5. Rented slaves worked for enlisted men
The typical enlisted man of the Confederate Army did not hail from wealth. Over half were farmers, coming from families which did not own slaves, or no more than one or two. In the rural antebellum south, though many small farmers did not own slaves of their own, they sometimes pooled their meager resources and owned slaves together, sharing their services. Other times they rented them from a larger landowner, usually during the critical periods of seeding in the spring and the fall harvest. The enlisted troops of the Confederate Armies reflected the practice. An enlisted man joined with his mess mates – the men with whom he encamped and shared rations – to rent or purchase a slave to serve them as a unit.
An enlisted man with Cobb’s Georgia Legion wrote of his mess sharing a slave named Daniel. According to Samuel Burney, Daniel “…does all for us; brings wood, water, cooks, spreads down beds, blacks (polishes) shoes, etc.” Free blacks also were used to serve enlisted troops, though they could negotiate their rates of pay with the men they served. The troops found life in camp easier without the mundane details of soldiering taking up their time. They used their spare time to write letters, keep diaries, gamble with cards and dice, and visit the sutlers. They also engaged in the time-honored pastime of enlisted men everywhere: complaining about the stupidity of the officers, the quality of their food, and army life in general.