CIVIL WAR

CORRESPONDENCE - CSA

"I think these negroes, whether free or slave, had better be arranged and organized into something like companies, battalions, and regiments, after the plan adopted by the English, with reference to what they call navvies, or laborers, with superintendents and overseers in lieu of officers. From these organizations appropriate details may be made, singly or by squads, companies, or the like, for the various duties in which they are intended to be employed. Many advantages, I think, would result from this system in enabling us to preserve better order and exercise more care and supervision over the negroes so employed." Secretary of War James A Seddon in a letter to General Robert E. Lee, Commanding Army of Northern Virginia, September 22, 1864

"The Yankees must now have in their service 200,000 of our ex-slaves, and under their next draft will probably have half as many more. We have not one soldier from that source in our ranks. It is held by us that slaves will not make soldiers, therefore we refuse to put them in the service, and I think are correct in so doing; but while we thus think and thus act our enemies are creating." J. H. Stringfellow in a letter to President Jefferson Davis, February 8, 1865