U.S. Civil War: Loyal Slaves Who Stayed

Many slaves were loyal to their masters, having known no other life.  Slaves  heard descriptions of "savage Yankees" from their masters and feared the Yankees.

Of course, slaves could not forget their status as property, no matter how well their owners treated them.  Some suffered incredible cruelty.  

Many slaves rapidly departed at the first notice of emancipation.  However, it would be too simplistic to say that all masters and slaves hated each other.  Faithful slaves truly helped their mistresses survive through the onslaught of the war and its aftermath.  

They hid valuables from the plundering Yankees, in wells and swamps. They outwitted the ransacking soldiers and  foragers when they could. Human beings who live and work together are bound to form relationships of some kind, and some masters and slaves genuinely cared for each other. 

The following account is from the diary of Nancy Saussure,"Old Plantation Days; Being Recollections of Southern Life Before the Civil War".  It relates the story of Hugh Bailey, wounded at the battle of Cedar Mountain, Virginia.  His family thought he was dead, as they heard no news of him.  A family slave nursed the wounded Hugh.

“An old negro, his body servant, had carried him off by stealth to a hut in the woods...to hide him from the Yankees.

He had no medicine, no doctor, no help, the master was ill for a long time from his wounds and with a slow fever, and through it all Uncle Reuben never left him except at night to forage for both... He was in a strange country; he could not leave his charge, alone and desperately ill”.

 

Painting Reflected the Last Days of the Confederacy

In the last days of the Confederacy art reflected the lives of southerners, and the changing times.  This painting is entitled The Burial of Latane.  It was painted in 1864 by William D. Washington (a descendant of George Washington).   

In the painting, white women, slaves, and children perform the burial service of a Confederate cavalry officer.  The fallen hero died among strangers, surrounded by enemy forces, unable to summon his family or a minister to perform the service.  The women have come to entomb the victim of the “supreme sacrifice”.  

It is a significant painting:  the principal figures are only slaves and women.  The only white male is dead.  A woman serves as Preacher, and is placed in a role of power, previously given to men.  Women are now political actors in their society.  The painting makes specific statements about gender and race and new roles.  Social relations were truly in a state of transformation.

Some women never recovered from the wartime taste of autonomy.  Before the war, their lives were about conforming to the strict Southern code of womanhood.  Women now realized the men were not able to protect them.   Confederate women had moved towards a new independence, whether they wanted to embrace it or not.