17. Some southern leaders reconsidered Cleburne’s suggestion
Cleburne died near the end of the disastrous year of 1864, from the Confederacy’s perspective. By the end of that year Union troops were everywhere deep in the South, its farms ravaged and its infrastructure collapsing. Lee’s formerly invincible Army of Northern Virginia had been battered back into the trenches at Richmond and Petersburg. Sherman completed his march across Georgia. The Army of Tennessee crumbled due to casualties, desertions, and illness. In early 1865, Confederate leaders including Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and the influential editor of the Richmond Enquirer, Nathaniel Tyler, advocated arming slaves and impressing them into the Confederate Army.
On January 11, 1865, Robert E. Lee urged the Confederate Congress to offer slaves emancipation in exchange for their service in the army as armed troops. Major General Howell Cobb, one of the founders of the Confederacy and an ardent supporter of slavery, howled in outrage at the idea. “…the proposition to make soldiers of our slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began…” wrote Cobb, adding “…they won’t make soldiers”. Confederate Senator Robert M. T. Hunter also argued against Lee’s suggestion, demanding of Congress, “What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?”