Confederate Navy
Naval historian Ivan Musicant has written that there were blacks who served in the Confederate Navy. Musicant wrote:
Free blacks could enlist with the approval of the local squadron commander, or the Navy Department, and slaves were permitted to serve with their master's consent. It was stipulated that no draft of seamen to a newly commissioned vessel could number more than 5 per cent blacks. Though figures are lacking, a fair number of blacks served as coal heavers, officers' stewards, or at the top end, as highly skilled tidewater pilots.Read more about this topic: Military History Of African Americans In The American Civil War
Famous quotes containing the words confederate and/or navy:
“Figure a man’s only good for one oath at a time. I took mine to the Confederate States of America.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“Give me the eye to see a navy in an acorn. What is there of the divine in a load of bricks? What of the divine in a barber’s shop or a privy? Much, all.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)