TIL: A Servile War

Source: Starz.

This week, I've been exploring various rabbit warrens prompted by Lee Roddy's 1977 book, "Gallant Christian Soldier: Robert E. Lee". First, I examined Lee's purported flawless character. Then I examined Lee's purported military genius. I found both lacking. Today, I want to examine something Lee said in a letter to his wife. I want to thank Lee Roddy for including it in his biography. I learned something from it at least.

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Lee Roddy says:

Lee had said in his letter to his wife in December 1856 that "efforts of certain people of the North, to interfere with the domestic institutions of the South," were "both unlawful and entirely foreign..." and "can only be accomplished by them through the agency of a Civil and Servile War."

Lee was right about the coming war. Only war could have led to the abolition of slavery. The South disastrously played into the hands of abolitionists, first by seceding, then by launching a war against the North by firing on the Union's Fort Sumter.

But the South's political mistakes are not what I want to talk about today. It's that peculiar phrase Lee uses: "Civil and Servile War." What is a "Servile War", I wondered. Down another rabbit hole I went. Wikipedia to the rescue: "The Servile Wars were a series of three slave revolts ("servile" is derived from "servus", Latin for "slave") in the late Roman Republic."

Robert E. Lee, a professional soldier and a graduate of West Point Military Academy, almost certainly studied the three "Servile Wars" fought by ancient Rome to put down slave revolts. Modern Americans may be familiar with only the third Servile War, called by Roman historian Plutarch the War of Spartacus. Ahhh, I hear you saying, Spartacus. Again, according to Wikipedia, "This rebellion, interpreted by some as an example of oppressed people fighting for their freedom against a slave-owning oligarchy, has provided inspiration for many political thinkers, and has been featured in literature, television, and film."

I find it instructive that modern film-goers see Spartacus as a hero, but Robert E. Lee almost certainly would have viewed someone like Spartacus as a troublemaker and a threat to his cherished "domestic institutions of the South." The perpetual threat the South feared was, using Lee's own peculiar term, "Servile War."

The US Constitution's 2nd Amendment had its own peculiar language about "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State." Gun control advocates argue that it's all about having a militia, which was needed to defend against, say, a return of the British redcoats. Gun rights defenders, on the other hand, argue that the 2nd Amendment was written just as much to protect individuals from any personal threats to their life, liberty or property.

I've read enough now to believe both sides are half wrong and half right. Both are missing the main point about the need for a militia in the 18th century. The militia wasn't so much a means to defend America against external threats as it was a means to put down slave revolts. The American South was in constant fear of this. Besides the slave revolts in our own history, there was a terrifying example to our south in Haiti, where a slave revolt in 1791 led to a war of revolution (a "Servile War") and a new, independent state in 1804 ruled by former slaves. Robert E. Lee might have been afraid of Northern states sending their own armies to invade the South, but he was equally terrified of slaves rising up themselves and fighting a "Servile War."

Ironically, in the end, the South got both a Civil War and a Servile War. Roughly 179,000 Black Spartacuses served in the Union Army (10% of the total) to defeat the South and secure their own freedom. Our histories call it the "Civil War" but within it was a "Servile War" as well. And now I know, thanks to "Gallant Christian Soldier: Robert E. Lee."

One last note on Robert E. Lee's racism. In proposing a prisoner exchange with Gen. Grant, Lee excluded Black soldiers. Lee wrote, "[N]egroes belonging to our citizens are not considered subjects of exchange and were not included in my proposition. If there are any such among those stated by you to have been captured around Richmond they cannot be returned." That's another fact that Lee Roddy omits from his biography of this "gallant Christian soldier."