nelson1946

@Article{ nelson1946,
	author = {Bernard H. Nelson},
	title = {Confederate Slave Impressment Legislation, 1861--1865},
	journal = {Journal of Negro History},
	volume = 31,
	number = 4,
	month = {October},
	pages = {392--410},
	year = 1946,
}

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2715214

See also Confederate Slave Impressment.

Nelson argues that the Confederacy developed “a definite impressment policy,” in contast to the previous view that “slaves were impressed only in times of great necessity.” Yet he also argues that policy at the state and federal level was sometimes internally at odds, which “prevented unity of purpose, engendered antagonisms, and tended to array the two governments against each other” (392). In general, according to Nelson, “Confederate impressment legislation was far less successful than state legislation on the subject” because of opposition, which peaked “in the last months of 1864 and the early months of 1865” (403).

Nelson mentions some of the kinds of labor done, including at Salt Works:

Slaves impressed under state authorization were employed in many different pursuits. It appears that the larger number were used as military laborers, primarily for the construction of fortifications and embattlements. But the evidence indicates taht they were also employed in the salt works, in mines, in hauling the “tax-in-kind” levied by the Confederate government, and in constructing and repairing the railroads of the South.