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Michael Kelley wrote the following in response to the question should we boycott the movie "Cold Mountain" because of its failure to portray Black Union troops fighting in the battle that it depicts...
First, the answer to that question is "Yes," but not only because it DID underplay the role of the USCT (US "Colored" Troops), but because it also misportrayed how Blacks were used and abused by the Union Army, and it misportrayed Confederate soldiers and the Home Guard as opposed to the documented history for which Mr. Dellums calls.
At the Battle of the Crater the USCT were used as cannon fodder and when they retreated under severe fire they were killed by the Union soldiers who had waited for them to absorb the brunt of casualies:
Regarding the Battle of the Crater, depicted in the film Cold Mountain, "George L. Kilmer, an officer of the Fourteenth New York Heavy Artillery, went into the crater with the first wave and reported afterward that when the USCT moved forward to charge the fort, some of white soldiers refused to follow them. Pandemonium broke out when the black soldiers could not continue the assault and started to retreat and come back into the crater. 'Some colored men came into the crater and there they found a fate worse than death in the charge . . . It has been positively asserted, that white men [Union] bayoneted blacks who fell back into the crater.'" - "The Sable Arm." Dudley T. Cornish, New York: Longman, Green & Co., 1956, p 274
This was not unusual treatment of USCT by the Union Army: [Reporting on the assault on Battery Wagner] "Sergeant George E. Stephens of Company B described the scene to Captain Emilio: 'Just at the very hottest moment of the struggle, a battalion or regiment charged up to the moat, halted, and did not attempt to join us, but from their position commenced to fire upon us. I was one of the men who shouted from where I stood, 'Don't fire on us. We are the Fifty-fourth.' I have heard it was a MaineRegiment .'" - "A Brave Black Regiment: History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry," Luis F. Emilio, Boston: Boston Book Company, 1894; Reprint, Salem: Ayer Company Publishers, Inc., 1990., 93
"...As usual with the enemy, they posted their negro regiments on their left and in front, where they were slain by hundreds, and upon retiring left their dead and wounded negroes uncared for, carrying off only the whites, which accounts for the fact that upon the first part of the battle-field nearly all the dead found were negroes." - Federal Official Records, Vol. XXV, Chapter XLVII, pg. 341 -report of the Confederate Commander, Savannah, April 27, 1864 - Battle of Ocean Pond (Olustee)
The role of Black Southerners as slaves and as soldiers was also underplayed "The part of Adams' Brigade that the 42nd Indiana was facing were the 'Louisiana Tigers.' This name was given to Colonel Gibson's 13th Louisiana Infantry, which included five companies of 'Avegno Zouaves' who still were wearing their once dashing traditional blue jackets, red caps and red baggy trousers. These five Zouaves companies were made up of Irish, Dutch, Negroes, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Italians." - Noe, Kenneth W., Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle. The University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, KY, 2001. (page 270)
Frederick Douglass, Douglass' Monthly, IV (Sept. 1861), pp 516 - "& there are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate Army&as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government...There were such soldiers at Manassas and they are probably there still."
From James G. Bates' letter to his father reprinted in the 1 May 1863 "Winchester [Indiana] Journal" (the 13th IVI ["Hoosier Regiment"] was involved in operations around the Suffolk, Virginia area in April-May 1863 ) - "I can assure you [Father], of a certainty, that the rebels have negro soldiers in their army. One of their best sharp shooters, and the boldest of them all here is a negro. He dug himself a rifle pit last night [16 April 1863] just across the river and has been annoying our pickets opposite him very much to-day. You can see him plain enough with the naked eye, occasionally, to make sure that he is a "wooly-head," and with a spy-glass there is no mistaking him."
After the action at Missionary Ridge, Commissary Sergeant William F. Ruby forwarded a casualty list written in camp at Ringgold, Georgia about 29 November 1863, to William S. Lingle for publication. Ruby's letter was partially reprinted in the Lafayette Daily Courier for 8 December 1863: "Ruby says among the rebel dead on the [Missionary] Ridge he saw a number of negroes in the Confederate uniform."
"Negroes in the Confederate Army," Journal of Negro History, Charles Wesle, Vol. 4, #3, (1919), 244-245 - "Seventy free blacks enlisted in the Confederate Army in Lynchburg, Virginia. Sixteen companies of free men of color marched through Augusta, Georgia on their way to fight in Virginia." -
Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol XVI Part I, pg. 805: "There were also quite a number of negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day."
Federal Official Records Series 1, Volume 15, Part 1, Pages 137-138: "Pickets were thrown out that night, and Captain Hennessy, Company E, of the Ninth Connecticut, having been sent out with his company, captured a colored rebel scout, well mounted, who had been sent out to watch our movements."
Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol. XLIX, Part II, pg. 253 - April 6, 1865: "The rebels [Forrest] are recruiting negro troops at Enterprise, Miss., and the negroes are all enrolled in the State." -
The 85th Indiana Volunteer Infantry reported to the Indianapolis Daily Evening Gazette that on 5 March 1863: "During the fight the [artillery] battery in charge of the 85th Indiana [Volunteer Infantry] was attacked by [*in italics*] two rebel negro regiments.[*end italics*]."
I agree with Mr. Dellums. Let us demand accurate portrayal of history with all its warts and boils from all aspects. We would love to see Mr. Dellums in the role of one of the many documented Black Confederate combat soldiers.
"The first law of the historian is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he shall suppress nothing that is true. Moreover, there shall be no suspicion of partiality in his writing, or of malice." - Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
We simply ask that all act upon the facts of history.(by Michael Kelley, CSA Commanding, 37th Texas Cavalry (Terrell's)http://www.37thtexas.org "We are a band of brothers!")
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