Have Been With the Rebel Army

Corroborating and linking advertisements of captured runaway slaves with the Confederate army has been more difficult that I anticipated.  I think there are several reasons for this.

First, many of the slaves that were captured were asked and gave their owner's name. On the surface that sound like it would be a good thing - and in some cases it is.  In other cases it poses some problems. For one, it appears that many of the owners' names were spelled phonetically by the jailers and printed that way in the newspaper notices. That, of course, makes it difficult to corroborate with other records. Next, it seems that many captured slaves lied and/or gave false owner names. Some probably claimed to be free when they were not. Then, sometimes an owner's location is given and sometimes not. It is naturally difficult to corroborate anything without multiple sources to check against. Additionally, many owners were too old to fight, but allowed their soldier sons and sons in laws to use their slaves for camp servants.

The advertisement above, which ran in late 1862, is the only one I have found so far that comes right out and says the captured slaves served the "rebel army." Frustratingly, it does not give their owners' names, only their former home location.