Talk:Slavery during the American Civil War

Bogus references
Most of the references under Blacks in the Confederate Army make no mention of what the sentence contains. For example, the first two footnotes (pointing to pages at Americancivilwar.com) make no mention whatsoever about Blacks in the Confederate Army. The text here states that "More than 65,000 southern blacks participated in the Confederate army as soldiers" and points to "History of Colored Troops in the American Civil War". Americancivilwar.com. Retrieved 2012-05-27, yet that webpage makes no mention at all of Blacks in the Confederate army let alone a reference to "65,000". Likewise, the supposed quote by Douglass is cited as "Blacks in the Civil War, Black History and the Civil War". 37thtexas.org. Retrieved 2012-05-27, but that page not only doesn't mention Douglass but it doesn't say anything about Blacks in the Confederacy at all.

Overall, this section appears to be entirely dishonesty. I recommend deleting the unsupported portions unless someone can come up with proper citations that actually support these assertions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beanbag82 (talk • contribs) 2012-05-28T14:20:40‎

what is the actual topic of this article?
Is the topic of this article or is it
 * slaves and the American Civil War
 * African Americans and the Civil War?

Lets call the answer to the above "X".

Is the subject: or is it
 * X and the American Civil War
 * X in the armies that fought during the American Civil War?

The article title currently does not match the content of the article which which appears to be African Americans in the armies that fought during the American Civil War.

Currently it seems to be taking the largest possible scope of one part of the phrase to include people that are not actually (and never were) slaves, and the most minimal aspect of the second part of the phrase presenting the illusion that only soldiers were impacted/influenced the War.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  12:11, 10 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I think there is some validity to the point that slaves/escaped slaves serving in the military should be mentioned at this page, but most of that material exists at Military history of African Americans in the American Civil War. There is a lot of research into slaves and slavery during this period and the role of the war on those individuals and the institution, and I think that should be the focus of this page. I would like to rework this page, potentially based on the recent book,Marching Masters: Slavery, Race, and the Confederate Army during the Civil War (Woodward, Colin Edward. University of Virginia Press, 2014.). Let me know if anyone has any reservations about this. Since this page isn't too active and I don't foresee my edits being to controversial, I plan on being bold, but will put a note or two on this talk page if there is anything I'm less sure about - and I'm happy for any feedback. Smmurphy(Talk) 17:46, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Slave Insurrections
'Slaves began undermining the South once they began running to the North. The Union Army facilitated this by encouraging slave rebellions, while at the same time promising the Confederate Army that the Union Army would aid slave insurrections. These slave insurrections changed the balance of power on plantations, enabling slaves to run away to fight for the Union Army.'

There is no citation backing this statement, and I've seen little regarding slave insurrections during the American Civil War. There's plenty of evidence that slaves ran away to join the Union, but that's not the same as a home rebellion. 185.41.44.249 (talk) 10:22, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Slave ownership and pricing
This article states the percentage of the population that owned slaves as far above what most historians write. The actual percentage was closer to less than 1 percent. That was a function of pricing. Prices paid as reflected in primary sources such as slave owner ledgers of prices paid, reciepts, and contemorary advertisements for auctions place the price at from $5000 to $10,000 to a rare high of $20,000. Taking the low end and the average monthly pay of a union soldier of $13 a month, and taking a saving rate of one quarter of that pay it would take an average man 138 years to save enough to buy a slave. Even taking prices commonly cited in contemorary abolisionist sources which was about a quarter of the more reliably founded sources it would still take 30 years for the average man to save enough to buy a slave. Ownership of slaves was a rich man's game. They were in fact a form of rich man's money. That why it was called chattle slavery. They were not slave labor as such. Most labor even in slave states was by far done by poor whites. So the numbers cited in this article of percentages of the population owning slaves are ridiculous. 98.164.95.72 (talk) 11:09, 20 April 2019 (UTC)


 * According to the 1860 census, there were 393,975 slave owners in the slave states out of a free population of 8,289,782, so 4.75% of the free population were slave owners. In the border states, slave owning was less prevalent, so in the seceding states, the percentage of slave owners in the free population was higher: 5.67%. To get to a number close to one percent, one would have to divide the number of slaveholders in the slaveholding states by the total population of the entire United States (31,183,582, a number that included 3,950,511 enslaved persons) resulting in a meaningless statistic of 1.26%, and even that clearly contrived number exceeds the claim of the anonymously made assertion of "less than 1 percent." A.T.S. in Texas (talk) 00:00, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Catholic Church
There should be at least some mention of the Catholic Church in this article. Single largest slaveholding institution in the country at the time. natemup (talk) 22:42, 14 July 2021 (UTC)