Abraham Lincoln's Speech to the Indiana Volunteers

[David Lockmiller]

(05-10-2020 03:03 AM)Steve Wrote:  

(05-09-2020 11:30 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Perhaps those black men who fought with General Forrest thought that the South would win the Civil War and that these men and their families would remain forever slaves. And, I do not know if President Lincoln was aware at the time that negro soldiers were already fighting for the South.

I haven't found a reliable source for the claim made in the above quoted article about Gen. Forrest's slaves becoming soldiers under his command. The Confederate government didn't start allowing the enlistment of black soldiers until March 1865, which is the very context behind Lincoln's speech. Also, the Confederates required that slaves enlisting in their army following Mar. 1865 to be freed by their masters before enlisting. From the article quoted above it sort of sounds like Forrest's men remained slaves. If so, they really didn't have a choice.

Laurie did not cite the source of her information.

I did find the following post on Wikipedia on the subject of "Nathan Bedford Forrest":

On July 5, 1875, Forrest gave a speech before the Independent Order of Pole-Bearers Association, a post-war organization of black Southerners advocating to improve the economic condition of blacks and to gain equal rights for all citizens. At this, his last public appearance, he made what The New York Times described as a "friendly speech"[168][169] during which, when offered a bouquet of flowers by a young black woman, he accepted them,[170] thanked her and kissed her on the cheek. Forrest spoke in encouragement of black advancement and of endeavoring to be a proponent for espousing peace and harmony between black and white Americans.[171]

168 Lewis, Michael; Serbu, Jacqueline (1999). "Kommemorating the Ku Klux Klan". The Sociological Quarterly. 40: 139–158. doi:10.1111/j.1533-8525.1999.tb02361.x.

169 "On This Day: Death of General Forrest", The New York Times, October 30, 1877

170 John Richard Stephens (2012). Commanding the Storm: Civil War Battles in the Words of the Generals Who Fought Them. Lyons Press. p. 319. ISBN 978-0-7627-9002-9.

171 Humanities, National Endowment for the (August 4, 2008), "Memphis daily appeal. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, July 06, 1875, Image 1", Library of Congress, Chronicling America, ISSN 2166-1898, retrieved August 23, 2017

The next paragraph of the Wikipedia post reads:

In response to the Pole-Bearers speech, the Cavalry Survivors Association of Augusta, the first Confederate organization formed after the war, called a meeting in which Captain F. Edgeworth Eve gave a speech expressing strong disapproval of Forrest's remarks promoting inter-ethnic harmony, ridiculing his faculties and judgment and berating the woman who gave Forrest flowers as "a mulatto wench". The association voted unanimously to amend its constitution to expressly forbid publicly advocating for or hinting at any association of white women and girls as being in the same classes as "females of the negro race".[172][173]