Confederate General Patrick Cleburne's Emancipation Proposal

Following his victory at Ringgold Gap, Georgia, Irish-born Confederate Maj. Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne advanced a proposal he had considered for months: to enlist slaves and guarantee freedom to all loyal Negroes. He argued that enslaved people had fought beside their masters in many conflicts throughout history, that slavery was being used by the North as a pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized government, and that removing slavery as a factor in the war would undermine the North’s argument. He also believed that Great Britain and France would likely recognize the South as a sovereign nation once it emancipated its own slaves. While on leave in Alabama in late 1863, he asked planters whether they would release their slaves for military service and found unanimous agreement. On January 2, 1864, his paper was presented to the Confederate high command of the Army of Tennessee in Dalton, Georgia, where he urged his fellow officers to consider the consequences of defeat and warned of subjugation, loss of property and liberty, and a Northern-written memory of the war. The document carried the signatures of all thirteen brigadier generals, colonels, and majors serving in Cleburne’s division, but reaction among the other corps commanders in Joe Johnston’s army was mixed. Gen. W.H.T. Walker denounced the idea as treasonous and sought to poll the officers present, which intimidated them, and there was no immediate support for Cleburne’s offer to train a division of slaves for Confederate service in exchange for freedom. The proposal eventually reached a vote in the Confederate Congress and passed on March 13, 1865, after which General-in-Chief Robert E. Lee was given responsibility for organizing these Colored Troops under the condition that no slave would be accepted without his own consent and his master’s written approval conferring, as far as possible, the rights of a freedman.

Ringgold, Georgia · United States