Actually, all over the Pre-WBTS South & during TWBTS a great many slaves WERE armed, as they hunted for the plantations, farms & families, both free & slave, too.
Incidentally, two of the three FIRST all-volunteer CSA regiments were PREDOMINANTLY Blacks & “mixed-bloods”, who were mostly AmerIndian-Black mixtures. = In the early days of the WBTS, many slaves were FREED so that they could BE soldiers, sailors or CS Marines & a great many FREE Blacks rushed to help defend the CSA from the Northern invaders..
(Slaves were NOT free to take the Oath of Enlistment in the CS military forces, so in many cases their owners freed them to enlist.)
The contributions of NON-Whites as combatants in the CSA is one of the great stories that are NOT told today, as that TRUE STORY “just doesn’t fit” into the MYTH that the WBTS was ALL or even MOSTLY “to free the slaves”.
(IF you doubt this TRUTH, be sure to go to the library & look for photos of UNITED CONFEDERATE VETERANS reunions that started in the 1880s & continued until the CSA veterans died of old age. = There are MANY Black CSA veterans in CSA uniforms at those veteran’s reunions.)
Btw, the Confederate States Marines ALWAYS had Black Marines & the various detachments & companies were ALWAYS desegregated by race/religion/national origin/creed.
OTOH, the US Marines FINALLY accepted the first few Black Marines during WWII.
NOTE: A longtime friend of mine, from my military career days, is a USMC GUNNER (a Chief Warrant Officer), Retired. - “Gus” is likely THE EXPERT on CS Marines & he told me that his research of the WBTS era indicates that the CSMC was about 25% NON-white & included Asians, Blacks, Jews, Latinos & Native American Marines from 1861 until the end of TWBTS.
(Gus is writing a scholarly book about the history of the CSMC & hopes to have his book published within 3-4 years.)
Incidentally, Gus’s grandfather was a CORPORAL, CSMC from February 1862 to the end of the WBTS & served the majority of his CSMC enlistment in New Orleans & Savannah.
Yours, TMN78247
Thank you for the history lesson.
I had never heard of the CS Marines.
Good information. Thank you. We must pry history from the agenda-driven hands of the radical leftists. It is hard to evaluate truth when so many work to blur history to their own advantage. Again, thank you.