Rebels Employed Blacks: Reflections on the Confederate Civil Service

Who knew? A remarkable study, published in 1959 by Prof. Paul Van Riper, intensively studied how the Confederate government organized its civil service. The Confederacy had an undersized civil service compared to the Union. Amazingly, this government employed blacks as free people. 
Prof. Van Riper does not view this as hypocrisy or irony—it simply reflected how short the Confederacy was on money and manpower.  What Prof. Van Riper does not answer is where these otherwise-slaves came from; nor does he answer how whites and blacks worked side-by-side in this work environment.

I quote a key excerpt, and follow with a question for you:

The Quartermaster Department had control of the production and supply of clothing, blankets, tents, shoes, wagons, saddles, and harnesses. Early in the war, the President was authorized to detail skilled artisans to shoe factories, but an act of February 17, 1864, provided that such duties would thereafter be performed by men who were physically unfit for combat service.

In February 1865, the department reported that 3,451 Negroes and 2,299 adult whites were necessary to its operations. To this minimal total of 5,750 must be added at least 5,000 women employed part time or full time in the factories or doing piece work.

In an incomplete report, the Commissary Department stated that 1,783 male employees were indispensable to its operations. Civilians employed by the Medical Corps included hospital personnel and laborers. It is estimated, on the basis of appropriations requests and salary scales, that in 1865 the corps employed 150 civilian doctors, 1,000 nurses and cooks, 500 stewards, 1,300 wardmasters, 1,800 matrons, 1,500 laundresses, and 2,000 Negro laborers.

 The Bureau of Engineers, as the agency responsible for railway work and the building of fortifications, probably employed the largest number of Negro slaves and freedmen as laborers. The estimated total civilian employment of this bureau is 11,500.

Question for you: What does this mean? That evil and just governments were not all that different? Necessity is the mother of invention? Why didn’t this experience temper Jim Crow and segregation after the Civil War? What do you think? Post on FB or send me your thoughts at mhl@illinois.edu.