Confederate policy toward black soldiers
Confederate policy during the war was to treat captured black soldiers – not as prisoners of war, but as slaves in insurrection – and their white officers as instigators of slave rebellion. As both black soldiers and their white officers faced the same fate should they be captured, the policy served to strengthen the bond between them. Such was the fear engendered by the Confederate policy that even after a Union commander surrendered to Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest in Athens, Alabama in September 1864, the black soldiers pleaded with him to fight on, knowing that surrender meant certain death.
Responding to the massacre at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, an black man named Theodore Hodgkins wrote to Stanton on behalf of black soldiers who were fighting for the Union. In his letter, Hodgkins highlights that the President has “again and again” failed to follow up on his warning to retaliate when the Confederacy failed to treat captured black soldiers as prisoners of war. Hodgkins believed that the same number of Confederate prisoners of war should be executed by “two or three regiments of ‘colored’ troops” to show the Confederacy that its threats of retaliation were to be taken seriously. Lincoln and his cabinet ultimately decided that it would only take action against those directly involved in the massacre, but warned the Confederacy that a number of captured officers would be singled out for retaliation should any further atrocities be carried out in the future. The policy, however, was never put into effect.
Following both Generals Hunter and Phelps bold attempts to arm slaves in 1862, the Confederate War Department issued an order on the 21st August 1862, condemning them as “outlaws” and stated that should any officer so engaged be captured in the future, he would not be “regarded as a prisoner of war, but held in close confinement for execution as a felon.” In December 1862, Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered that each black soldier and white officer captured be dealt with according to the laws of the State to which they belong.
Possible punishments for black soldiers included re-enslavement or sale into slavery as well as execution. Officers faced imprisonment or even execution. Responding directly to President Davis the following April, which Hunter considered “long enough” for Davis to “reflect on his folly”, he gave the president “notice” that unless his is order was “immediately revoked” he would “cause the execution of every rebel officer, and every rebel slaveholder” in his possession.