I wonder how the Confederacy was doing in all this?
Ask and ye shall receive!
Hell on Haiti
The Confederate Army in the Haiti War actually did in fact make history in one way. President Cleburne believed that the war in Haiti would create a rush of recruitment and a wave of patriotism that would revitalize popular support for his administration. Although most Confederates did support the war, there was no mass rush of recruitment comparable to the War of Independence or the Spanish-Confederate War. Without such a rush of recruitment, the war made history by turning to an unexpected source to supplement Confederate numbers. Many modern history books, especially in a certain nation in North America, dedicate many pages to black soldiers fighting for the Confederacy in the War of Independence. No such soldiers actually existed excluding a very small regiment organized in 1867 (that only fought one skirmish). The idea of the black soldier had been completely abandoned by the Spanish-Confederate War, and it was only after the cataclysmic end of that war when those handful of black soldiers actually received their pay (the victorious Confederacy famously stiffed those black soldiers on their pay).
However, President Patrick Cleburne was a staunch advocate for the inclusion of blacks in the Confederate Army, both during the War of Independence, Spanish-Confederate War, and now the Haiti War. He had been denied through almost the entire Civil War and denied during the Spanish-Confederate War, but now he was President, and there was nobody above him to veto his ideas. Upon declaration of hostility, President Cleburne gave a measured speech where he called for the recruitment of "freedmen", pragmatically citing that blacks would be better suited for the climate of Haiti. In the same the speech, Cleburne declared that limited conscription would be instituted. During the War of Independence and the Spanish-Confederate War, wealthy Confederates often paid poor individuals to be drafted on their behalf. However, fewer poor Southern whites were willing to take that offer now, especially now that they could just emigrate to the United States. Instead, wealthy Confederates often signed up their slaves instead. For the first time in history, the Confederate States would field a multiracial army.
As a result, the Haitian War was miserable for Confederates of all races. The result of dozens of coups in Haiti and vicious civil wars left the Haitian population heavily armed and trained in warfare. The brutal legacy of the French occupation and guerrilla war, both the conduct of the French and the rebels, created a legacy of brutality that carried itself through Haitian politics. Race was in particular a very touchy subject, especially as Confederate propaganda pointed out correctly that victorious Haitian rebels had murdered almost every innocent white civilian they had come across (French atrocities were not mentioned). Such historical atrocities were actually commonly cited during the Civil War between the Nationals and Provos, especially by Provos who cited the atrocities in post-independence Haiti as an inevitability if the slaves were ever emancipated. Although such atrocities did not place in the Confederacy, the Confederate Civil War was less a slave rebellion and more of a white-on-white civil war. The victorious Nationals thus tried their best to distance themselves against the notion of a "slave rebellion", which meant endorsing most negative stereotypes and impressions of Haiti. The Confederates were in mood to treat Haiti with a light hand. In contrast, Haitian society united against the Confederate invasion, as the symbolism of everything loathed by Haitian society. Although slavery was being phased out, the gradual tendency of the process meant that the Confederacy still had slaves in 1895. A divided Haitian political class united and rallied Haitian society against the "slaver invaders."
In theory, the Confederate States declared victory fairly early, as Confederate soldiers landed on most Haitian ports, defeating the Haitians due to their vastly superior armament, largely a product of Mahone's military modernization. However, atrocities quickly piled up as the Haitian Army was chased to the interior of the nation, forced into fighting an irregular guerrilla war against the Confederates. For example, both sides committed atrocities on civilian villages thought of aiding the other side. The Haitians held a special hatred for black Confederate soldiers, who were seen as "race traitors". When taken prisoner, black Confederates were typically gruesomely tortured to death (with photographs taken), which meant that black Confederates quickly began to no longer surrender (and rarely took Haitian prisoners). The Confederate Army in Haiti was majority white (about 75%, as most free black Confederates were too young) and white soldiers primarily composed most "combat" battalions - which saw the harshest action when CSA troops landed under Haitian fire. In contrast, Black soldiers were relegated to "support roles", which included hauling supplies, cooking, cleaning, and other activities. However, "support" was a term quickly expanded to anti-guerrilla sweeps, including reprisal operations against Haitian villages thought to be supporting guerrillas. The one weakness of the Haitian resistance movement was that although they spun the war as one of the black race against white slaver invaders, the face of terror on both sides of the war was essentially black. Of course, many whites also died in the war, especially from diseases (Confederate logistics had improved from the Spanish-Confederate War, but it was not exactly the strength of the nation), but also from battle. In the first weeks of the invasion, Confederate casualties were almost entirely white, but after the cities were secured, Confederate casualties were fairly evenly biracial.
Coastal Haitian cities, such as Port of Prince, were essentially run under tight military occupation. Despite widespread racism of the Confederate occupiers, these coastal cities were generally safer and more desirable places to live than the war-torn interior, simply because the Haitian resistance was operating out of the interior of the country. In particular, some well-meaning Confederates who had more egalitarian racial views actually willingly migrated to coastal Haiti to volunteer in the local administration of these cities. Ironically, because almost nobody in the Confederacy wanted to go to Haiti, the only educated people who went to Haiti had better intentions than normal. The Confederacy was not picky, in many cases, the Confederate military administration was run by foreigners, such as Romanian immigrant Henry Moskowitz. In particular, so many of the administrators were European immigrant Jews (who the Confederates accepted, citing the legacy of Confederate Founding Father Judah Benjamin), the Haitian military administration in Port of Prince was nicknamed "the Jew Crew" in much of the North American media. Outside of the cities, famine and disease killed tens, if not hundreds of thousands, causing thousands of refugees to flood into the cities. Although in extreme scarcity circumstances, human suffering widely proliferated, the relative technical competence of the "Jew Crew" actually drew a great deal of accolades among the Confederate press.
In addition, although the Confederate officer corps continued to hold a very low opinion of black soldiers, white soldiers serving alongside them actually seemed to warm up significantly to those black soldiers. Most Confederates expected the mass defection of black soldiers (in fact, only Cleburne really did not expect this). Cleburne was largely proven correct - although some did defect, this was not a particularly common outcome (possibly aided by the language barrier). [1] One of the most famous and controversial events during the war was when five white soldiers were court-martialed for going AWOL for a week to undertake a rescue mission (prohibited by their commanding officer) for a black Confederate scout who had been captured. A military tribunal sentenced all five to death, but President Cleburne personally pardoned them. The pardon was remarkably controversial in Confederate newspapers, with both supporters and opponents of the pardon debating earnestly. A poll taken shortly after found that a modest majority of Confederates approved of the pardon, but a narrow majority disapproved of the actual rescue operation.
Besides such incidents, in general, the war actually did succeed in uniting much of Confederate society, but besides its massive human costs (both for Confederates and for Haitians), it had negative international implications. Most countries didn't strongly protest the invasion of Haiti - the only nation that would have cared was the United States, preoccupied as it was by World War I. However, newspapers around North America and Europe loved to cover new atrocities in Haiti, both committed by Confederate soldiers and by Haitian rebels. Stories of flaying, torture, mass rape, mass graves, and cannibalism on both sides became widespread. Indeed, President Cleburne had united a nation, but now there were questions about whether he would be able to "win" the war. Ironically, the atrocities greatly weakened American antipathy towards the Confederacy, largely because the United States no longer considered the Confederacy a threat to the United States. A small proportion of American jingoists had always called for the forcible inclusion of the Confederacy back into the United States, which was largely rejected because most Americans viewed it as inopportune. By 1900, the vast majority of Americans actively did not want any of their old Southern states back.
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[1] I read a study that surveyed Korean War vets and found that serving with a black person, even in a support role, significantly reduced prejudice. I think the same phenomenon happens here, at least among the enlisted men.