"Any African-Confederates in Your Armies" Topic

I was watching the Military History show on the CSS Hunley and it showed the remains of the crew being given a military funeral escorted by Confederate re-enactors. A couple of those gentlemen were African-American – which might seem odd to some as its an overlooked aspect of the ACW.

But, it got me to wondering (that's always dangerous). So, at the risk of starting something on the level of "Do you game SS?", are any of your Confederates painted anything other than caucasian?

Mind you, this theoretically could also include Amerindians – many of whom in Oklahoma were inclined to side with the South after being promised that Sequoyah would be a seperate "homeland".

Wyatt

Dang it! I meant to add a reference source: link

Wyatt

Since there are no records, diaries, unit histories, etc., that speak of a single black in a Confederate unit, it would hard to justify. Aside from the unit formed at the very end of the war in Richmond from slaves that never fought, no black was allowed to join the Confederate army and any that attempted to "pass" were thrown out. The most generous tally is that they MAY have been as many as 200-300 blacks that "passed" in the Confederate army in the course of the war, a very, very, very small number when put against the 500,000 or so white troops that fought for the south.

Even the free black militia units in New Orleans were left behind when the Union took the city and were enlisted as Union troops.

You could include some body servants, cooks, domestics, etc., in an unit, but they'd most likely be doing grunt work like digging ditches and fortifications. You'd not see blacks in organized units with whites.

Dan

Hmmm… I was under the impression that some blacks accompanied their "owners" to war, and that in other cases, some blacks fought for the Confederacy when their territory was invaded.

I'll see if I can find any references.

If Great Rail Wars still counts … I do have one posse.

I don't have any first hand source material for this. BUT . . . there are some reenactors in the community that maintain that there were blacks in the Southern Army and they did fight. They expound at great length about how there were a number of free blacks in the south -- more than the north (probably true) and that the Southerners fought for State's rights -- for them it wasn't about Slavery (sounds plausible, at least early in the war). They also talk about folks of mixed race that were "free" that formed part of the man power pool.

Well, OK I for one can see that blacks might serve in the Confederate Army -- especially those home grown units that featured the cream of the man power of the locality.

All of the above is presented without a shred of primary historical source material to back it up -- so take it for what it's worth.

mjc

Two books of interest about blacks in the CSA.

Black Southerners in Gray ISBN 0963899392. A collection of essays concerning the service of blacks, both freed and slave, in the CSA. The essays are by historians and genealogists, brief bio's and credentials in the preface, using CSA records and family records to document number of Blacks in confederate service.

Forgotten Confederates: An Anthology About Black Southerners ISBN 1889332127. A collection of personal accounts of black confederates, freed and black, who fought in the CSA. The sources are listed and covers 20 pages. Included are the Slave Narratives recorded in the 1930's by the Federal Writers Project. It is stored in the library of Congress under the title "Slave Narratives: A Folk history of Slavery in the U.S. from interviews with former Slaves."

The black units that were surrendered to Porter, per some of the soldiers accounts were betrayed by their creole officers. They performed poorly and were sent to the gulf islands off the Mississippi coast and left to rot.

Also from accounts, the blacks were not formed into seperate units but intergrated into the units. Only the induction papers listed the soldiers race or color. Unit rosters do not. The New Orleans black regiments were formed by the Spanish, I believe, and the traditional organization was kept.

From some of the slave narratives and accounts I have read, the black southerners in the CSA considered those who fought in the USA as traitors to their home. Which I find interesting considering what I have been taught in school about this period in US history.

Also read an account of a TN infantry unit, the 7th(?), whose chaplain was a black clergy man. He apparently accompanied the unit into combat exhorting the soldiers to do their duty.

Indians in the east also joined the CSA. I forgot the name of the legion formed around SC that was at first entirely Cherokee and only after battle casualities allowed whites and blacks to join. Have to go look for that account.

Dan Cyr 14 Aug 2007 2:52 p.m. PST
Since there are no records, diaries, unit histories, etc., that speak of a single black in a Confederate unit,

Well in addition to the two above I use to have a work on Confederate black veterans and was based on the accounts of those in the South who were granted pensions from the Southern States. I will have to look for the book. It might be one of the two above.

As for in my armies not in any of my 15mm units or the 200 or so figures I have in 25mm. But I plan to add a few to the 40mm units I am doing. Most likely just one as a standard bearer for my Lee command stand.

There were also a number of American Indians at the siege of Petersburg.

VR
James Mattes

Dan Cyr is correct. Just a handful. Read the scholarly article in the latest issue of Blue and Gray Magazine. You will find the case is closed and why no reputable historian believes otherwise.

I have one or two.

When Lee's army marched through Frederick, Maryland, on their way to Antietem they were observed by Dr. Louis Steiner, an inspector of the Union Sanitation Commission. His diary entry describes the large number of blacks in the Rebel army.

Wednesday, September 10: At 4 o'clock this morning the Rebel army began to move from our town, Jackson's forces taking the advance. The movement continued until 8 o'clock p.m., occupying 16 hours. The most liberal calculation could not give them more than 64,000 men. Over 3,000 Negroes must be included in the number. These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in the rebel ranks. Most of the negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabers, bowie-knives, dirks, etc. They were supplied, in many instances, with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, etc. and they were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of generals and promiscuously mixing it up with all the Rebel horde.

How one interprets this is another question. But there it is.

Why would Blacks want to fight for a government dedicated to keeping them enslaved as a fundemental principle?

Dan Cyr is not literally correct. Levi Miller was formally enrolled in Company C, 5th Texas. He received a Confederate pension, as did a number of blacks -- dozens at least. Probaly most were body servants.

I agree that there is little evidence that blacks served under arms in any significant numbers. And as little, or none, that they supported Confederate war aims. But they were plainly a major part of the Confederate army, as Steiner's diary demonstrates.

Almost everything we know about Levi Miller's Confederate service is based on two letters written in 1907 by J. E. Anderson, who replaced JJ McBride as captain of C Company after McBride's wounding. One is to Miller; it was evidently written at Levi's request to support his application for a Confederate pension from Virginia:

In accordance with your request I have this day written Mr. B. C. Shull, of Marlboro, Virginia, giving him a full account of your connection with our army. I told him of all the campaigns you were in, beginning with Yorktown, Fair Oaks, and seven days in front of Richmond, Maryland, Fredericksburg, Suffolk, Pennsylvania, Chickamauga, East Tennessee, the Wilderness ,and Spottsylvania Court House, where, on the morning of May 10, 1864, you ran across to us over an open field, and the Yankee sharpshooters fired several shots at you before you could get into our trench. You brought me some rations and you had to stay all day before you could get out, and how on that day the Yankees made a rushing charge on us, and you stood by my side and fought as gallant as any man in the company, and after we had driven the Yankees away, Jim Swindler made a motion that Levi Miller be enrolled as a full member of Company C, Fifth Texas Regiment. I put the motion and it was carried by a unanimous vote. I immediately enrolled your name on the roll of the company, and I still have that same roll.
Also how you nursed Captain McBride (when he) was wounded at Manassas and again when he was thought to be mortally wounded at the battle of the Wilderness, and how you nursed him until the fall of 1865, long after the war was closed, and in fact your nursing saved his life. Again you were never absent from the Company during the entire war, except when nursing Captain McBride when wounded. Again how good and kind you were to any of the men when sick in camp, and how much the boys thought of you. Yes, Levi, if there ever was a man deserving a pension you are one of them. I wrote four pages to Mr. Shull giving all in full. Of course, I could not mention everything. I was truly glad to hear from you, and anything I can do for you I will do with pleasure. I am in good health but feeling old age. My wife died in 1892, and I am living with my adopted son whom I raised from an infant. Write me again.

Your old friend and comrade,
J. E. Anderson,
Last Captain of Co. C. 5th Texas regiment

Captain Anderson's letter to B. C. Shull, chairman of the Confederate Pension Board of Frederick County, gives more details of Miller's service:

Levi Miller served as a servant for Capt. McBride and Capt. J. E Anderson, of Company C, Fifth Texas regiment, during the entire war from 1861 to 1865. When our company arrived in Richmond in September, 1861, Capt. J. J. McBride wrote his brother who lived in Rockbridge county, Va., to bring us one of his servants (slaves), and he brought us Levi Miller who was with us during all the fighting around Richmond in the year 1862, and in the Maryland campaign. Capt. McBride was wounded in the battle of Manassas August 31, 1862. Levi Miller stayed at the hospital and nursed the Captain until he recovered and both rejoined the company in time for the Fredericksburg fight December 1862. He was on the Suffolk campaign in the spring of 1863.

He was in the Pennsylvania campaign and at New Castle and Chambersburg he met several negroes whom he knew (I think some of them were related to him) and who had run away from Virginia. They tried to get Levi to desert but he would not. He went with us to Georgia and was in the battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, and in the campaign around Chattanooga, Tenn. He was with us during the severe cold winter of 1863-64 in the campaign of Knoxville and East Tennessee.

In the spring of 1864 we returned to Virginia and rejoined General Lee's army. In the battle of the Wilderness, Va., where General Lee started to lead the Texas brigade in a charge and the men turned his horse and made him go to the rear before we would charge – for we would not see him killed – Capt. McBride, during the desperate fighting had both legs broken and was considered to be fatally wounded. This occurred in the early morning of May 6, 1864. Levi Miller was at that time with the wagon trains and did not know of the Captain being wounded until he got to Spotsylvania Courthouse where we arrived on the morning of May 8. On the morning of May 10 Levi Miller brought to me a haversack of rations and in order to get to me in our little temporary ditch and breastworks, had to cross an open field of about 200 yards and as he came across the field in full run the enemy's sharpshooters clipped the dirt all around him. I told him he could not go back until dark as those sharpshooters would get him. I gave him directions where he could find Capt. McBride and as soon as it got dark for him to go and nurse the captain until he died and then return to me.

About two o'clock on that day I saw from the maneuvers of the enemy in our front that they were fixing to charge us and I told Levi Miller that he would get a chance to get in a battle. He asked for a gun and ammunition. We had several extra guns in our ditch and the men gave him a gun and ammunition. About 4 p. m. the enemy made a rushing charge. Levi Miller stood by my side and man never fought harder and better than he did and when the enemy tried to cross our little breastworks and we clubbed and bayoneted them off, no one used his bayonet with more skill and effect than Levi Miller. During the fight the shout of my men was ‘Give ‘em hell, Lee!'

After the fight was over one of the men made a motion that Levi Miller be enrolled as a full member of the company. I put the motion and of course it passed unanimously and I immediately enrolled his name as a full member of the company, which roll I have yet in my possession.

As soon as dark came Levi Miller went to Capt. McBride who was taken to a hospital at Charlottesville, Va., and Levi Miller stayed and nursed him until October, 1865 which was some time after the war closed. Capt. McBride returned to Texas and died there in 1880. He owed his life to Levi Miller's good nursing.

Levi Miller was never absent a day from the army except when nursing Capt. McBride. No better servant was in General lee's army. If anyone was sick in camp he was always ready to wait on them. He was a pet with every man in the company. Thousands of faithful and generous acts I could write to you if space and time would permit.

My company was Company C, Fifth Texas Regiment, Texas Brigade, Hood's Division, Longstreet's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia. Out of a company of 142 men I had but nine left to surrender with me at Appomatox, Va.

Miller's case is obviously unusual in terms of his actually fighting and being enrolled. But his service as a body servant was pretty typical. And of course every black man driving a wagon was one more white man in the firing line.

It's hard to imagine a slave fighting to defend slavery. It is not hard to imagine a Southerner fighting to defend his home. What the war was about in historical hindsight is not necessarily what the people at the time thought it was about.

"Why would Blacks want to fight for a government dedicated to keeping them enslaved as a fundamental principle?"

Dan,

Many free blacks settled in the south by choice. There was LESS discrimination and MORE opportunity for a free black man in Louisiana than in New York. Interestingly there were laws in New Orleans that prohibited a black owner from freeing and then marrying a black slave. So, common practice was to purchase your future spouse, move to any number of smaller communities outside of New Orleans, free and marry your spouse. These small communities were often 100% black.

Free blacks often owned slaves of their own.

So put yourself in the shoes of a free black. Who are you going to support? A bunch of bigoted Yankees that are looking to deprive you of your way of life and destroy the local economy? Or a State that allows you to live in freedom, comfort, and prosperity without the prevalent racial bias found in Northern States?

mjc

The racial situation in the south was incredibly more complicated than history texts make it out to be.

I wish I could remember the title of the book on blacks in the Army of Northern Virginia. It was released about 10 years ago. Something along the lines of Afro-Virginians in the ANV.

The book documents about 400 blacks who served in the ANV under arms. Obviously there were many more serving as teamsters etc.

While it's a small number, it's not insignificant. I have one black figure in my whole army. He's part of a regimant that I found that had several serving in it. I also have a brigade of USCT.

The majority of those who fought for the Confederacy did so because their homes were invaded, not because they supported slavery. Most of the soldiers were dirt farmers, too poor to own slaves, wether they wished to or not. People like to think that everyone owned a slave in the South, which is just so far from true. I have so far located 17 ancestors who fought for Virginia in the war, none of which owned a slave, atleast not according to anyof the documentation I have been able to locate on them. They were all poor farmers from the mountains of South Western Virginia, Blacksburg and Roanoke area, and I have to imagine they would think anyone crazy who submitted to them that they fought a war so some rich guy a county over could own a slave…

Oh yes, back to the origin of the post, I do have some blacks and some indians in my ACW Confederate troops at the 25mm scale. I am currently working on 20mm stuff, and will be doing the same…

Patrick Cleburne's well known proposal to enroll slaves into the army is the prime indicator of how conflicted this issue was. It is a classic "half full or half empty" datum. Obviously there was enormous resistence to taking a measure that, everyone seems to have understood, would have the long term effect of undermining slavery. On the other hand, a year later, the Confederate Congress DID take precisely that step.

The initial rejection of Cleburne's proposal shows that the Confederate political leaders (and a some military leaders as well) did not want to choose between winning independence and maintaining slavery. They wanted both.

The acceptance of the plan, a year later and too late to do any good -- but they didn't know that -- shows that when the choice was stark and unavoidable the Confederacy's primary war aim was independence and not preservation of slavery.

"There are at the present moment many Colored men in the Confederate Army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but real soldiers, having musket on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down any loyal troops and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government and build up that of the rebels."

Frederick Douglass

'Course Fred had an obvious political agenda -- he wanted the US to enlist blacks. Nevertheless, there it is.

Great thread guys. What issue number is the North and South article? I will want to read it over.
VR
James Mattes

There was an excellent article on this in the last issue of "North and South." Its conclusion, well documented and convincingly argued, was that the Confederate army had no black soldiers. A few (as in a handful) black body servants may, in unusual circumstances, have picked up a weapon. But white southerners definitely didn't want black southerners using guns.

As to the causes of the war, it's all right there in period letters, editorials, and even the founding documents of the Confederacy. Slavery caused the war. Southern soldiers understood the southern cause and slavery to be one and the same. It's only after the war is lost that southerners make other arguments.

As a side note to my own topic, my wife's family was from Alabama. The war caused a schism with those opposed to seccession changing their name to "Sharpe" from "Sharp".

A really good lecture series on CD that I've only just begun listening to is "Everything You've Been Taught Is Wrong" by James Loewen which takes on a lot of the myths of American History such as why we celebrate the Pilgrims vs. Jamestown (Lincoln needed a unifying national holiday and Jamestown was in VA which had seceeded). I haven't gotten to the part about the Civil War, but I am well aware that its cause had more to do with State's Rights than slavery.

Wyatt

scomac, I agree as to your first paragraph, but on the second you are ignoring a great deal of evidence to the contrary. That preservation of slavery was a war aim is clear enough; that it was the paramount war aim is not a bit clear.

that it was the paramount war aim is not a bit clear.

It looks pretty clear as the paramount reason for secession.

from Mary Chestnut's diary: If anything can reconcile me to the idea of a horrid failure after all efforts to make good our independence of Yankees, it is Lincoln's proclamation freeing the negroes.

You get that? She's a wealthy planter and Confederate general's wife. She's a ferociously patriotic Confederate, but sees emancipation as the silver lining in a cloud of defeat. Not typical, perhaps, but scarcely a trivial counter example, either. Whatever the war was about, for her, it wasn't defending an institution she hated.

Since there are no records, diaries, unit histories, etc., that speak of a single black in a Confederate unit, it would hard to justify. Aside from the unit formed at the very end of the war in Richmond from slaves that never fought, no black was allowed to join the Confederate army and any that attempted to "pass" were thrown out<q/>

I'm afraid that I have to disagree with you.
Among one of the more well known black soldiers was Sgt. Amos Rucker, (I want to say of the 10th Alabama, but it's late and I cannot find the reference right now). Amos was not only a black soldier under arms, but an NCO in the unit. He also memorized the entire company roll and kept track of it through the war and after the war years at reunions. After the war at UCV reunions, the roll of his unit would be called and he would list who had died where and when. His house was purchased for him by the UCV and when he died in the early 1900's one of the former state governors of Alabama was a pallbearer. He was buried in a Confederate Uniform and had the Battle Flag on his casket.

SCV member Nelson Winbush would also disagree with you, as his grandfather was an armed soldier, (NOT SERVANT), and fought with the Confederate Army at Lookout Mountain.

Also, about six miles from me is Crown Hill Cemetery where rests many Confederate POWS that died up here while in Captivity. Among those are a good dozen or so "Negros", (including some that are listed as "Servants"), and one listed as "Courier/Messenger" for a Georgia Cavalry Unit, and 2 listed as Privates in a Mississippi Infantry Unit.

There are NUMEROUS accounts out there of black troops under arms for the Confederacy, which strangely enough if you look at their army regulations was less discriminating against them than that of the Union Army. Black Confederate soldiers under Confed. Regs, were given the same pay/allowances, etc, as their white counterparts; while the Union army didn't.

The South lost the war however, so the victors got to write "the history" as they wanted it, and over the century and a half since it's gotten re-re-rewritten for politcal and social agendas…

Guy, I'll give you defense of slavery (as a key part of a "Southern way of life") as a paramount cause for secession in South Carolina, and the lower south generally. Much less so for Virginia and the upper south.

Historians generally decry "single cause" explanations for complex events. And the CW was more complex than most. But for some reason the "slavery as single cause" interpretation remains widely held.

I know it wasn't the single cause, but I can't see it as anything other than the primary cause. It must have been a pretty important issue in Virginia for Mason to pen the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. There were other issues, to be sure, but slavery was THE issue.

Remember, also, that Lincoln offered in his 1st Inaugural a (in his view unnecessary) Constitutional amendment protecting slavery in states where it existed, if the southern states would return to the Union. If defense of slavery was their paramount objective in secession, why (besides arrogance and pride and inertia) didn't they take the deal?

The South knew itself to be DIFFERENT. Slavery was a part of that difference, the "peculiar institution." But defense of a "Southern way of life" entailed enormously more, and everything was tangled together.

The great tragedy is the shift in Southern thought after 1831 from seeing slavery as (at best) a necessary evil, to a defnse of slavery as a positive good. Nat Turner's rebellion and the fear it entailed was a primary factor, reenforced by the rise of abolitionism in the North (1831 saw the first publication of Garrison's LIBERATOR. Paranoia fed on paranoia and produced a rather closed society. John Brown's raid (probably deliberately) played to that paranoia and made Lincoln's election the last straw. There's a good bit of derangement in the secession movement, the South at its most paranoid. A lot of Southern whites really imagined themselves being murdered in their beds.

In a larger and calmer context, however, slavery stands as one of several factors, including such things as the tariff and economic dependency on the North generally.

Lots of the LC myth in many of the above posts. Again, since it is easy to find accounts where "passing" blacks were exposed and thrown out of the Confederate army, where J. Davis was shocked to have to ask the Confederate congress in 1864-65 to allow the use of blacks as soldiers, the published debates that ensured in that congress about doing so, the reaction to Cleburne's proposal (he was told to shut up and forget it), no Union reports of killing or capturing black troops, it is difficult to understand how anyone can realistically believe that a government based on the preservation of slavery could undermine it's own stance by enlisting black troops. Merely read the Richmond newspapers covering the public demonstrations of the 20-40 black troops drilling in Richmond in spring 1865 to get an easy answer as to why no black troops served in the Confederate army.

All of the attempts to claim black soldiers fighting for the southern cause date from years/decades after the war when the LC myth makers strived desperately to "prove" that the war could not have been about slavery since even slaves fought for the south. Sad.

Their words, in books, news articles and speeches of the actual southern agitators for secession condemn their reasoning for secession. Only after the war did the survivors attempt to change the rational.

You can beat this subject to death, but 1st person accounts are easy to find (try anything written on secession between 1850 and 1865) and impossible to refute. Only later material has tried to prove that they or their ancestors fought for something else. The desperate attempts since the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s are the most pathetic.

So, yes there were black slave body servents who may have fired a gun at Union troops (most likely to the vast amusement of their owners), yes there were thousands of slaves drafted into labor digging fortifications, yes there were thousands of slaves cooking, driving wagons, burying the dead, etc., but none were legally allowed to join the Confederate army as soldiers or permitted to stay in the army if they were exposed as blacks attempting to "pass".

At the most a few hundred may have "passed". A few dozen were enlisted at the very end of the war as soldiers in Richmond, but never allowed to serve along side white troops or fight. That is the sum of it.

Dan

So how many blacks fought for the south? (Not counting slaves in labor units) It still does not come near to the 178,895 that served in the USCT. For all the lost cause crap about the bigotted north it would appear that the black majority favored the north.

I have no black confederates in my army, I have a black brigade in my union army. I did try and paint some native americans for my southern troops but at 10mm it really doesn't show up well.

Well, the "myth" of the Lost Cause is a whole 'nother topic. As is the key distinction between slavery and racism, and between the North's war aims and the South's -- they were not mirror images. But I agree that there is no convincing evidence that large numbers of slaves ever served as Confederate soldiers under arms.

To return to original question, I think giving a black face to half the wagon drivers in your Confederate supply train would be well justified. Based on Steiner's account you might put one or two on a limber or a limber horse, as well.

Had a long comment, but realized that it has all been said before and much better! This subject will be debated forever. Guess that it shows how important it really was and still is!!

but none were legally allowed to join the Confederate army as soldiers or permitted to stay in the army if they were exposed as blacks attempting to "pass".

At the most a few hundred may have "passed". A few dozen were enlisted at the very end of the war as soldiers in Richmond, but never allowed to serve along side white troops or fight. That is the sum of it.

Dan;
Nothing personl, but HOW much more information do you need to have, (names, units, dates, battles fought, etc.), before you "change your mind"?…
My opinion is never.
I've named 1 Soldier, given the name of the descendant of another, and informed you of quite a few buried less than 10 miles from me, and you STILL say "none"…

I would sir, request that you "dig a little deeper", for your argument is based entirely upon Eastern Theater Operations. (Everything you say is centered in and around the Richmond area); you leave out the Mississippi and the West…

but none were legally allowed to join the Confederate army as soldiers or permitted to stay in the army if they were exposed as blacks attempting to "pass".

At the most a few hundred may have "passed". A few dozen were enlisted at the very end of the war as soldiers in Richmond, but never allowed to serve along side white troops or fight. That is the sum of it.

Dan;
Nothing personl, but HOW much more information do you need to have, (names, units, dates, battles fought, etc.), before you "change your mind"?…
My opinion is never.
I've named 1 Soldier, given the name of the descendant of another, and informed you of quite a few buried less than 10 miles from me, and you STILL say "none"…

I would sir, request that you "dig a little deeper", for your argument is based entirely upon Eastern Theater Operations. (Everything you say is centered in and around the Richmond area); you leave out the Mississippi and the West…

James -

The article I mentioned, that totally destroys the Neo-Confederate argument for large numbers of Blacks in the Confederate armies is in the Vol. 10, #2 issue of North and South by Bruce Levine. It contains just a small portion of the material in his wonderful book, Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves During the Civil War.

The article was quite an eye-opener for a lot of people.

Thanks Dan I will have to look for it. I use to love North and South but would miss it at the local bookstore. I will check it out. They do write some controversal articles from time to time.

As for Southern Black Confederates I have seen reports of those who recieved pensions from the Southern States so there is some (although I will give you it was very minor) examples of Blacks (Not the term used at the time) in the service of the Confederacy. My brother-in-law (Retired black CSM) was a member of 10th? U.S. cavalry reenactment unit at Ft. Hood and provided me with some of the first information on this subject. But he is from California so he would believe anything!

VR
James Mattes

Well said, Dan. Well said.

There will always be an exception (as Murphy and others have put forward as "proof") that proves the general fact.

I don't doubt/deny that there is an element of revisionism in attempts by, e.g., the SCV (Sons of Confederate Veterans) to broaden out to include modern blacks. No one wants to be called a racist.

Otoh, there is probably a political element on the "myth of the Lost Cause." The modfern South is the most conservative (and therefore most Republican) part of the country, and therefore some liberals and Democrats might wish to portray it as irredeemably racist. Blaming it all on slavery (a mostly Southern phenomenon) or on segregation (entirely Southern) versus blaming it on racism (as likely to be found in the North as South) serves all sorts of political purposes, and has since the 1950s.

History is what the Present finds useful to remember about the Past. I personally think it a sign of huge progress that the Daughters of the Confederacy welcome black women into their organization, or the SCV black men within theirs.

"All of the attempts to claim black soldiers fighting for the southern cause date from years/decades after the war"

Simply not true. Aside from the evidence given above I've found accounts in several northern newspapers about black Confederates. There's a famous drawing of two blacks in full uniform doing picket duty during the Paeninsula Campaign.

Why would Blacks want to fight for a government dedicated to keeping them enslaved as a fundemental principle?

Because until the Emancipation the North was, too.

If neither side likes you much, fighting the one that's invading might seem like the thing to do.
-Kle.

but I am well aware that its cause had more to do with State's Rights than slavery.

Actually, the general trend of thought among professional historians today is that slavery and not states' rights was the primary cause.
James McPherson's arguments in Battle Cry of Freedom are very convincing. He points out that the slave states in the 1850s pursued a strong Federal government in order to protect slavery. For example, McPherson called the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 the grossest violation of states' rights up to that point in American history. Considering that it replaced local juries with Federal judges, he has a point. Southerners only adopted states' rights when Republicans took over the Presidency, and then their primary motivation was the preservation of slavery. Slavery came first to them, states rights and all other issues were secondary.

So getting back to the point – no, I would not paint any African American Confederates. There may have been some, but not enough to justify their inclusion.

Well put warwell.