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Some Quick Facts
About Slavery,
the War for Southern
Independance, and the South |
- Contrary to popular misconceptions, the War for
Southern Independance (1861 - 1865) was not fought over slavery, a minor issue
of the conflict. It was fought primarily over state's rights, freedom
from tyranny and oppression of centralized government, and defense of Southern
homes and firesides.
- Only about 7% of Confederate soldiers owned
slaves.
- According to the U.S. census 2% of Southern blacks
owned slaves in 1860.
- Over 100,000 blacks served in the Confederacy in
various capacities during the war with nearly 4000 of them willingly taking up
arms in defense of their masters.
- Slaves in the south overall were treated very well
by their masters. In a U.S Government survey years after the war, 70% of
former slaves had only good experiences to relate about their lives as slaves
and about the Old South.
- In 1688 Virginia was the first colony (North or
South) to try to stop the slave trade.
- Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, Joseph
Johnston, A.P Hill, Fitzhugh Lee, and J.E.B. Stuart were not slave owners.
- General Grant kept slaves to take care of his wife
while he was away fighting to end this supposed root cause of the war.
- Major Robert Anderson, the Union commander of Fort
Sumter in April of 1861, was from Kentucky and was a slave owner.
- With the Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln only
freed the slaves in territory not under U.S. jurisdiction, i.e. in the
Confederacy. He did not free the slaves in territory under U.S. control.
Slaves in northern states were not freed until the war was over.
- When Lincoln was asked why he just didn't let the
South go, he replied, "Who's going to pay for the government?"
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia supplied three-fourths of the federal
revenue in 1860.
- On July 25, 1861 the U.S. Congress passed the
Crittenden Resolution; it states that the Union's aim is to crush the Southern
rebellion, not to abolish slavery.
- On August 22, 1862 President Lincoln sent a public
letter to a newspaper stating his chief aim is to reunite the country NOT to
destroy slavery.
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