Good morning, tonka_truck,
Another link for black confederate records.
http://calebstriumph.com/black_confederates/black_confederates.html
Now, you’re going to have to do some of your own research. I don’t have time to look up everything for you. Also, just in case you don’t read the complete site, here is a quote re: Who was considered a soldier. Later on, I’ll post another link about buglers and drummers actually being.......yep, you guessed it, soldiers.
“According to General August Kautz’s, USA,”Customs of Service, for Non-Commissioned Officers and Soldiers” (1864), page. 11: “In the fullest sense, any man in the military service who receives pay, whether sworn in or not, is a soldier because he is subject to military law. Under this general head, laborers, teamsters, sutlers and chaplains, are soldiers.”
By this definition from a Union (Northern) source, the Free men of color and slaves who were paid by the Confederate government were soldiers. If a rule applies to one side of the conflict, it is true for both.
Hello again, tonka_truck,
This link has a few videos of Southern black americans with a story to tell of the Rebel flag and what it means to them.
Nothing like jumping to conclusions with nothing to base it on, is there? Just because they are identified by company didn't mean they were combat soldiers. Company officers needed cooks, too.
There is no doubt that the rebel army hauled slaves and free blacks along with them from the very beginning. But it is also an established fact that the confederate government did not authorize the enlistment and conscription of black combat soldiers until March 1865. Any reports of black soldiers prior to that have to be offset by the fact that not a single confederat general that I'm aware of ever reported any black combat soldiers in their ranks, and with few exceptions the rebel leadership was opposed to using blacks for combat roles to the very end of the rebellion. The idea that massed ranks of black soldiers fought shoulder to shoulder with their white compatriots in their struggle against the Yankee oppressors is very much a 20th century revisionist story. Blacks with the rebel army did what blacks throughout the South did; menial labor, serving roles, and other jobs considered beneath whites. Their labor did support the confederate war effort but if you want to consider them soliders in the same manner as the white soldiers then I doubt your confederate ancestors would have agreed with you.
Is it? The U.S. army considered black soldiers in its ranks as soldiers. The confederate government considered them as runaway slaves. The U.S. government expected that captured black soldiers were to be treated as POWs. Confederate law said that any black Union soldier captured was to be sent back to slavery. So why wasn't the rule applied to one side applied to the other in this case?
Today your asssignment is to study up on a fellow Arkansan, General Patrick Cleburne. Specifically I would like you to report on what his views were regarding negro soldiers and how those views impacted the confederacy. You may use yankee inventions like google to assist you, but your report must be in your own words. I will check back with you at 1800 hours to see how you've done.