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"Zero, repeat ZERO, blacks fought on the Confederate side during the Civil War."

Not to be gratuitously offensive, but be careful when you use a term like zero. Of course it isn't true.

For a generation historians have been trying to figure out the question of how many blacks fought for the Confederacy.

Currently it seems that certain things are agreed by both sides. There were many instances of "personal servants" that went to war with a young soldier, and filled the person's slot during a leave or injury or death. There were many times where teamsters or cooks fought for short times due to emergency situations. Stonewall Jackson, who taught Sunday school for slaves before the war was a bit of a magnet for southern blacks, and Maryland civilians reported seeing some Confederate black soldiers from Stonewall's Second Corps marching in order (or as much order Confederates ever marched in) through the streets of Fredrick. There's a report from the Peninsula campaign of Union soldiers finally killing a sniper in a tree and being surprised that he was a black Confederate. In Burke Davis' book "To Appomattox", he quotes from a diary on page 176 of a soldier watching a group of black Confederates driving off a Union cavalry regiment before being itself scattered by a second charge. This may be the only time an all black Confederate group went into battle just 5 days before Lee's surrender.

Anyway, the fact that some blacks fought for the Confederacy is not disputed. Nor is the fact that many more wanted to fight, and many more donated by buying war bonds and such.

What is under dispute is whether these instances were just a few unusual cases, or if it was a larger scale movement. The best book I've seen on the topic I can't remember the title of but it was something like "Black Yankees and Afro Confederates", but it was the best treatment of blacks in Civil War Virginia, the state that had the most slaves, and the second most freed blacks before the war (Maryland first).

Anyway, in the middle of this years of research and argument, it's not helpful when someone says "zero" blacks ever fought for the Confederacy. It doesn't help either side's argument. It just comes across as unlearned.

As for blacks fighting on the Confederate side, ZERO was a bit much. Yes, here and there a black person fired at U. S. troops perhaps and slaves were certainly corralled into doing trench-digging and whatnot for the rebels, but the fact remains that under Confederate law it was illegal (strictly enforced) for any black person to be in the Confederate Army or in any rebel state militia until the last week of March 1865, when the CSA Congress authorized black soldiers, though none was ever recruited other than slave labor gangs dubbed "companies" and "regiments" at the very end. None fought.

During the CSA invasions of Maryland in 1862, of Pennsylvania in 1863, and of Maryland again in 1864, the rebels brought with them wagonloads of manacles for capturing blacks and dragging them south, probably accounting for any blacks seen marching with the rebels.

The Whig Party disappeared in 1854, replaced by the GOP. Some former Whigs certainly did vote for Bell, but they drifted into the Democratic Party during the war.

Two prominent southern Democrats who remained loyal to the flag to which you pledged allegiance in elementary school were Andrew Johnson and Sam Houston. Far too many Republicans today do not realize that they are parroting Democrat propaganda drilled into them by Democrat history books.

You might also mention the big Confederate monument at Arlington cemetary. The carving on one side clearly shows a black soldier marching with a column of Confederate troops. The sculpture was done by a Confederate veteran.

I do agree with those who suggest that black soldiers were scattered and relatively few in number. If Cleburne's plan to intergrate blacks into the Rebel ranks in large numbers had been accepted when it was made instead of a year later, too late to matter, the CSA probably would have won.

The fact that the Confederate government rejected Cleburne's proposal in 63-64 shows that defending slavery was still a war aim. The decision to implement something like Ceburne's proposal in 64-65 equally shows that defending slavery was not their PARAMOUNT objective, as they were willing to abandon it when the alternative, defeat, was very clear and present. Like most of us from time to time, they postponed the decision that might have saved them uintil too late.