Confederacy Authorizes Enlistment of Black Soldiers

Context

By early 1865 the American Civil War had reached a decisive stage favoring the Union. General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces had pinned Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia around Petersburg and Richmond, while William T. Sherman’s troops advanced through the Carolinas, destroying infrastructure and supplies. Confederate armies suffered from chronic shortages of men, food, and matériel after years of attrition, leaving Southern leaders with few options to sustain the fight.

The ideological foundations of the Confederacy made any discussion of arming enslaved African Americans deeply contentious. Slavery formed the economic and social bedrock of the South, and many officials argued that enlisting Black men would undermine the very cause for which they fought. Proposals to recruit enslaved laborers had circulated earlier, notably from General Patrick Cleburne in 1864, but met fierce resistance on the grounds that it contradicted the principle of Black inferiority and the property rights of slaveholders.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis and General Lee nevertheless concluded that manpower needs outweighed these objections. Lee explicitly urged the government to act, warning that the Union would otherwise employ the enslaved against the South. Their support shifted the debate from outright rejection toward a limited, experimental measure.

What Happened

On March 13, 1865, the Confederate Congress enacted “An act to increase the military force of the Confederate States,” which permitted the president to accept enslaved and free Black men into the army. The legislation did not mandate freedom for those who served; instead, it preserved the existing legal relationship between enslaved people and their owners unless owners and states consented to manumission. Davis signed the measure the same day.

Recruitment began almost immediately in Richmond. The Confederate War Department selected Major Thomas Turner, former commandant of Libby Prison, and Major Joseph Pegram to organize and command two experimental companies. Recruits were mustered at Smith’s Factory on 21st and Main Streets, drawing largely from African Americans already performing support duties at local hospitals and camps. Contemporary accounts describe small groups assembling slowly, with numbers ranging from several dozen to perhaps two hundred men.

Davis supplemented the congressional act with his own General Order No. 14 on March 23, directing that enslaved recruits be accepted only with their consent and their owners’ written approval, which would confer the rights of freedmen. This executive action attempted to provide the incentive Lee had deemed essential, though implementation remained limited and uneven.

Aftermath

The two companies accompanied Lee’s army during the evacuation of Richmond on April 2. Most of the recruits appear to have deserted or dispersed during the retreat; Union reports from the period make no mention of armed Black Confederate units in combat, and later accounts indicate that only a handful reached the vicinity of Appomattox. Major Pegram was captured on April 5, while Turner continued with the army until the surrender on April 9 before fleeing southward.

The experiment produced no meaningful reinforcement. At most a few hundred men were enrolled, a negligible addition compared with the nearly 200,000 Black soldiers already serving in Union armies. The measure remained in effect for less than a month before the Confederate government ceased to function.

Legacy

The authorization exposed the Confederacy’s fundamental contradictions: a slaveholding republic forced by military necessity to consider emancipating and arming the very people whose bondage it had gone to war to preserve. Coming so late, the policy could not alter the war’s outcome, yet it underscored the contrast with the Union’s earlier and far more extensive use of Black troops.

Historians view the episode as evidence of the Confederacy’s desperate improvisation rather than a genuine shift in racial policy. It has informed later debates about emancipation, citizenship, and the limits of Confederate authority, while also highlighting how the war’s final phase accelerated questions of freedom and military service that would dominate Reconstruction.