At Appomattox Courthouse in April of 1865, an Alabama soldier by the name of Zeb Thompson stood, rifle by his side, within a stone’s throw of General Robert E. Lee when he surrendered to General Grant.
Thompson had participated in many of the greatest battles of the War during his service to the Confederacy and had been wounded three times. Thompson, like several other Confederate soldiers looking on, was a black man. Also there was Private Needham Leach, one of two blacks, and ten whites left in Company C of the 53rd North Carolina Regiment.
These were just a few of at least 50,000 and as many as 100,000 black slaves and freemen who served the Confederate cause in some military or naval capacity. Thompson indicated in his 1917 interview with the Birmingham Age-Herald that he had attended every Confederate reunion and was very proud of his war record.
More @ The Tribune Papers
This will NEVER be taught or even mentioned in today's public schools. The teachers' unions are enemy #!.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of these MEN.It would be nice if the history books taught this."BUT" the dem-o-rat would never hear to that they could not keep the race hate strip up for their benefit.
ReplyDeleteThanks and first hand knowledge here as Needham, who was mentioned at the beginning, was in my family:
DeleteMy Great, Grandfather Private John Pelopidus Leach wrote:
"Needham and Jack, faithful and devoted servants of my Brother Geo. T. Leach who then commanded my company, and Capt. Richardson who was captured at Fort Stedman, informed of the surrender, came to the front in search of my Brother and myself. They awoke me and gave me the first information I had of Lee's army, which I did not believe, until returning with them past the courthouse to the bivouac of the remnant of my company I saw the open field about the village full of straggling men, moving in aimless fashion, artillery, ambulances and wagons gathering in parks, many men crying, some cursing and all in pitiful distress."
"My command stacked arms in front of the victorious federals on the 10th of April, with one lieutenant, nine white men--all with guns-- and two Negro servants, Needham Leach of Chatham and Jack Richardson of Johnston County."
(The Lieutenant was my great Uncle, George Thomas Leach)
"I with Needham, a Negro servant, as my only companion turned south to my home, Pittsboro, NC, passed through Chapel Hill and the Federal brigade of Gen. Atkins stationed there.
At Byrnums Mill on the Haw River, Needham and I were rowed across the stream in a bateau carrying the family servant of Maj. London, Sr. returning home with a bag of corn meal which he carried on the back of a mule."
http://www.namsouth.com/viewtopic.php?t=94&highlight=needham+leach