Rightists routinely conjure an entire false history from a spurious anecdote; here, a picture has been worth many thousands of false words. This photo has been used by modern Confederate apologists to create a story of rebel brothers-in arms—
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| Sergeant A.M. Chandler of the 44th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, Co. F., and Silas Chandler, family slave... Library of Congress |
There's no knowing what emotions are behind the subjects' expressions. The look on the face of Andrew Chandler, the young white slave-owner, suggests shell-shock. The expression on the face of his slave hints at the irony of Silas's being allowed to hold prop weapons, the only kind that would have been handed to a slave. Furthermore, it's difficult to think that the photographer who prepared this scene would have approached it as anything other than a joke.
Serwer describes the efforts of Silas Chandler's descendants to debunk the "brother-in-arms" nonsense. This fascinating read encompasses the uneasy relations between two Chandler families, descendants of master and of slave; what is known of Silas' history; how all this plays out in the context of Southern myth-making, old and new.
Following the Civil War, Southern partisans laid the foundation of the post-racial Confederacy shortly after its defeat. Knowing that the eyes of history would view the cause of slavery as, in the words of Ulysses Grant, "one of the worst for which a people ever fought," the vanquished Confederates sought to deny that they had ever fought to preserve slavery, or that their society had been built on the idea that white men were superior to black men.More recently, the supposed participation of "black Confederate soldiers" has become a new theme for revisionists—
"You might think of the Black Confederate narrative as the modern version of the loyal slave narrative," said [historian] Kevin M. Levin. "The first references to black Confederate soldiers really don't appear until roughly the late 1970s, and it's in response to a changing memory of the Civil War."In Serwer's account, it is a narrative that's taken in some historians who should know better.
Decades after the after the war's end, ex-slaves in Mississippi could apply for Confederate pensions based on their having been servants to masters at the battlefield. Silas Chandler applied for this pension in 1916; surviving paperwork confirmed his having gone to war only in (compelled) service to Andrew Chandler, not as a soldier himself.
Until recent years, the tintype was in the possession of Silas' descendants. It happened that great-grandson Bobbie Chandler, who worked in print production at The Washington Times, gave the paper the photo to use for a story. Confederate "heritage" groups subsequently staged a 1994 "reunion," between Andrew Chandler Battaile Sr. (great-grandson of Andrew, Silas's master) and Bobbie Chandler. This was held at the Silas' grave, where a Confederate flag and iron cross were placed. Bobbie later acknowledged having made a mistake, after other members of the family insisted on having the flag and cross removed. Details here are not clear, but Battaile Sr.'s son—who also happens to be a "Confederate heritage" activist—gained possession of the tintype. Battaile Jr. seems to have been largely responsible for how widely publicized the photo became. Ultimately, he sold it for an undisclosed sum not shared with Silas' descendants.
"It's just continuing to make money off of a dead slave... them selling the tintype," says a great-granddaughter of Silas's. "So that's pretty low. That's about as low as you can go."
Low, certainly, from the standpoint of this particular family, as well as from a more general standpoint of justice. But in view of "changing memory," Silas Chandler's image was an exploitable bonanza, once it dropped into the hands of The Washington Times and promoters of "Confederate heritage."
