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Without any sort of official sanction at either the state or the national level then did it really exist? A group of free blacks may have organized themselves and called themselves a regiment, but the state refused their service and do did Richmond. That sounds more like wishful thinking than an actual army unit.

Somewhere among my thousands of old newspaper articles is one where the Louisiana governor accepted the service of the Native Guards, which were intended to be home guards. It would take me a while to find it. A quick search of the web turned up this link which said the New Orleans mayor and the governor accepted them. See Link. Page 21 of the link mentions their acceptance by the mayor and governor. That page also says some 3,000 free blacks ultimately joined the Confederate Native Guards.

There was also a company of the First Louisiana Zouaves that was composed of French and Creoles (free mixed race) that fought in Virginia and may be responsible for some Federal reports of black Confederate soldiers.

REBEL NEGRO PICKETS. So much has been said about the wickedness of using the negroes on our side in the present war, that we have thought it. worth while to reproduce on this page a sketch sent us from Fredericksburg by our artist, Mr. Theodore R. Davis, which is a faithful representation of what was seen by one of our officers through his field-glass, while on outpost duty at that place. As the picture shows, it represents two full-blooded. negroes, fully armed, and serving as pickets in the rebel army. It has long been known to military men that the insurgents affect no scruples about the employment of their slaves in any capacity in which they may be found useful. Yet there are people here at the North who affect to be horrified at the enrollment of negroes into regiments. Let us hope that the President will not be deterred by any squeamish scruples of the kind from garrisoning the Southern forts with fighting men of any color that can be obtained." Harpers 10 Jan 1863