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By Root 1296 0

about the Civil War, as with any other subject the slave usually shaped his response to the tone of the question and the requirements of the occasion. He would tell his white listeners what he thought they wanted to hear. In the presence of southern whites, the slave was apt to proclaim his loyalty to the Confederacy (or to his “white folks” and the state in which he lived) in much the same way that he had denied on so many occasions (especially to northern visitors) the desire to be free. “The Yankees will be whipped,” a South Carolina slave recalled assuring his master and mistress repeatedly, even as he prayed and believed otherwise. Whether in the presence of Southerners or Yankees, on the other hand, the slave might find it more politic to seek refuge in a pretense of ignorance or in evasiveness. “Why, you see, master,” an elderly Louisiana slave told a Union reporter in 1863, “ ’taint for an old nigger like me to know anything ’bout politics.” When the reporter pressed him to indicate whether he favored the Confederacy or the Union, the slave maintained his “ineffable smile” for a moment, and then with a mock gravity replied, “I’m on de Lord’s side, and He’ll work out His salvation; bress de Lord.” Framing his response with equal care, an elderly Georgia black told a Union officer who had questioned him about the war, “Well, Sir, what I think about it, is this—it’s mighty distressin’ this war, but it ’pears to me like the right thing couldn’t be done without it.”39

While military fortunes fluctuated with every skirmish and battle, so did the slaves’ responses to the war, with many of them adopting a “wait and see” attitude and refusing to commit themselves irretrievably to either side. In 1862, for example, a correspondent traveling with the Union Army asked a Missouri slave if he favored the Union. “Oh! yes, massa,” he replied, “when you’s about we is.” When asked what he would do if the Confederate troops returned, the slave quickly responded, “[W]e’s good secesh then. Can’t allow de white folks to git head niggers in dat way.” The reporter went away impressed with how this slave perceived his role in the conflict. “These Missouri niggers know a great deal more than the white folks give them credit for, and whether Missouri goes for the confederacy or the Union, her slaves have learned a lesson too much to ever be useful as slaves.… The darkeys understand the whole question and the game played.”40

The evasive stance assumed by slaves reflected not only their perception of reality but an initial confusion about the war and the issues over which it was being fought. How much of the war news a master thought advisable to share with his slaves varied considerably, and in some regions what one observer called “a stratum of ignorance” prevailed. The Georgia slave who in November 1864 had still not heard of the Emancipation Proclamation was by no means unique. “De white folks nebber talk ’fore black men,” he explained; “dey mighty free from dat.” Even if whites chose to be candid with their slaves, they were apt to find that anything they revealed about the war was greeted with suspicion. “I do not speak of the war to them,” Mary Chesnut noted in November 1861; “on that subject, they do not believe a word you say.” Perhaps more whites than blacks ultimately believed the rumors of Yankee atrocities; at least, the direful warnings voiced by slave owners would have little apparent effect on the steady stream of blacks to the Union lines. Nor did the master’s confident talk about the progress of the war necessarily survive slave scrutiny. “I know pappy say dem Yankees gwine win, ’cause dey alius marchin’ to de South, but none de South soldiers marches to de North,” William Davis recalled. “He didn’t say dat to de white folks, but he sho’ say it to us.”41

When the war began to turn against the Confederacy, even slaves with limited access to the news could sense it. In some regions, in fact, slaveholders had their hands full trying to reassure the blacks that the retreating Confederate soldiers were not, as had been rumored,