[stand watie]

NOPE. in point of FACT, blacks DID make great soldiers,sailors & marines.

i just wish we'd had MORE of them as snipers. then there would have been many more DEAD bluebelly officers!

free dixie,sw

[capitan_refugio]

From the early 1800's, southern slaveowners lived in constant fear of a slave uprising like the one that had occurred in Haiti. The idea of an armed Negro population was an anathema to them.

This is one reason why very few Negro served in the ranks of the confederate army as soldiers. There is abundant evidence of the use of slaves and freemen as cooks, laborers, teamsters, body servant, etc.. And there is good historical evidence for Negro units being used in secondary duty, such as the Louisiana Native Guard.

However, the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of black confederate combatants sometimes claimed is without a solid foundation.