During February, 1862, the Confederate Legislature of Virginia was considering a bill to enroll all free Negroes in the State for service with the Confederate forces.[24] The Legislatures of other States seriously considered the measure. Military and civil leaders, the Confederate Congress and its perplexed War Department debated among themselves the relative value of employing the Negroes as soldiers. Slowly the ranks of those at home were made to grow thin by the calls to the front. In April, 1862, President Davis was authorized to call out and place in service all white men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five; in September the ages were raised to include the years of thirty-five and forty-five; and finally in February, 1864, all male whites between the years of seventeen and fifty were made liable to military service. The Negroes were liable for impressment in the work of building fortifications, producing war materials, and the like.[25]
The demand became so urgent for men that quite a controversy arose over the advisability of employing the Negroes as soldiers. Some said that the Negro belonged to an inferior race and, therefore, could not be a good soldier; that the Negro could do menial work in the army, but that fighting was the white man's task. Those who supported the idea in its incipiency always urged the necessity of employing Negroes in the army. A native Georgian supported the employment of these troops in a letter to the Secretary of War, recommending freedom after the war was over to those who fought, compensation to the owners and the retention of the institution of slavery by continuing as slaves "boys and women, and exempted or detailed men." The statement concludes with "our country requires a quick and stringent remedy. Don't stop for reforms."[26]
In November, 1864, Jefferson Davis in his message to the Confederate Congress recognized that the time might come when slaves would be needed in the Confederate army: "The subject," said he, "is to be viewed by us, therefore, solely in the light of policy and our social economy. When so regarded, I must dissent from those who advise a general levy and arming of slaves for the duty of soldiers. Until our white population shall prove insufficient for the armies we require and can afford to keep the field, to employ as a soldier the Negro, who has merely been trained to labor, and as a laborer under the white man, accustomed from his youth to the use of firearms, would scarcely be deemed wise or advantageous by any; and this is the question before us. But should the alternative ever be presented of subjugation or of the employment of the slave as a soldier, there seems no reason to doubt what should be our decision."[27] In the same month, J. A. Seddon, Secretary of War, refused permission to Major E. B. Briggs of Columbus, Georgia, to raise a regiment of Negro troops, stating that it was not probable that any such policy would be adopted by Congress.[28]
In response to an inquiry from Seddon, the Secretary of War, as to the advisability of arming slaves, General Howell Cobb presented the point of view of one group of the Confederates, when he opposed the measure to arm the Negroes. "I think," said he "that the proposition to make soldiers of our slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began ... you cannot make soldiers of slaves or slaves of soldiers. The moment you resort to Negro soldiers, your white soldiers will be lost to you, and one secret of the favor with which the proposition is received in portions of the army is the hope when Negroes go into the army, they (the whites) will be permitted to retire. It is simply a proposition to fight the balance of the war with Negro troops. You can't keep white and black troops together and you can't trust Negroes by themselves.... Use all the Negroes you can get for all purposes for which you need them but don't arm them. 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."[29] General Beauregard, Commander of the Department of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, wrote to a friend in July, 1863, that the arming of the slaves would lead to the atrocious consequences which have ever resulted from the employment of "a merciless servile race as soldiers."[30] General Patton Anderson declared that the idea of arming the slaves was a "monstrous proposition revolting to southern sentiment, southern pride and southern honor."[31]
The opposite point of view was expressed by the group of southerners led by General Pat Cleburne who in a petition presented to General Joseph E. Johnson by several Confederate Officers wrote: "Will the slaves fight?—the experience of this war has been so far, that half-trained Negroes have fought as bravely as many half-trained Yankees."[32] J. P. Benjamin, Secretary of State, urged that the slave would be certainly made to fight against them, if southerners failed to arm them for southern defense. He advocated also the emancipation of those who would fight; if they should fight for southern freedom. According to Benjamin, they were entitled to their own. In keeping with the necessity of increasing the army, the editor of a popular newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina, was besought to commence a discussion on this point in his paper so that "the people might learn the lesson which experience was sternly teaching."[33]
In a letter to President Davis, another argued that since the Negro had been used from the outset of the war to defend the South by raising provisions for the army, that the sword and musket be put in his hands, and concluding the correspondent added: "I would not make a soldier of the Negro if it could be helped, but we are reduced to this last resort."[34] Sam Clayton of Georgia wrote: "The recruits should come from our Negroes, nowhere else. We should away with pride of opinion, away with false pride, and promptly take hold of all the means God has placed within our reach to help us through this struggle—a war for the right of self-government. Some people say that Negroes will not fight. I say they will fight. They fought at Ocean Pond (Olustee, Fla.), Honey Hill and other places. The enemy fights us with Negroes, and they will do very well to fight the Yankees."[35]
The pressure to fill the depleted ranks of the Confederate forces became greater as the war continued. It was noted above that Congress and the State legislatures had called into service all able-bodied whites between the ages of seventeen and fifty years; later the ages were extended both ways to sixteen and sixty years. Grant remarked that the Confederates had robbed "the cradle and the grave" in order to fill the armies[36]. Jefferson Davis began to see the futility of a hypothetical discussion as to the advisability or values in the use of Negroes as soldiers and in a letter to John Forsythe, February, 1865, stated "that all arguments as to the positive advantage or disadvantage of employing them are beside the question, which is simply one of relative advantage between having their fighting element in our ranks or in those of the enemy."[37]
A strong recommendation for the use of Negroes as soldiers was sent to Senator Andrew Hunter at Richmond by General Robert E. Lee, in January, 1865. "I think, therefore," said he, "we must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves be used against us, or use them ourselves at the risk of the effects which may be produced upon our social institutions. My own opinion is that we should employ them without delay. I believe that with proper regulations they may be made efficient soldiers. They possess the physical qualifications in a marked degree. Long habits of obedience and subordination coupled with the moral influence which in our country the white man possesses over the black, furnish an excellent foundation for that discipline which is the best guaranty of military efficiency. Our chief aim should be to secure their fidelity. There have been formidable armies composed of men having no interest in the cause for which they fought beyond their pay or the hope of plunder. But it is certain that the surest foundation upon which the fidelity of an army can rest, especially in a service which imposes hardships and privations, is the personal interest of the soldier in the issue of the contest. Such an interest we can give our Negroes by giving immediate freedom to all who enlist, and freedom at the end of the war to the families of those who discharge their duties faithfully (whether they survive or not), together with the privilege of residing at the South. To this might be added a bounty for faithful service."[38] This was an influential word, coming as it did from the Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate forces. The Confederate Congress did not act immediately upon this suggestion, but even if this had been done, the measure would have been enacted too late to be of any avail.[39]
The Confederate Senate refused on February 7, 1865, to pass a resolution calling on the committee on military affairs to report a bill to enroll Negro soldiers. Later in the same month the Senate indefinitely postponed the measure.[40] As the House and Senate met in secret session much of the debate can not be found. General Lee wrote Representative Barksdale of Mississippi another letter in which the employment of Negro soldiers was declared not only expedient but necessary. He reiterated his opinion that they would make good soldiers as had been shown in their employment in the Union armies.[41] With recommendations from General Lee and Governor Smith of Virginia, and with the approval of President Davis an act was passed by the Congress, March 13, 1865, enrolling slaves in the Confederate army.[42] Each State was to furnish a quota of the total 300,000.[43] The Preamble of the act reads as follows:
"An Act to increase the Military Force of the Confederate States: The Congress of the Confederate States of America so enact, that, in order to provide additional forces to repel invasion, maintain the rightful possession of the Confederate States, secure their independence and preserve their institution, the President be, and he is hereby authorized to ask for and accept from the owners of slaves, the services of such number of able-bodied Negro men as he may deem expedient, for and during the war, to perform military service in whatever capacity he may direct...." The language used in other sections of the act seems to imply also that volunteering made one a freedman.[44]