BTW was referring to blacks being loyal to the South in the postwar era, as loyal citizens of their states. he was not asserting that blacks had been loyal to their Confederate slavemasters during the Civil War.
Oh! Was, he now. Let those who are more objective than you, judge his words for themselves:
While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site [Where we respect the right of the rooted people in every State and Nation to honor their respective heritages.]