Nelson Wyman Winbush (born 1929) is an educator, who is notable as one of a handful of African-American members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), and for his controversial views, such as his support of the modern display of the Confederate flag. [1] [2]
Winbush was born in Ripley, Tennessee, in the Mississippi Delta region, to Isaac and Ganelle Nelson Winbush. His siblings included brothers Robert and Harold, and sisters Mary and Dorothy Jean. [3] His family grew up in the house built in 1908 by his maternal grandfather Louis Napoleon Nelson. As Nelson lived until 1934, Winbush had a few years as a young boy to absorb his vivid first-person accounts of slavery and service as an enslaved person under his masters, ER and Sidney Oldham, while the brothers served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War.
Louis Napoleon Nelson (1847–1934) was an enslaved cook and body servant during the American Civil War. In 1862, Louis was a 14-year-old illiterate slave on James and Helen C. Oldham's plantation in Lauderdale County, Tennessee.
The Oldhams were a prominent Episcopalian family who owned over 40 slaves. Nelson was one of 19 enslaved children under the age of 16 on the plantation according to the United States Census (1860 Slave Schedule). [4] James and Helen had 3 sons, E.R. (18), Sidney (16), and James (12).
E.R. and Sidney enlisted in Company M, Tennessee 7th Cavalry (Duckworth’s) in April 1862. [5] At 14 years old, Louis' owner sent him to serve as a personal servant for his sons. Based on the memoir of a member of Company M, Charles Stephen Olin Rice, the Oldham sons brought along another slave named Auterick. [6]
As a Confederate slave, Louis was responsible for duties such as cooking breakfast, cleaning, brushing uniforms, taking care of horses, foraging for food, shaving, delivering messages or any other task the owner needed. [7] Sometimes slaves were also allowed to hire out their services if their owner permitted.
Company M was one of many Confederate cavalry formations that fell under the overall command of the noted slave trader, planter and Confederate cavalry Lieutenant General, Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Louis later served as a cook for Company M, but there is no record of how this service came about. It is unknown whether Louis was hired out by E.R. Oldham to the Confederate Army or ever received pay for his labor during this time.
In Winbush's speeches and writing he frequently discusses Nelson. Winbush claims that Nelson was allowed to serve as a rifleman and later as chaplain to both blacks and whites; he had already memorized the King James Bible by heart. In a 2007 Florida Today interview, Winbush stated that his grandfather served as a chaplain in 1862 after the Battle of Shiloh for 4 campaigns. [8] There are no sources which corroborate any of these claims.
The September 10, 1863, issue of The Religious Herald is often used to bolster Louis' bonafides as the first black chaplain of the CSA. [9] The story, which was reprinted in several newspapers, notes that a Confederate Tennessee regiment did not have a chaplain, but instead had services led by an "old negro" slave named "Uncle Lewis". [10] [11] [12] Louis Nelson would have been around 15 years old at this time. Company M is not named in the articles. This lore directly contradicts the reality of the CSA's racial dynamics.
But were African American laborers in the Confederate army formally enlisted in the army, equipped with uniforms, arms, and accoutrements, and paid for their own work, as were African Americans in the U.S. Army? No. Their status was that of enslaved or marginally free laborers serving in capacities in a military setting analogous to their roles in civilian life. Referring to such men as “soldiers” ignores a fundamental distinction between forced labor and military service. - Jim Coski, American Civil War Museum [13]
The CSA did not allow blacks to enlist and as a policy did not arm them. [14] Confederate Army Regulations from 1861 to 1865 state that soldiers must be "free white males" [15] and cannot be "the servant of a soldier". [16] The first black soldiers enlisted in the CSA in March 1865 just a few weeks before the war's end and Louis was not in this number. [17] Oldham and the rest of Company M surrendered in Gainesville, Alabama on May 12, 1865. [4]
E.R. Oldham served as a witness for Louis' pension application. E.R. Oldham wrote that Louis was there until the very end of the war and was "my cook, while I was a soldier". [18] All existing records classify Louis as a cook and servant. [19] Louis' pension application and obituary were absent of any mention of duties as a chaplain, rifleman or soldier. [20] [21]
His widow was denied pension as the State of Tennessee only paid a pension to veterans, their widows, and ex-servants, but not to the widows of ex-servants. [22]
As a descendant of Nelson, Winbush qualified for membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans. [1] He notes that his grandfather received a state pension from Tennessee for Confederate veterans beginning in 1921 according to his pension records. [23] 1921 was the first year that black cooks and servants were allowed to file. [24]
Louis was one of more than 280 men who appeared before the Tennessee pension board to receive the pension created to "provide for those colored men who served as servants and cooks in the Confederate Army.”
Not every cook or servant qualified for a pension. Eligibility requirements included an inability to support oneself and proof they stayed in the war until the end. The pension paid $10 a month. [24]
White Confederate veterans received pensions in 1891 (about 26 years after the war) and their widows first received pensions in 1905. [24]
The majority of former Confederate slaves died before the pension bill passed in 1921, which was about 56 years after the war ended. The average age of black pensioners in Tennessee in 1921 was 79.9 years old. At 74, Louis was one of 195 men to receive a pension for being a cook or servant. [25]
Both Winbush's mother Ganelle and his maternal grandmother were teachers, and education was prized in their family. Winbush and his siblings all earned college degrees and some, like his sister Mary, also earned graduate degrees. She became a teacher and principal. [3]
Winbush married Naomi Daniel of Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Mrs. Winbush passed in 1999. They have two children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Winbush became a teacher and later an assistant principal, having a career in education like his mother and grandmother. In 1955, he moved with his family to Florida where the public school system resisted integration and retained segregated schools for years past the US Supreme Court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that declared them unconstitutional.
He earned an undergraduate degree in science and a master's degree in physical education from the University of Tennessee. [26]
In 1991, after the NAACP began a campaign against the Confederate flag being celebrated on public buildings, Winbush disagreed with such sentiment and efforts, and decided to join the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He is a member of the Son's of Confederate Veterans, Jacob Summerlin Camp #1516 in Kissimmee, Florida. [27] According to historian, Adam Domby, “throughout its history, the SCV has been linked with white supremacist groups, and historically it has avowedly supported white supremacist groups”. [28]
In the article, "In defense of his Confederate pride" which appeared in the Tampa Bay Times, highlighting Winbush, one young SCV member is quoted as saying Winbush's story "wipes out" the whole "segregation and racism argument", describing the Winbush's story as a way to neutralize critique of the Confederacy. [26] The same article notes that, Winbush's comments sound like they could be coming from "the mouth of any white son of the Confederate veterans".
Winbush has traveled widely, visiting various SCV camps and other organizations willing to listen and consider his views about the Civil War and his heritage. [29] He has been known to sing a Confederate song including the line, "....Black is nothing other than a darker shade of rebel gray." [1]
With his retirement from teaching, Winbush felt ready to speak out on public issues. For instance, unlike many other African Americans, he considers the Confederate flag part of Southern heritage and appropriate for public display. He has said that the South seceded from the Union because of states' rights, not slavery. He denies that President Lincoln freed the slaves, explaining that the Emancipation Proclamation affected only the Confederate states, which were no longer under his authority. [1] He then followed the statement up to say that it was just an exercise in rhetoric. As a counterpoint to this view, trained historians note that Lincoln never acknowledged the South's right to secede from the Union and therefore the Emancipation Proclamation provided the framework to free enslaved people once the areas came under Northern control. [30] [31] [32]
In 1998, Winbush participated in making a video on Black Southern Heritage, directed by Edward Smith of American University, who is also an African-American SCV member. [33] The video covers his grandfather's Confederate military service and qualification for a Confederate pension after the war, as well as elements of other African-American heritage. [2] Edward C Smith's work has critiqued because he is not a trained historian. His work often incorrectly states "somewhere around "50,000 black men fought as combatants" and that the Confederate monument at the Arlington National Cemetery represents evidence of Black Confederate soldiers. [34] Smith has made these claims since the early mid-1990s, but has never provided evidence. [35]
The NAACP and similar organizations have criticized Winbush for his support of what they believe are neo-Confederate causes; they think he misunderstands the history of the South. [1] That idea may be fueled by statements Winbush makes in interviews which largely go without fact-checking. In one such interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Winbush stated, "People ask why a black person would fight for the Confederacy. (It was) for the same damned reason a white Southerner did." Like Edward C. Smith, Winbush has never produced evidence to support this claims. The claim that his grandfather was a private in the Confederate army was a regular feature in his earlier interviews. [26]
Most of Winbush's interviews include no pushback based on historical accuracy, one rare departure from that style is an interview that appeared in the Orlando Sentinel, Aug 18, 2004. His usual responses were paired with local black author and former librarian of 30 years, Mary L. Fears. Fears wrote, "Contrary to published accounts, the service of body servants was not given as 'loyal patriotism to the cause of the Southerners.' When told to go, the slaves, compelled to follow their owners' orders, went to military camps. While in camp, they remained 'slaves' and, in that position, they were forced to obey their masters, no matter where they were. They were sometimes given uniforms and photographed with their slave masters, turned Confederate soldiers. To fail to obey, or show any signs of possible non-compliance, or even the slightest insinuation that they favored a Union victory, led to suffering from immediate punishment. [36]
United States Colored Troops (USCT) were Union Army regiments during the American Civil War that primarily comprised African Americans, with soldiers from other ethnic groups also serving in USCT units. Established in response to a demand for more units from Union Army commanders, by the end of the war in 1865 USCT regiments, which numbered 175 in total, constituted about one-tenth of the manpower of the army. Approximately 20 percent of USCT soldiers were killed in action or died of disease and other causes, a rate about 35 percent higher than that of white Union troops. Numerous USCT soldiers fought with distinction, with 16 receiving the Medal of Honor. The USCT regiments were precursors to the Buffalo Soldier units which fought in the American Indian Wars.
James Munro McPherson is an American historian specializing in the American Civil War. He is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. McPherson was the president of the American Historical Association in 2003.
Neo-Confederates are groups and individuals who portray the Confederate States of America and its actions during the American Civil War in a positive light. The League of the South, the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other neo-Confederate organizations continue to defend the secession of the former Confederate States.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers that commemorates these ancestors, funds and dedicates monuments to them, and promotes the pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy.
The Lost Cause of the Confederacy is an American pseudohistorical and historical negationist myth that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery. First enunciated in 1866, it has continued to influence racism, gender roles, and religious attitudes in the Southern United States into the 21st century. Historians have dismantled many parts of the Lost Cause mythos.
Harold Kenneth "H.K." Edgerton is an American neoconfederate activist, known for his advocacy of Southern heritage and the Confederate Flag. An African-American member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Edgerton formerly served as President of the Asheville, North Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and is currently on the board of the Southern Legal Resource Center.
André Cailloux was an African American army captain, one of the first black officers of any North American military unit. He was also one of the first black soldiers to die in combat during the American Civil War. He was killed during the unsuccessful first attack on the Confederate fortifications during the Siege of Port Hudson. Accounts of his heroism were widely reported in the press, and became a rallying cry for the recruitment of African Americans into the Union Army.
Alfred "Teen" Blackburn was one of the last surviving American slaves with a clear recollection of slavery as an adult. He was known throughout Yadkin County, North Carolina for his strength, size, and longevity. While enslaved, he served as a body servant for his owner, a Confederate soldier, during the Civil War. In 1929, state officials granted him a Class B pension in North Carolina, leading some to mistakenly describe him as a Confederate veteran.
African Americans, including former slaves, served in the American Civil War. The 186,097 black men who joined the Union Army included 7,122 officers and 178,975 enlisted soldiers. Approximately 20,000 black sailors served in the Union Navy and formed a large percentage of many ships' crews. Later in the war, many regiments were recruited and organized as the United States Colored Troops, which reinforced the Northern forces substantially during the conflict's last two years. Both Northern Free Negro and Southern runaway slaves joined the fight. Throughout the course of the war, black soldiers served in forty major battles and hundreds of more minor skirmishes; sixteen African Americans received the Medal of Honor.
Confederate Memorial Park is an Alabama State Park located in Mountain Creek, in rural Chilton County, Alabama, United States. Its address is 437 County Road 63, Marbury, Alabama 36051. It is sometimes found with the same address in Verbena, Alabama 36091.
Camp Nelson National Monument, formerly the Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park, is a 525-acre (2.12 km2) national monument, historical museum and park located in southern Jessamine County, Kentucky, United States, 20 miles (32 km) south of Lexington, Kentucky. The American Civil War era camp was established in 1863 as a depot for the Union Army during the Civil War. It became a recruiting ground for new soldiers from Eastern Tennessee and enslaved people, many of whom had fled their living conditions to be soldiers.
The 8th Virginia Cavalry Regiment was a cavalry regiment raised in Virginia for service in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. It fought mostly as part of the Army of Northern Virginia.
First Sergeant Jacob Trautman was a German-born soldier in the U.S. Army. His service included an enlistment with a Pennsylvania cavalry regiment during the Civil War and with the 7th Cavalry Regiment during the Indian Wars. He was one of twenty men who received the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Wounded Knee, now called the Wounded Knee Massacre, and afterward.
Slavery played the central role during the American Civil War. The primary catalyst for secession was slavery, especially Southern political leaders' resistance to attempts by Northern antislavery political forces to block the expansion of slavery into the western territories. Slave life went through great changes, as the South saw Union Armies take control of broad areas of land. During and before the war, enslaved people played an active role in their own emancipation, and thousands of enslaved people escaped from bondage during the war.
J. William Jones was an American Southern Baptist preacher and writer who became known for his evangelism and devotion to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. During the American Civil War of 1861–1865, the newly ordained Jones was a Confederate chaplain and conducted many revival meetings. Later, he became a campus minister at several universities and in his final years, chaplain for the United Confederate Veterans. After editing the papers of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Jones became the Secretary-Treasurer of the Southern Historical Society for 14 years and served on his denomination's Home Missions Board. He wrote many books about the Lost Cause and Christianity.
Silas Chandler was an enslaved African American who accompanied his owners, Andrew and Benjamin Chandler, referred to as a "manservant" in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He was also a carpenter and he helped found and build the first black church in his hometown, West Point, Mississippi.
Levi Miller was a preacher and farmer from Virginia. During the American Civil War, Miller was a manservant for his owner's brother, a Confederate Army captain, and may have been enrolled as a regular soldier after the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864. Miller's service is frequently used as an example of a black man who served as a soldier in the Confederate Army.
At least four widows of veterans of the American Civil War are known to have survived into the 21st century. All were born in the 20th century and married their husbands while the women were still young and the men were in advanced age. This practice was not uncommon at the time due to the possibility of receiving pensions as dependents of Civil War veterans; the pensions were known for their generosity. Some of these unions were in name only, while others lived together as married couples.
Mattie Clyburn Rice was an African-American member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. As the daughter of a Confederate Veteran, she is considered a "Real Daughter of the Confederacy" by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and is the second African-American woman to be recognized as such. At the time of her induction into the United Daughters of the Confederacy, she was one of twenty-three women who were living daughters of Confederate veterans. Rice successfully campaigned for her father and nine other African-American men, one freedman and eight enslaved, to be recognized for their Civil War service with a historical marker in Monroe, North Carolina.
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