The negro: the southerner's problem

by Thomas Nelson Page

The devotion of slaves to their masters in time of war is no new thing under the sun. The fact that their masters are in arms has always, no doubt, borne its part in the phenomenon. But it does not wholly account for the absolute devotion of the Negroes. It is to the eternal credit at once of the Whites and of the Negroes that, during these four years of war, when the white men of the South were absent in the field they could intrust their homes, their wives, their children, all they possessed, to the guardianship and care of their slaves, with absolute confidence in their fidelity. And this trust was never violated. The Negroes were their faithful guardians, their sympathizing friends, and their shrewd advisers, guarding their property, enduring necessary denial with cheerfulness, and identifying themselves with their masters’ fortunes with the devotion, not of slaves, but of clansmen.

The devotion of the body-servants to their masters in the field is too well known almost to need mention, and what is said of them in this paper is owing rather to the feeling that the statement of the fact is a debt due to the class from which these came rather than to thinking it necessary to enlighten the reader.

When the Southern men went into the field there was always a contest among the Negroes as to who should accompany them. Usually, the choice of the young men would be for some of the younger men among the servants, while the choice of the family would be for some of the older and more staid members of the household, who would be prudent, and so, more likely to take better care of their masters. And thus there was much heart-burning among the younger Negroes, who were almost as eager for adventure as their masters.

Of all the thousands of Negroes who went out as servants with their masters, I have never heard of one who deserted to the North, and I have known of many who had abundant opportunity to do so. Some were captured, but escaped; others apparently deserted, but returned laden with spoils.

My father’s body-servant, Ralph Woodson, served with him throughout the entire war. While at Petersburg, where the armies were within a mile of each other, he was punished for getting drunk and he ran away. But instead of making for the Union lines and surrendering to a Union picket, which he could easily have done, he started for home, sixty miles away. He was, however, arrested as a straggler or runaway, and my father, hearing of him, sent and brought him back to camp, where he remained to the end.

An even more notable instance which has come to my knowledge was that of Simon, the servant of a friend of mine. He disappeared from camp during the Spottsylvania campaign, and just when his master had given him up he reappeared with a sack full of all sorts of things, useful for the mess, which he declared “dem gent’mens on the other side had gin him.” He had borrowed of the Egyptians.

The letters and annals of the time are full of references to the singular, but then well-known fact, that while the people of the South gave their sons joyfully to the cause, they were most unwilling to allow their Negroes to go. The reason for this has been much misapprehended. It has been generally supposed outside that it was because they were afraid to lose their property. Nothing could be more unfounded. They were afraid their servants might be hurt or suffer some harm.

Fathers who wrote their sons to be always at the post of honor, would give them explicit directions how to keep their servants out of danger. The war in some way was concerned with the perpetuation of slavery, and it was felt that it was not just to expose slaves to danger when such was the case.

Something of this same feeling played its part in the decision not to enlist Negroes in the army of the Confederacy.

In the field they showed both courage and sagacity, and many are the instances in which, when their masters were wounded and left on the field, they hunted for them through scenes which tested men’s courage as much as the battle itself. The records of the time are full of such instances.