somewhat anxious as to the outcome of this affair, though feeling no regrets, and in discussing the matter and probabilities said that the most disastrous result personally could only be court martial and cashiering and if such occurred he would immediately enlist as a private in his old regiment, the 15th Arkansas, then in his division; that if not permitted to command, he would at least do his duty in the ranks.”7
After Ringgold Gap, many in the Army of Tennessee and elsewhere expected that Cleburne would receive a promotion to lieutenant-general and be advanced to corps command. Certainly, Cleburne had the experience and proven ability. He also had the thanks of the Confederate Congress for his brilliant command of the rear-guard after Missionary Ridge (approved 02/09/64)8; there were few better qualified than he for corps command in the Army of Tennessee’s ranks.
E.T. Sykes, Adjutant-General of Walthall’s brigade explained why Cleburne remained a division commander when he wrote many years later in the Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society for 1916 that, “the entire army recognized the gallantry, devotion, and military prowess of Cleburne, and for a year prior, and up to the day of his death, officers and men were anxiously expecting his promotion to the grade of lieutenant general, and few, very few knew why he was not so commissioned.”9 Sykes believed that the Proposal to free and recruit the slaves of the South had “cost him promotion, yea, ever after kept him from attaining his just and well merited deserts – a lieutenant generalship.”10 At the time, few appreciated the pragmatism of Cleburne’s plan and fewer still supported it.
General Hardee was one of the Proposal’s few supporters. He would write later that “Cleburne fully comprehended the disproportion in the military resources of the North and South, and was the first to point out the only means left the South to recruit her exhausted numbers. In January 1864, he advocated calling in the negro population to the aid of Southern arms. He maintained that negroes accustomed to obedience from youth, would,” Hardee wrote, “under the officering of their masters, make even better soldiers for the South than they had been proven to make under different principles of organization for the North… His proposition met the disfavour of both government and people. A year later it was adopted by Congress(, with the approval of the country, when it was too late.” 11
By early 1864, many in the South realized that without some stunning change of fortune, they could not win the war. Cleburne, Hindman, and their supporters all recognized that the preponderance of population and economic resources of the North would be impossible for the Confederacy to overcome without foreign aid and more soldiers.
The slave population of the South might well be the answer to the Confederacy’s crisis of manpower. “The Confederacy contained three and half million slaves, who made up almost 40 percent of the Confederacy’s total population.”12 Arming the slaves was not such an outlandish concept to many observers as the relationship between slave and master in the antebellum South, and during the war itself, had generally been seen by many Southern whites as a positive one. If Confederate society and the government in particular accepted and rapidly implemented Cleburne’s Proposal, the crushing manpower crisis would be resolved and independence itself perhaps secured.
John W. DuBose, Confederate cavalry General Joseph Wheeler’s early biographer commented on the ease and likely success of implementing Cleburne’s solution. “The argument for enlistment of negroes in the Confederate army seemed to be justified in the perfect fidelity to their masters of the thousands of negro slave body-servants carried by officers and at first by many privates into camp,” wrote Witherspoon. “This loyalty was unbroken and was as remarkable as true. Negro servants in the army never deserted.”13 While Witherspoon may be exaggerating in his claim that black servants “never deserted”, his sentiment and meaning is quite clear and commonly held in the South. The idea of the “loyal slave” was not an uncommon one.
Those who supported Cleburne’s Proposal perhaps shared a positive opinion of blacks similar to that stated by Cleburne’s friend and early business partner in Helena, Arkansas, Charles Nash, when he wrote of having “…witnessed one thousand able bodied men (negroes), who had been sent to work on the fortifications at Montgomery, Ala., offer their services to assist in the defense of Selma, to which place the Federals were rapidly approaching, but their services could not be accepted, as the officers in command were not allowed to arm them. They proved loyal to their masters and their families to the last,” Nash wrote, “remaining on the plantations and working peaceably.”14
The fact that the war had brought the “peculiar institution” to obsolescence appeared clear to those few who supported Cleburne. Blacks were already appearing in battle in blue uniform – the destruction of slavery was already in motion. For Cleburne and those who supported his Proposal, the war was about nothing less than Confederate independence; if the eradication of slavery could help to attain that goal, they were therefore in favor of it as a necessary war measure.
Cleburne was not unaware of the irrationality of the idea of slaves fighting to uphold a society built on slavery. To resolve this obvious conflict his Proposal stated that if the slaves fought, they would be given their freedom and so would their families. Much to Cleburne’s disappointment, the Memorial would cause intense controversy and disagreement from Dalton to Richmond. The response was so universally negative that its suppression, on President Jefferson Davis’ direct order, would be so effective that almost 30 years would pass before the world would even know of its existence.
“The Subject is So Grave, and Our Views So New” – Cleburne Proposes the Unthinkable
Major-General James Patton Anderson, upon receipt of a “circular order”, arrived at Joseph E. Johnston’s headquarters in Dalton in the early evening of January 2, 1864, where those in attendance included “…with the general commanding…all the corps and division commanders (infantry) of this army (except Major-General Cheatham, who was not present)”.15 Bromfield Lewis, a member of Major-General A. P. Stewart’s staff wrote, “the general officers were summoned to General Johnston’s headquarters to hear a paper prepared by General P.R. Cleburne proposing to emancipate our slaves and put muskets in their hands, thereby insuring an equality, if not superiority of numbers over our enemies.”16 For some in attendance, it would be a most shocking and unpleasant meeting.
Having forewarned his own brigade commanders before the meeting of January 2nd, Cleburne may have felt bolstered by the generally positive response that he had received from them. Irving Buck, of Cleburne’s staff, described the earlier meeting during which Cleburne presented his case to his division’s senior commanders. “…I made from his draft a plain copy of the document which was read to, and free criticisms invited from, members of his staff. One of them Maj. Calhoun Benham, strongly dissented, and asked for a copy with the purpose of writing a reply in opposition. The division brigadiers were then called together, and my recollection is that their endorsement was unanimous, namely, Polk*, Lowrey, Govan, and Granbury.”17 Cleburne had “tested the waters” and, with the exception of Major Benham’s dissent, his Proposal was received with the unanimous approval of his senior staff.
As the meeting at General Johnston’s headquarters got underway, General Cleburne read directly from his paper. Starting with historical references and an overview of the current situation in early 1865, Cleburne built his finely constructed argument point upon point, each in its own right difficult to contest, which brought the listener to the inescapable conclusion at the heart of the Proposal – slavery must be abolished and black soldiers must fight for the South.
It is important to note that Cleburne was not alone but rather the standard bearer of a group of Confederate officers in the Army of Tennessee who had co-signed the Memorial. Pledging their agreement with their signatures 13 field grade officers from major to brigadier general co-signed the Proposal.
Reading the Memorial to the assembled officers of the Army of Tennessee, Cleburne often used the term “we” rather than “I” to emphasize that he was not alone, and that his views had been previously reviewed and approved by others. “Through some lack in our system the fruits of our struggles and our sacrifices have invariably slipped away from us,” Cleburne read, “and left us nothing but long lists of dead and mangled.” Foreshadowing his message and layering his meaning Cleburne continued, “In this state of things it is easy to understand why there is a growing belief that some black catastrophe is not far ahead of us… If this state continues we must be subjugated.”
Describing the difficulties faced by the army in recruiting and retention Cleburne quickly got to his key point: “We propose… that we immediately commence training a large reserve of the most courageous of our slaves, and further that we guarantee freedom within a reasonable time to every slave in the South who shall remain true to the Confederacy in this war.”
Perhaps there was dead silence in General Johnston’s headquarters in Dalton – then pandemonium. An awe struck horror apparently grew in the minds of several of the assembled generals as they were faced with a rationalist argument based on necessity alone to end slavery which they could not readily resolve or ignore. The war had brought them to this moment and they must choose, either slavery or independence but not both. For the majority at the meeting the choice was an impossible one; they chose instead to make no decision at all and, rather than accept Cleburne’s argument as valid and its conclusions as painful necessities, chose to condemn the conundrum itself, and its proponent.
Cleburne justified his Proposal in intricate detail employing political, cultural, economic and, most importantly, military arguments. But at its center was a resolution to the no-longer affordable conflict arising between two mutually exclusive concepts, the independence of the South and the continuance of the institution of slavery.
Continuing to read from the Proposal, Cleburne said, “As between the loss of independence and the loss of slavery, we assume that every patriot will freely give up the latter – give up the negro slave rather than be a slave himself.”18 This appears a difficult point to contend, but many considered the formulation itself more of an affront than the issue that is proposed to resolve.
The atmosphere in Johnston’s headquarters must have been electric. “Hindman spoke up in favor of the proposal and mentioned ways black soldiers could be used.”19 Cleburne’s presentation, “…coming as a surprise to most of the officers present, produced much commotion; but failed to gain additional supporters. Generals Walker, Anderson, and Bate denounced the document, and Major Benham read his statement of dissent.”20 The response could not have been more unfavorable or less intense.
Major General W.H.T. Walker condemned the paper as “incendiary”21, and in a letter to Bragg wrote that he “blew out denunciatory”22; a week later in correspondence with Walker, Major General A.P. Stewart wrote that arming the slaves and giving them their freedom was “at war with my social, moral and political principles”23; Major General James Patton Anderson in a letter to his friend Lt. General Leonidas Polk was apoplectic with confusion and offense writing that Cleburne’s ideas were “monstrous”, and that he would not “attempt to describe my feelings on being confronted with a project so startling in its character,- may I say so revolting to southern sentiment, southern pride, and southern honor?”24 Anderson did not have the benefit of receiving Polk’s opinion as “the letter reached General Polk just as he was in the midst of the preparations to meet the advance of General Sherman; his answer was consequently postponed. Unfortunately, no record of it has been found.”25 The unfavorable response and general controversy at the meeting could not have seemed more negative for Cleburne and his fellow signers of the Proposal. The situation would rapidly progress from bad to worse.
Cleburne had hoped that his document would quickly be sent to Richmond for Presidential review and quick action. A key component of his argument had been that the recommended changes must be rapidly implemented. Instead, Johnston demurred in sending the document to President Davis (though apparently giving Cleburne and others cause to believe that he was a supporter). “…My impression is that Generals Hardee and Johnston were favorably disposed, though the latter declined to forward it to the War Department, on the ground that is was more political than military in tone.”26 Johnston’s decision “…greatly disappointed Cleburne. He declared his readiness to surrender the splendid division he commanded to take a division of negroes.”27
General W. H. T. Walker did not share Johnston’s hesitations. Writing to all those in attendance at the meeting one week later, Walker informed the generals that he would be sending Cleburne’s Memorial to Richmond personally, and requested that each man reply with his opinion on the matter for the record. On the 9th of January, 1864 Walker wrote to Hindman asking for his opinion on the Proposal and informing him that “I wrote to General Cleburne asking him for a copy of the article he read at our meeting on the night of the 2d. I informed him that I felt it my duty to forward the documents to the War Department, which I intend to do. He has sent it and avowed himself its author. Will you please inform me whether you favor the proposition and sentiments of the document in any form.”28
Walker already knew that Hindman favored the Proposal as Hindman had expressed favorable views during the meeting. Clearly, Walker’s letter was political and, in political warfare, there were few better in the Confederacy than Hindman. Replying to Walker on the same day, Hindman’s tone was uncooperative and testy, though professional. “I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of this date, and to decline complying with your request. Whenever my proper superiors see fit to propound any interrogatories to me touching matters as to which they are entitled to inquire, it will be my duty to answer directly, and I shall do so. I have no opinions to conceal and will evade no responsibility that belongs to me. But I do not choose to admit any inquisitorial rights in you. Permit me also to say that, according to my understanding, the course you propose to take conflicts with a distinct agreement of privacy among the officers consulted by General Cleburne, which agreement none of them can waive without the consent of all.”29
The generals who opposed the Proposal were, in a sense, representative of Confederate society and, as later events would confirm, foreshadowed the very negative response it would receive from Richmond. For many in the South, slavery “…had been so long and so thoroughly interwoven with the domestic economy, the comfort, and the traditions of Southern society, that the common thought revolted at any suggestion which contemplated its eradication either proximate or remote.”30 Driven by no purpose other than to support the survival of his country as its fortunes dimmed, Cleburne had boldly suggested the overturning of a commonly accepted (in the South, but elsewhere reviled), social, legal, and economic institution.
Sometime in late 1863 or early 1864, Cleburne told Tennessee Confederate Congressman Arthur St. Clair Colyar that he “considered slavery at an end.” Minimizing for the Congressman the more direct and radical language that he would use for the Proposal, Cleburne explained that “if we take this step now, we can mould the relations, for all time to come, between the white and colored races.” 31
The purpose of his Proposal was not at all about ensuring equality between the races, that would come of its own accord; the purpose of his plan was to solve the manpower crisis that was destroying the Confederacy, and win the war. Cleburne was not an “abolitionist” in the Northern sense.
“We can control the negroes… they will still be our laborers as much as they now are; and, to all intents and purposes, will be our servants at less cost than now,”32 he told Colyar. Cleburne did not further explain the practical considerations of how the blacks of the South would remain servants at “less cost” but it seems clear that, at least with Congressman Colyar, he was trying to find the best approach so that his radical ideas could get a fair hearing from an unfavorable audience.
The whirlwind of controversy swirling around Dalton headquarters that resulted from Cleburne’s Proposal quickly spread to Richmond. General Walker had, as promised, sent the Memorial on to President Jefferson Davis. Responding on January 13th to Walker, Davis wrote that Cleburne’s ideas were “injurious to the public service (and) that the best policy under the circumstances will be to avoid all publicity, and the Secretary of War has therefore written to General Johnston requesting him to convey to those concerned my desire that it should be kept private. If it be kept out of the public journals its ill effect will be much lessened.”33
Secretary of War James A. Seddon’s letter to Johnston dated the 21st soon arrived in Dalton informing the general commanding that “he (President Davis) is gratified to infer, from your declining to forward officially General Walker’s communication of the memorial, that you neither approved the views advocated in it, nor deemed it expedient that, after meeting as they happily did the disapproval of the council, they should have further dissemination or publicity.”34 It was clear that the leadership in Richmond had taken grave offense at Cleburne’s politically charged proposal. For Walker and those who stood strongly against the Memorial, this was exactly the outcome they had hoped for.
Seddon, speaking for Davis, instructed Johnston to communicate to all those in attendance at the meeting of the 2nd and inform them that discussion of the matter “..can be productive only of discouragement, distraction, and dissension.”35 Johnston was further instructed to “communicate to them, as well as all others present on the occasion, the opinions, as herein expressed, of the President, and urge on them the suppression, not only of the memorial itself, but likewise of all discussion and controversy respecting or growing out of it.”36
Johnston quickly sent his own circular to all his senior commanders quoting Seddon’s letter verbatim. In a post script to Cleburne, Johnston added, “Be as good as to communicate the views of the President, expressed above, to the officers of your division who signed the memorial.”37 Cleburne’s grand plan to save the South was now dead.
“Upon receipt of this General Cleburne directed me to destroy all copies except the one returned from Richmond,” 38 wrote Cleburne’s aide Irving Buck. While official discussion on the issue of arming slaves was ordered stopped, correspondence and behind-the-scenes conversations continued.
Suppression, Treason and an End to Options
The Army of Tennessee’s officer corps has often been described as suffering under poor leadership and wracked with political strife, originating mainly from conflicts between former commander Braxton Bragg and those who wanted his removal from authority. Cleburne had been one of those many officers who had agitated for Bragg’s dismissal from command. While Bragg’s critics in the Army of Tennessee must have been pleased with his departure after the disaster of Missionary Ridge and his replacement with Hardee, then Johnston, both highly regarded officers – they must have been horrified to learn of Bragg’s appointment as the President’s military advisor at Richmond.
When first informed of Cleburne’s Proposal Bragg described it as “treasonous” and informed General Walker that “I should like to know as a matter of safety the secret history of the treason and the names of the traitors.”39 Even from Richmond, Bragg would continue his divisive influence on his former command.
In a March, 1864, letter to Bragg, States Rights Gist, brigade commander in Cleburne’s own division stated, “I am delighted beyond expression to know that the Traitors will meet with their just deserts at the hands of the ‘powers that be’”.40 Suggesting that further action on the matter was coming, Bragg wrote to General Marcus Wright that Cleburne and his supporters were “agitators, and should be watched. We must mark the men”.41 (Ironically, General Wright, in his post-war capacity as a collector of Confederate war records for the US War Department, would receive the only extant copy of the Memorial thus ensuring that the long suppressed Proposal was published in the Official Records.42 In a further irony, this one copy of the Memorial had belonged to Major Benham of Cleburne’s staff who had so vigorously objected to it.) As later events appear to show Cleburne was, indeed, “marked”.
Irving Buck, Cleburne’s Assistant Adjutant General and biographer was rightly concerned that the Proposal would “be used detrimentally, and his chances for promotion destroyed.”43 There is strong reason to believe that Cleburne was denied promotion specifically on account of the Proposal.
From June to September, 1864, three corps commands were vacant in the Army of Tennessee. None of these vacancies would be offered to Patrick Cleburne. Generals A.P. Stewart and S.D. Lee would be promoted to fill two of the slots, despite the fact that Cleburne was senior in rank to both. The last slot was filled by Major General Benjamin Cheatham who would command Hardee’s former corps but without the promotion in rank that would normally go with such a post.44 Cleburne remained a major general commanding a division until his death at Franklin, Tennessee.
As the war of attrition continued, and Confederate fortunes continued to sink public discussion of arming and freeing the slaves again arose. In a late September, 1864, letter to Secretary of War Seddon, Henry Allen, Governor of Louisiana, was quite unequivocal when he wrote, “the time has come for us to put into the army every able-bodied negro man as a soldier. This should be done immediately. …He caused the fight and he will have his portion of the burden to bear.” Allen continued, sounding very much like Cleburne at Dalton nine months prior, “We have learned from dear-bought experience that negroes can be taught to fight, and that all who leave us are made to fight against us. I would free all able to bear arms, and put them in the field at once. They will make much better soldiers with us than against us, and swell the now depleted ranks of our armies.”45
Prompted likely by a desperate pragmatism, and the growing realization that without more soldiers the South could not succeed, the Confederate government continued to explore the matter, but all too slowly. Time to implement a policy sea change like that proposed by Cleburne was clearly running out and, while more people in the South were prepared by September, 1864, to make the sacrifices that Cleburne had suggested in January, there were still those who adamantly refused to accept the truth – that there could be no independent Confederacy and the continued existence of the institution of slavery in the South.
General Howell Cobb (former first Speaker of the Provisional Confederate Congress) writing to Secretary of War Seddon from Macon, Georgia in early 1865, wrote, “I think that the proposition to make soldiers of our slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began. It is to me a source of deep mortification and regret to see the name of that good and great man and soldier, General R. E. Lee, given as authority for such a policy. My first hour of despondency will be the one in which that policy shall be adopted.” Cobb quickly got to the heart of the matter for those in opposition to the idea, writing, “the day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong.”46
Since the suppression of Cleburne’s Proposal in January, 1864, Jefferson Davis had had a change of heart. Doubtless encouraged by Robert E. Lee’s support Davis (using language much like that of the Cleburne Proposal he had ordered suppressed), in a message to the Confederate Congress, in early November, 1864, said, “should the alternative ever be presented of subjugation or of the employment of the slave as a soldier, there seems to be no reason to doubt what should then be our decision.”47 As negative news for the South continued to accumulate it was clear the Confederate President had come too late to embrace Cleburne’s argument that the South could not retain slavery and win the war.
“Finally, the bill passed,” wrote Jefferson Davis in Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, “with an amendment providing that not more than twenty-five percent of the male slaves between the ages of 18 and 45 should be called out. But the passage of the act had been so long delayed that the opportunity had been lost.”48 Even Robert E. Lee’s support of the bill could not get it pushed through fast enough to make a difference. A poor half-measure compared to Cleburne’s bold Memorial the bill was too little, too late.
In a letter to Mississippi Congressman Barksdale, which was published in the Richmond Sentinel February 23, 1864, Lee wrote “that arming slaves was ‘not only expedient but necessary,’ and that ‘those who are employed should be freed.’”49 In a January 11, 1865, letter to Andrew Hunter of the Virginia House which was not published at the time, Lee wrote, “I think, therefore, we must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves used against us, or use them ourselves…My own opinion is that we should employ them without delay.”50 By early March, 1865, when the bill allowing for minimal conscription of slaves was finally enacted by the Confederate Congress, the Confederacy itself would exist only for another month.
Implementing the new orders rapidly, Confederate recruiters were soon organizing black units to fight for the South. “Thousands of Negroes were enlisted in the State Militias and in the Confederate Army. They served with satisfaction, but there is no evidence that they took part in any important battles.”51 By that late hour the Confederacy was a failed venture in its final death throes.
Explaining to a member of the Confederate Senate the need to arm southern blacks to fight, Jefferson Davis wrote that he “…finally used to him the expression which I believe I can repeat exactly: ‘If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone, “Died of a theory”‘”.52
General James Patton Anderson who had had such a negative reaction to Cleburne’s Proposal in January, 1864, wrote an autobiographical sketch for his children in February, 1865, (which he composed while on leave after being seriously wounded at the Battle of Jonesboro, GA., August 31, 1864). Perhaps respecting the President’s suppression order he makes no mention of the controversy, though it had certainly caused him great concern and confusion only a year before.
Anderson never signed the oath of allegiance to the Union considering it a “dishonor” and could therefore not resume his law practice. He died in poverty in Memphis, TN., in 1872. Anderson’s wife Etta, in a letter to a friend in Florida, wrote that her husband’s signing the oath would have “implied a regret for what he had done & he had none. And if his life was to go over he would do just as he had unless if possible he would be more devoted to the cause.”53 One wonders how Patton Anderson could have been more devoted to the Confederacy than he was, except perhaps in supporting Cleburne’s Proposal which General Hood and others believed would have turned the course of the war to Confederate victory.
An Irishman who had served in the British Army, Cleburne had been in the South for only some ten years before the war. Perhaps it is fitting that a foreign-born leader should have the bravery and prescience to publicly make the proposition for arming slaves and giving them their freedom. Cleburne understood, as only few others did in early January, 1864, that slavery must be abolished, and black men made to fight for the South if independence was to be won.
A national hero of the Confederacy, lawyer, and accomplished division commander, Cleburne understood the larger scope of the conflict better than the majority of his confederates. Responding to a lady from Tennessee in early 1864, Cleburne wrote, “We may have to make still greater sacrifices – to use all the means that God has given us; but when once our people, or the great body of them, sincerely value independence above every other earthly consideration, then I will regard our success as an accomplished fact.”54 (Note: italics in original.)
After the loss of Atlanta under Johnston’s controversial fighting retreat strategy, John Bell Hood, the aggressive hard-fighting hero of Chickamauga, Gettysburg, Antietam, and many other battles was promoted to command the Army of Tennessee by Jefferson Davis. In his post-war memoirs Hood wrote that Cleburne “possessed the boldness and the wisdom to earnestly advocate, at an early period of the war, the freedom of the negro and the enrollment of the young and able-bodied men of that race. This stroke of policy and additional source of strength to our Armies, would, in my opinion, have given us our independence.”55
Had Cleburne’s Proposal of early January, 1864, received a more favorable reception, and had the Confederate government rapidly implemented his plan, the outcome of the war could have been decisively shifted in the Confederacy’s favor. In addition to the profound impact that armed slaves fighting as Confederate soldiers would have had in military operations, on the diplomatic front such a profound change of policy would likely have had equally beneficial results. It is clear that despite its suppression by President Davis, Patrick Cleburne’s Proposal had a serious impact on Confederate government planning and policy. The radical but highly practical ideas proposed by Cleburne in his Memorial finally found an official audience as the war was winding down and Confederate defeat appeared inevitable.
Early in the war Douglas Kenner, a member of the Confederate Congress and a significant slave holder, had approached President Davis with a radical solution to the problem of European recognition. Davis, at the time, refused the offer. Close in character to the solution proposed by Cleburne, Kenner’s proposed mission, when it was finally approved in total secrecy, was as radical as Cleburne’s Memorial and far more desperate.
By late 1864, Davis was increasingly more amenable to radical solutions than he had been the previous year. In great secrecy and at great personal risk Kenner traveled to Europe to approach the governments of England and France with an offer – in exchange for recognition the Confederacy would abolish slavery.
Arriving in Paris in early 1865, Kenner explained his mission to Confederate Ambassadors Mason and Slidell who were astounded to learn that Kenner had full authority over them by Presidential mandate including, if necessary, dismissal for non-cooperation. Representatives of the French government informed Kenner that France would accept the deal provided that England would do the same. To Kenner’s dismay, Great Britain’s refusal cancelled the mission in failure.56 Had the Confederate government accepted and implemented Cleburne’s Proposal the previous year would Kenner’s mission have been necessary at all? If slavery had been officially on the path to extinction in the Confederacy early in 1864, British and French recognition might already have been a fact before Kenner’s mission was finally approved.
Those few, prescient and brave such as Cleburne and his comrades, who suggested arming and freeing the slaves of the South, were focused solely on what they believed to be the fundamental objective of the war – independence. They were prepared to make very serious personal sacrifices for it and expected the same from their government and society.
The rejection of Patrick Cleburne’s Memorial in January, 1864 may well have been the beginning of the end of the Confederacy. Unwilling to jettison the self-defeating institution of slavery and disinclined to fairly review or accept a proposal to end it until too late in the war, the Confederate government refused to employ its greatest manpower reserve despite its ever weakening position until the final moments of the drama when the enemy were literally “at the gates”.
At Franklin, Tennessee November, 30, 1864, Patrick Cleburne was killed leading his division in a daring and ultimately unsuccessful attack. The Confederate assault at Franklin would be the final grand charge of the war, and the last of its kind on this continent. Larger than Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg – 20,000 men attacking over 2 miles of open ground without cover or artillery support, the Confederate charge at Franklin would be his final battle. Good to his word, Cleburne made the greatest sacrifice of all for his country, as thousands of other soldiers did at Franklin – on both sides of the earthworks. In his “Biographical Sketch” of Cleburne, General Hardee wrote later, “eight millions of people, whose hearts had learned to thrill at his name, now mourned his loss, and felt there was none to take his place.”57
When they identified slavery as an impediment to victory, Cleburne and his followers pushed for its dissolution. To their detriment, Confederate leaders did not or could not follow Cleburne’s model in combining a brave pragmatism with a self-less patriotism that allowed for any sacrifice and would entertain any solution and sacrifice for victory – even the abolition of slavery.
1. Bruce Levine, Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves During the Civil War, (New York, 2006), p.17.
2. Ibid., (1898; Dayton, 1977), p.154.
3 Charles Edward Nash, MD., Biographical Sketches of Gen. Pat Cleburne and Gen. T. C. Hindman, Together With Humorous Anecdotes and Reminiscences of the Late Civil War, (1898; Dayton, 1977), pp.64-65.
4. Levine, (New York, 2006) , p.26.
5. Diane Neal, The Lion of the South: General Thomas C. Hindman. (Mercer University Press, Macon, GA., 1997), p.187.
6. Howell and Elizabeth Purdue, Pat Cleburne-Confederate General, (Hillsboro, TX, 1973) p.270.
7. Irving S. Buck, & Thomas Robson Hay, Cleburne and his Command, (New York, 1908), p.213.
8. Buck, (New York, 1908), p.208.
9. E. T. Sykes, Adjutant-General Walthall’s Brigade, “Walthall’s Brigade-A cursory Sketch with Personal Experiences of Walthall’s Brigade, Army of Tennessee, C.S.A., 1862-1865, in Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, Volume 1, (Jackson, MS., 1916), p.550.
10. Ibid, (Jackson, MS., 1916), p.552.
( The Confederate Congress would finally adopt a bill that allowed for the arming of slaves and recruiting them for army service. However, this bill would not include a plan for eventual abolition, nor was it as comprehensive and bold as Cleburne’s plan.
11. General William T. Hardee, “Biographical sketch of Major-General P.R. Cleburne”, in John Francis Maquire, The Irish in America, (London, 1868), p.647.
12. Levine,(New York, 2006), p.17.
13 John Witherspoon DuBose, General Joseph Wheeler and the Army of Tennessee,
(New York, 1912), p.258.
14. Nash, (Dayton, 1977), p.193.
15. Letter of Major General Patton Anderson to Lt. General Polk, January 14, 1864, in William M. Polk, Leonidas Polk: Bishop and General, Volume 2, (London and New York, 1893), p.319.
16. Bromfield L. Ridley, (of General A.P. Stewart’s Staff ), Battles and Sketches of the Army of Tennessee, (Mexico, MO., 1906), p.289).
* General Lucius Polk, not General Leonidas Polk mentioned later.
17. Buck, (New York, 1908), p.213.
18. The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, United States War Department, Series I, Vol. 52, Pt. 2 (Washington, 1898), for full text of Cleburne’s Proposal see, pp.586- 592.
19. Russell K. Brown, To the Manner Born: The Life of General William H. T. Walker,
(Macon, GA., 2005), p.197.
20. Purdue, (Hillsboro, TX.), p.271.
21. DuBose, (New York, 1912), p.257.
22. Brown, (Macon, GA., 2005), p.197.
23. Sam Davis Elliott, Soldier of Tennessee: General A. P. Stewart and the Civil War in the West, Baton Rouge, 2004), p.168.
24. Polk, Vol. 2, (London and New York, 1893), p.319.
25. Ibid, p. 317.
26. Buck, (New York, 1908), p.213. (Please see also Secretary of War Seddon letter to Johnston, 01/21/64, in OR, Series I, vol. 52, pt 2, pp. 606-7.)
27. DuBose, (New York, 1912), p.257.
28. Official Records, Series 1, Volume 52, Part 2, (Washington, 1898), pp593-4.
29. Ibid., (Washington, 1898), p537.
30 Charles Jones, Jr., “Negro Slaves During the Civil War: Their Relations to the Confederate Government”, in The Magazine of American History with Notes and Queries. Vol. 16, (New York, 1886), p.175.
31 Levine, (New York, 2006), p.103.
32 Ibid., p.103.
33 Official Records, Series 1, vol. 52, pt. 2, (Washington, 1898), p.596. Letter from Jefferson Davis to General W.H.T. Walker, of 01/13/64.
34 Ibid., Series 1, vol. 52, pt. 2, (Washington, 1898), pp.606-607. Letter from Secretary of War Seddon to Johnson of 01/21/64.
35 Ibid., Series 1, vol. 52, pt. 2, (Washington, 1898), p.606.
36 Ibid., Series 1, vol. 52, pt. 2, (Washington, 1898), p.606.
37 Ibid., Series 1, vol. 52, pt. 2, (Washington, 1898), p.608.
38 Buck, (New York, 1908), p.214.
39 Brown, (Macon, GA., 2005), p.202.
40 Charles L. Dufour, Nine Men in Gray, (Lincoln, NE., 1993), p.103.
41 Grady McWhiney, Judith Lee Hallock, Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat, Vol. 2, (Tuscaloosa, AL., 1991), p.180.
42 Buck, (New York, 1908), p.214.
43 Ibid., (New York, 1908), p.212.
44 Dufour, (Lincoln, NE., 1993), p.103.
45 E. T. Sykes, (Jackson, MS., 1916), p.557-558.
46 Official Records, Series 4, vol. 3, (Washington, 1900), p.1009.
47 Daniel Wait Howe, Civil War Times, 1861-1865, (Indianapolis, 1902), p.277.
48 Jefferson Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. 1., (New York, 1881), p.519.
49 Levine, (New York, 2006), p.36.
50 Official Records, Series 4, vol. 3, (Washington, 1900), p.1012.
51 Charles H. Wesley, “The Employment of Negroes as Soldiers in the Confederate Army” in The Journal of Negro History, Volume IV, No.3, (Lancaster, PA and Washington, DC, 1919), p.252.
52 Davis, Vol. 1, (New York, 1881), p.518.
53 Margaret Uhler, “Major General James Patton Anderson: An Autobiography” in The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 65, issue 3, (Gainesville, FL, 1987), p.340.
54 Hardee (quoted in) Maquire, (London, 1868), p.648.
55 John Bell Hood, Advance and Retreat: Personal Experiences in the United States and Confederate States Armies, (New Orleans, 1880), p.296.
56 W.W. Henry, “Kenner’s Mission to Europe”, in William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 25, (Richmond, 1917), pp9-12.
57 Hardee (quoted in) Maquire, (London, 1868), p.650.
