Civil War Photo Friday: Black Union soldiers kidnapped for the Neo-Confederate cause

This photo shows a unit of black soldiers and their white officer. It's obviously a Union unit because of the officer's uniform and a belt buckle saying "US" on one of the figures. I've zoomed in on him; he's the man in the center in the photo below. The uniforms on the soldiers look very light, but often Union troops wore a light shade of blue that appears gray in these old photos.

Nothing is otherwise known about this photograph or what unit it represents. That's what gave it new life.

In an article titled Retouching History, Jerome S. Handler and Michael L. Tuite, Jr., describe how a doctored version of this photo was put up for sale by a self-styled "Rebel" website as a photo of the First Louisiana Native Guard, a Confederate unit in New Orleans made up of free blacks that never saw action and was opposed by many Confederate officials. It isn't even clear if they were ever fully equipped. It seemed they were only kept around for the propaganda value. When New Orleans fell to the Union, some of these men joined the Union army.

This is retouched the photo:

As you can see, that pesky Union officer has been cropped out. A closer inspection of a larger-format version of this photo (which you can see in the original article) shows that the US belt buckle has been blurred over. Also, the font is a modern one called "Algerian", developed in 1988.

Neo-Confederates assert that thousands of blacks fought for the Confederacy. This is used to bolster their claim that the war wasn't about slavery, despite the fact that Confederate officials repeatedly said it was about slavery and that there is no evidence whatsoever for thousands of black soldiers fighting for the South. Did a few blacks (like maybe a dozen) fight for the South? Yeah, probably. Does that change what the war was about? Nope.

Since most of my readers are American, Canadian, or British, let's play an imagination game. Imagine you're surfing the net and see a photo of one of your relatives who fought in World War Two, but the photo has been doctored so he now wears a German uniform. The caption says, "An American volunteer in the Wehrmacht!" How would that make you feel?

Photos from the original article, used under the terms of "Fair Use", the justification being that they are being used for nonprofit, educational purposes and the original image is in the public domain. If the folks who doctored the photograph want to sue me for infringing on their creative copyright, feel free to expose yourselves in the comments section.

Civil War Horror gets more than 3000 hits so far this month

Well, my bid to reach 1000 followers on my Twitter feed by the end of the weekend didn't pan out. Despite getting a bunch of cool new followers I reached "only" 996. I'll reach 1000 today or tomorrow, I'm sure. I did reach one milestone over the weekend--this blog passed 3,000 hits for this month! The actual figure as I write this is 3,157 hits, and the month isn't over yet! Of course some of these hits are by bots or by yours truly as I check my blogroll, but still it's an enouraging sign. More people are reading and more people are commenting.

A word about comments. After being threatened by a Neo-Confederate who hated my book without having read it, and the ensuing fallout, I no longer accept anonymous comments. None of the haters had the guts to sign their names and as soon as I instituted this policy they shut up. If you comment, you can still use the anonymous option but you have to sign your name or give a link within the text of your comment.

Back to the Civil War with the next post!

More Neoconfederate nonsense

As I mentioned in my last post, the Neo-confederates don't like my Civil War novel's negative portrayal of Bloody Bill Anderson, rapist and murderer of unarmed prisoners. Big surprise.

The admin over at the Missouri in the Civil War Message Board deleted the thread, saying,

"The message boards extend a courtesy to our "Contributing Authors" to promote their books, articles, speaking engagements, etc. In the case of a book or article posting, I must ask that any critique of an author's work be on the highest and most polite level. If you have an "historical" issue with the content of an author's work, please specifically address a statement from the book or article with page numbers, dates, the text in question and your documented response to the author's position. No personal or "petty" exchanges will be tolerated on the message board from authors or respondents. Thanks for your cooperation."

Yeah, I was partly guilty for the petty exchange, but as anyone who knows me knows, I have a zero-tolerance policy to assertive stupidity. Despite the admin's words, Bloody Bill's #1 fan Neil Block wrote again. This time he used a spell checker, sort of.

"One last time, if it remains here, I'll express an opinion. I hope it suits this board:

I find it unexceptable for anyone to make remarks or assumptions about the mental condition of anyone who has been involved in close quarters combat in any war. If you ain't been there, don't assume that you would be able to handle the stress in any given situation or the results of having war waged upon "your soil" and againest your friends and family. None of us can judge others or be for sure how many of us would regain their humanity after having cared so little for it to survive. For 150 years those have that demeaned Missourians to be less than perfect in their eyes have assumed that they are moral & intellectual superior to the rest of us. Promoting work that makes statements about real life soldiers should be based on works by those that actually knew the soldier and not statements made in judgement by his adversaries. I know there are soldiers and former soldiers that read this message board and if they have been CQC they may have known a few "Bill's", but they have also known some "John's"........John McCorkle suffered the same fate as Bill Anderson did, CQC, losing family in the same event, but John was able to return and make a life after the war. We don't know his ghosts but he was able to maintain his civility thru some pretty tough times...........Nobody Knows Who Will Return..............that is why soldiers make the best peace makers...........beating up on Bill Anderson has made quiet a few folks a little $$$......."Doing right ain't got no end" is the redleg way..........defending his victims is mine..........Neil Block"

To which I responded,

"And I find it unacceptable for anyone to make remarks or assumptions about a book they haven't even read.
I hope this thread does stay up because it points out the narrow pro-Confederate bias that is all too obvious among some in the community. The idea that one side was bloodthirsty and evil and the other side was perfect and honorable is contrary to the facts. Both sides did terrible things in that war, and both sides included honorable men.
Mr. Block says: "Promoting work that makes statements about real life soldiers should be based on works by those that actually knew the soldier and not statements made in judgement by his adversaries."
I'd like to see him apply that idea to Union soldiers and Redlegs as well Confederate soldiers and bushwhackers."

Will this end the debate? I doubt it, considering the Neoconfederates griping at me anonymously in the comments section. Those comments were all redirected to my blog from the same cc'ed message sent via Yahoo mail. Gee, I wonder who sent THAT? Blogger tells you some amazing things if you understand the system.

Neo-Confederate threatens author of Civil War novel

My Missouri Civil War novel A Fine Likeness has only been out ten days and it's already getting an angry response from Neo-Confederates. I posted an announcement on the normally sane Missouri Civil War Discussion Board and included my blurb. Skip down if you've already read it.

A Confederate guerrilla and a Union captain discover there’s something more dangerous in the woods than each other.

Jimmy Rawlins is a teenaged bushwhacker who leads his friends on ambushes of Union patrols. They join infamous guerrilla leader Bloody Bill Anderson on a raid through Missouri, but Jimmy questions his commitment to the Cause when he discovers this madman plans to sacrifice a Union prisoner in a hellish ritual to raise the Confederate dead.

Richard Addison is an aging captain of a lackluster Union militia. Depressed over his son’s death in battle, a glimpse of Jimmy changes his life. Jimmy and his son look so much alike that Addison becomes obsessed with saving him from Bloody Bill. Captain Addison must wreck his reputation to win this war within a war, while Jimmy must decide whether to betray the Confederacy to stop the evil arising in the woods of Missouri.

Bloody Bill Anderson was a real person. Neil Block, Commander of the Captain William T. Anderson Camp #1743 SCV (Sons of Confederate Veterans), posted this response. I've kept his and grammar spelling intact.

"Any writing, even fiction, especially fiction that portreys Capt. Anderson in a negitive light should be considered a Hertiage Violations by the Captian William T. Anderson Camp #1743 SCV and steps will be taken to address this writers material as such............"

Okaaay. Neil Block can't even spell the name of his own organization! As you can see from their website, they're desperately trying to rehabilitate the name of this guerrilla who killed unarmed prisoners, scalped victims, and according to the scholarly biography Bloody Bill Anderson: the Short, Savage Life of a Civil War Guerrilla, had a fondness for raping young black girls. This isn't just some damned Yankke talking. The self-styled modern Missouri Confederate government admits Anderson's band had a penchant for rape.

I used Bloody Bill as a character in my novel because while he was a real person, his personality was like something straight out of central casting for a horror movie. I didn't include the rapes because I didn't want to write those scenes, so in a sense I was actually kind to Anderson's memory.

Of course I responded:

"Mr. Block,
You misspelled "portrays", "negative", "heritage", and "captain".
And you forgot the apostrophe in "writer's".
After careful consideration of the evidence I find you guilty of a Literacy Violation and hereby sentence you to complete grade school."


You can read the inevitable continuation of the thread, here.