~ Black Confederates ~
"The forces attacking my camp were the First Regiment Texas Rangers [8th Texas Cavalry, Terry's Texas Rangers, ed.], Colonel Wharton, and a battalion of the First Georgia Rangers, Colonel Morrison, and a large number of citizens of Rutherford County, many of whom had recently taken the oath of allegiance to the United States Government. There were also quite a number of Negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day." — Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol XVI Part I, pg. 805, Lt. Col. Parkhurst's Report (Ninth Michigan Infantry) on Col. Forrest's attack at Murfreesboro, Tenn, July 13, 1862.
“I was raised by one of the greatest men in the world. There was never one born of a woman greater than Gen. Robert E. Lee, according to my judgment. All of his servants were set free ten years before the war, but all remained on the plantation until after the surrender.”
William Mack Lee (Robert E. Lee’s Black Servant)
Private Marlboro, A Free Black Confederate Volunteer
Andrew and Silas Chandler (Free Black), both enlisted in the 44th Mississippi Infantry Silas saved Andrew's life at the Battle of Chickamauga
Silas was considered a servant by the other men and blacks in the unit, he was very much an equal, displaying just as much hatred for the Yankees as anyone in the whole unit!
- Andrew Martin Chandler, 1912
One of the most famous accounts of a close master/body servant relationship was of Andrew Martin Chandler and his servant Silas. Chandler, 15 years old at the time, joined the confederate service and was put in Company F of the 44th Mississippi Infantry. His 17 year old formal slave accompanied him as he always had done.
Silas Chandler just received his free papers just before the war began but chose to stay with his friend and followed him off to war. After the Battle of Shiloh, Chandler was thrown in a Union prison in Ohio. Silas ran various errands back and forth from the Chandler homestead back in Palo Alto, Mississippi to the prison, seeing to Chandler's essentials. The boy was soon released and the two were very excited to rejoin their outfit.
During the fighting at Chickamauga, Andrew Chandler suffered a great wound to the leg which the surgeons were ready to amputate off. But Silas pulled out a gold coin that the boys were saving to buy some whiskey. Bribing the doctors to let Chandler go, he then carried the injured boy on his back to the nearest train. They rode all the way to Atlanta in a box car. Once there, the hospital doctors saved the boy's leg and life.
Soon after, they returned to home to Palo Alto, where they continued their friendship until their deaths. Chandler gave Silas land to build a church for the black community and saw that his friend got his confederate veteran pension in 1878.
His grave was adorned with a Confederate Cross of Honor that was placed there in 1994. Shortly after that, the great-grandsons of Silas and Andrew met. Traveling from Washington DC, Bobbie Chandler introduced himself to Andrew Chandler Battaile who still lives in Mississippi. They both maintain a long distance friendship that was rooted over a hundred years ago.
Silas Chandler has recently become a celebrated black confederate having his story recognized by the media. The picture of him and Andrew Chandler is the best well know photograph of a master and his body servant and is one of the only photos of it's kind to hang in a museum.
Desert Rose Productions
~ Holt Collier, Black Confederate ~
~ Company I, 9th Texas Cavalry ~
Post War Photograph
Born 1846 ~ Mississippi
Died 1936 ~ Greenville, Mississippi
Collier was born a slave. He was in the keep of General Thomas Hinds, veteran of the Battle of New Orleans. When the War Between The States began, Collier’s master and his seventeen-year-old son, Collier's childhood companion, left for the war to thwart the Northern aggressors. His master had forbade him to fight in the ranks of the Confederate service as he was too young. Collier disobeyed and stowed away on a riverboat, joining another Southern Patriot and his son in Memphis. Collier thereafter joined the 9th Texas Cavalry, serving in Company I throughout the war.
At the Battle of Pittsburg Landing{Shiloh} he witnessed the death of Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston. Collier's biographer says that although there was a prohibition against blacks serving in uniform, Confederates made an exception for Collier because of his demonstrable skills. Weeks later he signed up with Company I of the 9th Cavalry Regiment (United States), fighting in Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.
During Reconstruction, Collier was accused and acquitted by a military tribunal in Vicksburg of the alleged murder of a white man, Captain James King. Collier left the state on the advice of William A. Percy of Greenville, going to Texas to work as a cowboy on the ranch of his former commander, Sullivan Ross, future Governor of Texas.
Upon the murder of his former master, Collier returned to Greenville for his funeral and remained in Greenville for the rest of his life.
He became a noted bear hunter, killing over 3,000 bears during his lifetime. So famous among big-game hunters was he that Major George M. Helm asked him to serve as President Theodore Roosevelt's tracker during the President's famous Mississippi bear hunt of 1902.
On that hunt, Collier and his tracking dogs cornered a large bear. Collier had bugled Roosevelt and the rest of his party to join in. Before Roosevelt arrived, the bear killed one of Collier's tracking dogs. Collier ordinarily would have shot the bear immediately, but, wanting to keep the bear alive until the President arrived, he instead whacked the bear over the head with his rifle — bending its barrel. He finally lassoed the bear and tied it to a tree. When the President at last arrived, he famously refused to shoot the helpless bear, which another of his party eventually killed with a knife. The Washington Post and other newspapers publicized Roosevelt's compassion for the animal. Some reports maintained, erroneously, that the bear had been a cub. The story eventually gave rise to the "Teddy Bear" phenomenon.
Collier served again as Roosevelt's tracker during a Louisiana bear hunt of 1907. Holt Collier National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi is named in his honor. He died in 1936 and is buried in Greenville, Mississippi.
Copyright 2011 Jay Adkins Photography
holt hollier and teddy Roosevelt
“ Attack on Our Soldiers by Armed Negroes ! A member of the Indiana Twentieth Regiment, now encamped near Fortress Monroe, writes to the Indianapolis Journal on the 23rd. Yesterday morning General Mansfield with Drake de Kay, Aide-DE-Camp in command of seven companies of the 20th New York, German Riffles, left Newport News on a reconnaissance. Just after passing New Market Bridge, seven miles from camp, they detached one company as an advance, and soon after their advance was attacked by 600 of the enemy’s cavalry. The company formed to receive cavalry, but the CAVALRY ADVANCING deployed to the right and left when within musket range and unmasked a body of seven hundred NEGRO INFANTRY, all armed with muskets, who opened fire on our men, wounding two lieutenants and two privates, and rushing forward surrounded the company of Germans who cut their way through killing six of the Negroes and wounding several more. The main body, hearing the firing, advanced at a double-quick in time to recover their wounded, and drive the enemy back, but did not succeed in taking any prisoners. The wounded men TESTIFY POSITIVELY that they were shot by Negroes, and that not less than seven hundred were present, armed with muskets. This is, indeed, a new feature in the war. We have heard of a regiment of Negroes at Manassas, and another at Memphis, and still another at New Orleans but did not believe it till it came so near home, and attacked our men. THERE IS NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT. The 20th German were actually attacked and fired on and wounded by Negroes. It is time that this thing was understood, and if they fight us with Negroes, why should not we fight them with Negroes too? We have disbelieved these reports too long, and now let us fight the devil with fire. The feeling is intense among the men. They want to know if they came here to fight Negroes, and if they did, they would like to know it. The wounded men swear they will kill any Negro they see, so excited are they at the dastardly act. It remains to be seen how long the Government will now hesitate, when they learn these facts. One of the Lieutenants was shot in the back part of the neck, and is not expected to live.”