free dixie,sw
Haven’t read the gentleman’s book.
However, do you contest that there were less than 500,000 free blacks in 1860? That’s what the census says.
Of the total Union state population of roughly 25M, about 2.5M served in the military. The CSA percentage of service by white men was somewhat higher, but they had all those slaves to take up the slack on the home front.
Applying that same percentage to free blacks would give a total of less than 50,000 as potential recruits to the CSA. Since the considerable majority of free blacks lived in northern states, it is reasonable to assume most of them would have chosen to fight for the Union, even leaving out of the discussion the obvious racial politics and the fact that northern blacks wouldn’t have found it easy to even get to the CSA recruiting offices.
The other option for the CSA to come up with 100,000+ “volunteers” is that slaves served in the CSA, albeit in informal ways, since the CSA government quite carefully prohibited their serving legally until 1865.
Are you seriously contending that a black slave who traveled and fought with an Alabama regiment was a volunteer in any legitimate sense of the word? A slave, by definition, cannot be a volunteer.
I am, BTW, well aware of Forrest’s black scouts, although I’m unclear whether they were free or, if they were slaves, who “owned” them.