“UNDER THE REBEL LASH”: BLACK PRISONERS OF WAR IN THE CONFEDERATE SOUTH

From 1862 to 1865, the Confederate military and private citizens enslaved captured Black US soldiers by various means rather than treating them as legitimate combatants. Confederates saw Black soldiers as slaves, and treated Black POWs as reclaimed property and as a labor corps subject to the demands of military necessity under the laws of war. Black POWs were therefore relatively mobile and usually labored outside of prison walls, beyond the sight of US officials and White POWs. Black POWs could be (and were) sold, reclaimed by former enslavers, and used as laborers on military works, in hospitals, and in prisons. Black POWs’ carceral experiences therefore centered upon their labor rather than their close confinement. Black POWs, navigated these diverse forms of captivity using survival strategies employed by American enslaved people over several generations, such as building personal relationships with one another and whites, using their particular skills while forced to labor, and escape. Their first person testimony, found in hundreds of military pensions, is vital to making sense of their survival and direct action during the war.Doctor of Philosoph