James Madison, James Mississippi 49%. Most slave owners owned under 10 slaves. The truth is that the black Confederate soldiers were not soldiers at all. A prominent historian accurately noted that by the late 1850s most white Southerners viewed themselves as prisoners in their own country, condemned by what they saw as a hysterical abolition movement.. What percentage of southern white families owned slaves in 1860? For additional information we recommend the book Black Slave Owners by Larry Kroger. How many of those who fought for the Confederacy owned slaves? The book is available from Amazon.com. The claim: Only 1.6% of U.S. citizens owned slaves in 1860. It is often quoted that only 20% of Southern families owned slaves. Jones may have been a "present" from his father-in-law, or Grant may have purchased him. However, a year thereafter, he wrote, I do hereby manumit, emancipate and set free said William Jones from slavery forever.. Both exceeded ratios in the general population, in which one in 20 owned a slave and one in five lived in a slaveholding household. William Jones, Grant's Own Slave. Map of West Virginia counties by percentage of slave population in 1860. In 1861, in an attempt to raise money for sick and wounded soldiers, the Census Office produced and sold a map that showed the population distribution of slaves in the southern United States. A quota was set for 300,000 black soldiers for the Confederate States Colored Troops. That disguises the preponderance of slaveholding in the states that were the engine of the drive to secession. Our Senate in 1999 said: Ninety-eight percent of Texas Confederate soldiers never owned a slave.. soldier with sword. In January of 1864, Confederate Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne proposed enlisting slaves. Ninety percent of the soldiers never owned a slave. The Antietam Campaign took place in Maryland, a slave state at the time. On March 13, 1865, the Confederate Congress passed a law to allow black men to serve in combat roles, with the provision "that nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize a change in the relation which said slaves shall bear toward their owners," i.e. Alabama 37%. Georgia 47%. 10 percent. William Jones, Grant's Own Slave. One of them is that (a) not many white Mississippians even owned slaves and (b) that only 6 to 10 percent of Confederate soldiers owned slaves. that black soldiers would still be slaves. NOTE: The population of the Confederate States in 1860 (according to the 1860 census) stood at 9,103,332. As the Civil War progressed, desertion amongst Confederate soldiers infected the Confederate Army like a poisonous cancer. The name was changed when it was realized that the acronym, SCV, could be confused with that of the United States Colored Volunteers, a unit that fought for the North during the Civil War. *B. The slaves offered to cook for the confederate soldiers and they offered medical attention to wounded soldiers of the Confederate Army. As of November 1864, Confederate soldiers were fighting for a government whose president and other leaders were openly advocating emancipating slaves who would serve in the Confederate army and emancipating their families as well. 83% of Richmonds male slave population volunteered for duty. U.S. Grant also had several slaves, who were only freed after the 13th amendment in December of 1865. The law addressed Confederate fears of a slave rebellion due to so many white men being absent from home, as they were fighting in the Confederate army. Sometimes there are higher estimates of as much as a third of white southerners owning slaves, but these are derived from counting all members of slave owning families. Answer (1 of 5): Some, but not all. There were five states with over 400,000 slaves just before the beginning of the Civil War. This was about 10 percent of the total Union fighting force. 5 percent. How could the War have been fought over slavery when both sides had slaves? In the Border States (DE, MD, KY, MO -- those slave states that did not secede) the percentage of slave-ownership was 15.9%, and the total throughout the slave states was almost exactly 26%. Distribution of wealth in the South became less democratic over time; fewer whites owned slaves in 1860 than in 1840. The VMI cadets even fought in one engagement at the Battle of New Market, May 15, 1864, under the leadership of one of their professors. The 10 Confederate generals who give their names to US Army bases include a bishop who owned 400 slaves, a suspected Ku Klux Klan leader and a fierce advocate of > In the Army of Northern Virginia, 44.4% of the soldiers came from households which owned slaves. On March 13, 1865, with the main Rebel armies facing long odds against must larger Union armies, the Confederacy, in a desperate measure, reluctantly approves the use of Black troops. Combining those soldiers who owned slaves with those soldiers who lived with slaveholding family members, the proportion rose to 36 percent. White Union soldiers from slaveholding Union states -- Slightly more than 10% of the men who volunteered for the Confederate Army in 1861 owned slaves. Enslaved men were sometimes forced into service to build Confederate fortifications, women to serve as laundresses or cooks for troops in the field. What it portrays the deeply racist scultors vision of a faithful slave dutifully attending to a white master. The confederacys 11 states had 316,632 slave owners out of a free population of 5,582,222. There were five states with over 400,000 slaves just before the beginning of the Civil War. The Confederacy enacted the first conscription laws in United States history, [3] and the percentage of Confederate soldiers who were conscripts was nearly double that of Union soldiers. A special ball was held in Richmond to raise money for uniforms for these men. - CNN.com Roland Martin thinks so. A. Answering: How many Confederate soldiers owned slaves? Of that number, 3,521,110 were enslaved African-Americans. Also, during the War, just as many Union soldiers owned slaves as Confederate soldiers. File Name: Q8912. Many know the stories of slaves being coerced to breed from both oral history and literature. #1. By the time the war ended in 1865, about 180,000 Black men had served as soldiers in the U.S. Army. 25 percent. For my friend, Scribe. Apr 11, 2010. The others came from many different types of jobs: carpenters, clerks, blacksmiths, students, etc. Enslaved and free blacks provided even more labor than usual for Virginia farms when 89 percent of eligible white men served in Confederate armies. The referencing of what percentage of white southerners owned slaves is a common refrain, but it doesnt tell us everything. Less than five percent of Confederate soldiers owned slaves. They fought for the South simply because they were from the South. The average Confederate soldier went to war because he felt his home was being invaded, or When Confederate President Jefferson Davis heard the suggestion, Grant did own one slave, a thirty-five year old man named William Jones, in 1858. In 1860, 90% of Americas black population was enslaved, and blacks made up over 50% of the population of states like South Carolina and Mississippi. Less than 5% of the whites in the South owned slaves. Somewhat true. They accompanied the Army of Northern Virginia in its two invasions of the North, in the Antietam Campaign of 1862, and the Gettysburg Campaign of the following year. c C. 12 percent. Slavery was just as important to the economy in other states as well. Myth #3: Only a small percentage of Southerners owned enslaved people. From what did most Union and Confederate soldiers die during the war? Each of these figures is significantly higher than the 1.4 percent cited in the social media post. Our data records information about each citizens wealth, the number of slaves owned, occupation, family relationships, and, for men, an estimate of whether or not each fought in the Confederate Army. The 12-foot granite obelisk, etched with the names of Delawareans who fought for or gave aid to the Confederate States of America, sits between two banners: the Most of the Confederate soldiers never owned slaves and didnt fight the battle because of slavery. Stonewall Jackson commanding one of its corps, and J. E. B. Stuart leading its cavalry, the army won important victories at Fredericksburg (1862) and Chancellorsville (1863) while the Union Army of the Potomac shuffled Harvard Professor John Stauffer, who studies antislavery movements, the Civil War, and American social protest, says that black Confederate soldiers likely represented less than 1 percent of Southern black men of military age during that period, and less than 1 percent of Confederate soldiers. most of the people in the war on the Confederate side did not even own slaves they were fighting because they wanted to preserve their culture that they were used to. By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. This is why the majority of blacks stayed in the South when the war started. During the American Civil War slaves and free blacks served the Confederate Army, in many roles and duties. On October 11, the Confederate Congress passed the so-called "Twenty Negro Law", which exempted anyone who owned 20 or more slaves, Ninety-one percent of Confederate soldiers were native-born white men and only 9% were foreign-born white men, Irishmen being the largest group with others including Germans, French, Mexicans, and British. In 1860 Percentage of families that owned slaves: South Carolina 56%. 3. Ambrotype is 2 x 2.5 inches From the Berry-Vasser-Gunter-Crommelin family papers File Name Q 1070 Q1071 Q1072. The Confederate monument at Arlington does not in fact portray any black soldiers. The VMI cadets even fought in one engagement at the Battle of New Market, May 15, 1864, under the leadership of one of their professors. How Did Slaves Support the Confederacy? All of them agree on these approximate totals: White Union soldiers from Confederate states -- 75,000-100,000. That, however, does not tell us the extent of slave ownership. They just wanted to protect their homes and families. He added, You know some slaves fought for First and foremost, it doesnt tell us how white Southerners benefited from slavery. Using this dataset, we show that households that owned slaves fielded more Confederate Army soldiers, on average, than did non-slaveowning households.