The relevant section on pages 120-121. The whole entry for February 10th (I think 1863), at the Camp at Lake Providence Louisiana, starts on page 117. The OCR mangles a few words of the transcription if you read the transcription rather than looking at the actual scanned pages (it had some trouble with italics). I’m adding periods to make it easier to read.
“With these old people were a few small Negro children from two years old up to six or seven years. There was no money in these poor old worn out slaves and the cruel and barbarous master had abandoned them to their fate. As I looked at their worn out hands and fingers and bodies I thought of the long cruel years of bondage while under burning suns and in cold and heat they had labored for this hellish system of human slavery and now in the close of nearly a century they were only a few hours from absolute want and the misery of hunger. This Plantation has plenty of forage and food but a few days will clean it all up We found bushels of yams and Potatoes (sweet). Genl Sparrow owned 500 Negroes.”
“Among a band of contrabands [even before the Emancipation Proclamation, Union forces were freeing some slaves as “contrabands of war” and so that term seems to have stuck here] that came in to-day was a bright little girl whose hair hung to her shoulders and was just a little wavy. Her features were not like a Negro but were sharp and clear while her eye was dark blue and yet she was a slave. Her mother was along and looked a little like she had African blood. She said this was her little girl and that she had two more daughters grown up and the father of all three was her Master who classed them all as his slaves. **A soldier who stood by and heard the Mother tell this story exclaimed in the fervent patriotism of his feelings By G-d I’ll fight till hell freezes over and then I’ll cut the ice and fight on.”**
Here’s selections from a letter from a Union soldier named John P. Jones sent from from Medon, Tenn., and dated August 24, 1862. Full text and scan at [the Library of Congress’s website](https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2012/10/a-letter-home/).
“I am getting to be more and more of an abolitionist. I believe that this accursed institution must go down. We can never have a permanent peace as long … as this curse stains our otherwise fair insignia. The ruler of nations can never prosper these United States until it blots slavery from existence. He can no longer wink at such atrocities. This must be the grand, the final issue. […]
We are to guard rebel property no more [because of a recent executive order], and fugitives are no longer to be returned when they come within our lines. **Thank God the American Soldier is no longer to be used as a slave catcher, no longer to drive helpless women around at the point of the bayonet, and be obliged to obey orders that makes him almost ashamed of being an American Soldier.”**
Here’s a diary entry from William P. Moore, 10th Wisconsin, from near Nashville, May 10, 1862. Scan and partial transcription on the [Wisconsin Historical Society Website](https://wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS3386). This soldier was particularly offended by the treatment of women.
“It was no unusual thing to see from five to twenty Negro women plowing in the fields with the men.
This to a man who had my feeling of respect for the female Sect, whether white or black, is revolting in the extreme. I would not have them placed on a level with our own wives & mothers, but I would not have them converted into Draymen or Plow Boys, to work all day in the hot broiling sun, under the severe lash of a renegade northern man, hired as an overseer. Such a man deserves not the name of man. He should have inhabited some lonely isle where the Female form should never grace his sight, and where pondering upon this curious freak of nature, he might hate himself to death.
Oh! hardened depraved man, to think of owning property in men, women and children. Man, the last and noblest work of God, possessed of body, mind and soul, of passions, love and hate. All bought and sold by man for a concideration and computed in dollars and cents. **Is there a just God, and will he always see his creatures thus oppressed, and not send retributive justice with a sword of vengence to teach traitors their duty, and punish them for passed offences?”**
A Philadelphia soldier named Oliver Norton wrote from Virginia in January, 1862 (source is only [a partial quote on National Parks Service website](https://npshistory.com/publications/civil_war_series/3/sec3.htm), but I found its also quoted in Chapter 9 “SLAVERY MUST BE CLEANED OUT” of James M. McPherson’s *For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War*):
“I thought I hated slavery as much as possible before I came here, but here, where I can see some of its workings, I am more than ever convinced of the cruelty and inhumanity of the system. It has not one redeeming feature.”
Spare-Jellyfish4339 on
Yes because the United States government is notorious for fighting for the good of the oppressed
Tight_Contact_9976 on
So many union soldiers began the war ambivalent about slavery only to become radical abolitionists once they saw it for themselves.
Lach0X on
The same union soldiers that would go on to commit horrors on the native American people.
JamesHenry627 on
This is also where 40 acres and a mule comes from. IIRC during Sherman’s march to the sea, freed black people were usually left behind on the march after the Union fucked up the southerners. It was noted that upon leaving the area, the remaining black people would be massacred by neighboring whites who sought reprisals. Sherman then decided to keep black people marching with the army and first started handing out reperations usually from seized property from the former masters. This unfortunately ended at the beginning of Reconstruction.
5 Comments
That’s an actual quote btw.
Here are some more along with context. Credit to u/yodatsracist for compiling them.
Here is the full text of [*The Civil War diary of Cyrus F. Boyd: Fifteenth Iowa Infantry, 1861-1863*](https://archive.org/details/civilwardiaryofc00boyd) from [Archive.org](http://Archive.org)
The relevant section on pages 120-121. The whole entry for February 10th (I think 1863), at the Camp at Lake Providence Louisiana, starts on page 117. The OCR mangles a few words of the transcription if you read the transcription rather than looking at the actual scanned pages (it had some trouble with italics). I’m adding periods to make it easier to read.
“With these old people were a few small Negro children from two years old up to six or seven years. There was no money in these poor old worn out slaves and the cruel and barbarous master had abandoned them to their fate. As I looked at their worn out hands and fingers and bodies I thought of the long cruel years of bondage while under burning suns and in cold and heat they had labored for this hellish system of human slavery and now in the close of nearly a century they were only a few hours from absolute want and the misery of hunger. This Plantation has plenty of forage and food but a few days will clean it all up We found bushels of yams and Potatoes (sweet). Genl Sparrow owned 500 Negroes.”
“Among a band of contrabands [even before the Emancipation Proclamation, Union forces were freeing some slaves as “contrabands of war” and so that term seems to have stuck here] that came in to-day was a bright little girl whose hair hung to her shoulders and was just a little wavy. Her features were not like a Negro but were sharp and clear while her eye was dark blue and yet she was a slave. Her mother was along and looked a little like she had African blood. She said this was her little girl and that she had two more daughters grown up and the father of all three was her Master who classed them all as his slaves. **A soldier who stood by and heard the Mother tell this story exclaimed in the fervent patriotism of his feelings By G-d I’ll fight till hell freezes over and then I’ll cut the ice and fight on.”**
Here’s selections from a letter from a Union soldier named John P. Jones sent from from Medon, Tenn., and dated August 24, 1862. Full text and scan at [the Library of Congress’s website](https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2012/10/a-letter-home/).
“I am getting to be more and more of an abolitionist. I believe that this accursed institution must go down. We can never have a permanent peace as long … as this curse stains our otherwise fair insignia. The ruler of nations can never prosper these United States until it blots slavery from existence. He can no longer wink at such atrocities. This must be the grand, the final issue. […]
We are to guard rebel property no more [because of a recent executive order], and fugitives are no longer to be returned when they come within our lines. **Thank God the American Soldier is no longer to be used as a slave catcher, no longer to drive helpless women around at the point of the bayonet, and be obliged to obey orders that makes him almost ashamed of being an American Soldier.”**
Here’s a diary entry from William P. Moore, 10th Wisconsin, from near Nashville, May 10, 1862. Scan and partial transcription on the [Wisconsin Historical Society Website](https://wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS3386). This soldier was particularly offended by the treatment of women.
“It was no unusual thing to see from five to twenty Negro women plowing in the fields with the men.
This to a man who had my feeling of respect for the female Sect, whether white or black, is revolting in the extreme. I would not have them placed on a level with our own wives & mothers, but I would not have them converted into Draymen or Plow Boys, to work all day in the hot broiling sun, under the severe lash of a renegade northern man, hired as an overseer. Such a man deserves not the name of man. He should have inhabited some lonely isle where the Female form should never grace his sight, and where pondering upon this curious freak of nature, he might hate himself to death.
Oh! hardened depraved man, to think of owning property in men, women and children. Man, the last and noblest work of God, possessed of body, mind and soul, of passions, love and hate. All bought and sold by man for a concideration and computed in dollars and cents. **Is there a just God, and will he always see his creatures thus oppressed, and not send retributive justice with a sword of vengence to teach traitors their duty, and punish them for passed offences?”**
A Philadelphia soldier named Oliver Norton wrote from Virginia in January, 1862 (source is only [a partial quote on National Parks Service website](https://npshistory.com/publications/civil_war_series/3/sec3.htm), but I found its also quoted in Chapter 9 “SLAVERY MUST BE CLEANED OUT” of James M. McPherson’s *For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War*):
“I thought I hated slavery as much as possible before I came here, but here, where I can see some of its workings, I am more than ever convinced of the cruelty and inhumanity of the system. It has not one redeeming feature.”
Yes because the United States government is notorious for fighting for the good of the oppressed
So many union soldiers began the war ambivalent about slavery only to become radical abolitionists once they saw it for themselves.
The same union soldiers that would go on to commit horrors on the native American people.
This is also where 40 acres and a mule comes from. IIRC during Sherman’s march to the sea, freed black people were usually left behind on the march after the Union fucked up the southerners. It was noted that upon leaving the area, the remaining black people would be massacred by neighboring whites who sought reprisals. Sherman then decided to keep black people marching with the army and first started handing out reperations usually from seized property from the former masters. This unfortunately ended at the beginning of Reconstruction.