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To: stainlessbanner
I believe it's likely there were more black regiments than officially recognized. I've met several descendants of black confederates and the stories handed down are amazing.

Sorry but I believe that is impossible, that there were no black combat regimentss and almost no black combat soldiers. And I base that on several reasons. One, the confederate government didn't authorize black combat units until March 1865. Two, as anyone who has read the OR will discover, the confederate military was well documented and almost all those documents survived the war. And nowhere in any of those confederate documents is there any mention of black combat units. Three, none of the major commanders of the time mention anything about black combat units in any of their letters or documents. And fourth, when black combat units finally were authorized Richard Ewell was placed in charge of the effort. And his longtime aide, Major George Brown, notes that a single company raised in Richmond were the first and only black troops used by the confederacy.

Black combat troops are a nice story but existed only on the Union side.

183 posted on 07/12/2007 5:18:35 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Save Fredericksburg. Support CVBT.)
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To: Non-Sequitur
There are enough credible sources to verify the existence of black confederates. My favorite is W.C. Davis' acknowledgment of black troops despite his criticism of the CSA government.

Tell the gentleman I sat next to at the Lee-Jackson banquet a couple of years ago his gr-grandaddy wasn't a Confederate soldier and you'd have a fight on your hands!

195 posted on 07/12/2007 7:40:13 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
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To: Non-Sequitur; stainlessbanner
... there were no black combat regimentss and almost no black combat soldiers. And I base that on several reasons. One, the confederate government didn't authorize black combat units until March 1865. Two, as anyone who has read the OR will discover, the confederate military was well documented and almost all those documents survived the war.

Just because the Feds segregated blacks into separate units in the Federal army doesn't mean they fought that way in various state troops on the Confederate side. From an 1862 report in the Official Records by Lt. Col. J. G. Parkhurst, Ninth Regiment Michigan Infantry about the battle of July 13, 1862 at Murfreeborough, Tennessee:

The forces attacking my camp were the First Regiment Texas Rangers, Colonel Wharton, and a battalion of the First Georgia Rangers, Colonel Morrison, and a large number of citizens of Rutherford County, many of whom had recently taken the oath of allegiance to the United States Government. There were also quite a number of negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day.

I don't know if the blacks were officially counted as soldiers or not. You might ask the Federal troops they helped whip at Murfreeborough. From the Confederate report of the battle:

Attacked Murfreesborough 5 a. m. last Sunday morning; captured two brigadier-generals, staff and field officers, and 1,200 men; burnt $200,000 worth of stores; captured sufficient stores with those burned to amount to $500,000 and brigade of 60 wagons; 300 mules, 150 or 200 horses, and field battery of four pieces; destroyed the railroad and depot at Murfreesborough. Had to retreat to McMinnville, owing to large number of prisoners to be guarded. Our loss 16 or 18 killed; 25 or 30 wounded. Enemy's loss 200 or 300.

199 posted on 07/12/2007 9:32:20 PM PDT by rustbucket
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To: Non-Sequitur
Two, as anyone who has read the OR will discover, the confederate military was well documented and almost all those documents survived the war.

I forgot to comment on this point of yours. It is not always as easy as that. Confederate muster rolls from west of the Mississippi did not always survive or were not complete or updated versions of them with late joiners never made it to Richmond.

For a long time we tried to find the Confederate units of a couple of my Texas great great grandfathers after whom I'm named. Eventually we came across the wartime diary of one of them in another branch of the family. It identified his unit, and with that information we were able to find him on some regimental returns. He had a common name, and there were something like ten people with that name in Texas Confederate units. That is why we never could identify his unit before.

We found the unit of the other one in his Confederate pension application. The application was approved after his former commander swore in an affidavit that he had been part of the unit. We always though he was part of that unit -- two of his brothers were on the muster roll of the unit, but my ancestor was too young to join until 1864, after the surviving muster roll was recorded.

200 posted on 07/12/2007 10:17:58 PM PDT by rustbucket
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