THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS

Excerpts from "Mississippi Soldiers in the Civil War"

Complete text at: http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/features/feature16/ms_cw_soldiers.html

Mississippi soldiers

White and black soldiers from Mississippi contributed to both the Union and Confederate war efforts, fighting within the state and as far away as the
battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Around 80,000 white men from Mississippi fought in the Confederate Army; some 500 white Mississippians fought for the Union. More than 17,000 black Mississippi slaves and freedmen fought for the Union.

A large but undetermined number of slaves served as body servants to white Confederate officers and soldiers, built fortifications, and did other manual
labor for the Confederate Army. The thought of a black man carrying a rifle was a horror to most white Mississippians, and the state resisted the enlistment of slaves even after the Confederate Congress authorized the policy near the end of the war in March 1865.

SOURCE: Mississippi Historical Society

http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/features/feature16/ms_cw_soldiers.html

FIRST MISSISSIPPI INFANTRY (AD)
(Civil War Researchers and Re-enactors)

E-mail: firstusmscolored@msn.com