Damn man, you do NEED to read a history book. Nathan Bedford Forrest's (Considered a founder of the KKK) favorite blacksmith was a FREE black man from Aberdeen Mississippi. This was during the war.
Not all blacks in the ante bellum south were slaves. And many of the free blacks owned slaves.
I know you do not believe me, but all you have to do is google it. or even better go down to the libary and look it up.
No need. I’m a student of history at Texas Tech, come from a long, long, LONG line of Confederate and Rev. War soldiers. I know my history. I know there were some free that fought, some slaves that fought. The fact is they were stupid, intentionally kept stupid, and didn’t know what they were fighting for, other than what they knew, what they were told in the South.