• South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860 with threats of secession dating back for many years, however, South Carolina was not the first state to threaten secession.  Pennsylvania had threatened secession during talks over the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794.
• During the attack on Harper’s Ferry by abolitionist John Brown, the first casualty was baggage master, Heywood Shepard, a freed slave. John Wilkes Booth would later attend the hanging of John Brown.
• John C. Calhoun (two-term Vice President, Secretary of State and South Carolina Senator) died in 1850. His stance on slavery, state’s rights and state sovereignty would fuel South Carolina’s secession in 1860.
• U.S. Census reports between 1830 and 1860 show approximately two percent of all slaves in the U.S. where owned by free blacks. The majority of which lived in South Carolina and Louisiana.
• “There are at present many Colored men in the Confederate Army….real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down any loyal troops and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government…” Fredrick Douglas
• The actual number of black Confederates who wore the uniform with state buttons and saw battlefield action was approximately 65,000. According to all available records, black troops saw battlefield combat from 1st Bull Run (Manassas) to the end of the war. The most decorated and highest ranking of black Confederate troops was 3rd Sergeant James Washington, Company D 35th Texas Cavalry.

Why didn’t they teach us this stuff in school?????

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