Yes, there were blacks (very, very, VERY few) who were armed in the Confederacy. This totally begs the point of the article and of Bill Flax, who tries to portray a miniscule handful of black troops (virtually all of whom, by the way, were guaranteed their FREEDOM for enlisting) as indicative of their enthusiasm for fighting for the Confederacy. By the way, are you sure the black troops in Tennesssee you are referring to are not UNION black troops armed after most of Tennessee fell to the Union?
That's all I desire to be acknowledged. My point is that there are some people on threads like these (e.g. Partisan) and some historians (e.g. McPherson) who deny even that much, even if the ones that were armed only number between a couple hundred and a couple thousand.
This totally begs the point of the article and of Bill Flax, who tries to portray a miniscule handful of black troops (virtually all of whom, by the way, were guaranteed their FREEDOM for enlisting)
That was not always their motivation and in fact was probably only a motivation for those who enlisted in the Confederate federal army in Richmond in 1865. There were about 140,000 free blacks living in the CSA during the civil war and from what the records indicate, they are the ones who enlisted with the various state militia units in places like Tennessee and Louisiana before the CSA federal units began accepting blacks.
By the way, are you sure the black troops in Tennesssee you are referring to are not UNION black troops armed after most of Tennessee fell to the Union?
I am certain. It was the product of a law passed by the Tennessee state legislature and signed by Governor Harris in June of 1861...around the 21st or 22nd IIRC, though I don't have the journal at hand right now.