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"Yet there were other quite different signs of black attitudes, ones more comforting if puzzling. From all across the new Confederacy there came stories of blacks, free and slave, who wanted to do their bit for the new nation. Even as the first elements of the new government reached Richmond, they could see a South Carolina slave who had come north with a Carolina regiment to defend the Virginia frontier, marching about the city wearing a sword with which he swore he would shave Lincoln's head.

"A free black descended from one of George Washington's slaves, now the owner of a small farm near Mt. Vernon, offered twenty-eight acres, one-sixth of his property to be sold at auction to raise money for Virginia's defense.

"More active efforts in Virginia came form other quarters, like the fifty free blacks in Amelia County, and two-hundred more in Petersburg who offered themselves to the government to perform labor or even to fight under white officers. Slaves like a Tennessee barber named Jim donated money from their small savings to help raise companies; a Montgomery slave subscribed $150 of his own to the first call for loans from Secretary of the Treasury Christopher Memminger; not far from Mobile sixty slaves on one plantation practiced drilling every night after a full days' work, expressing their hope to fight the "damned buckram abolitionists" who had caused the crisis that now led to the fear of slave uprisings and the consequent curtailment of their few little freedoms."

-Look Away! William C. Davis

Davis goes on to say their motives and support varied. Some freedmen were in it for the business, using their skills as blacksmiths and masons, to earn money. Others were caught up in the excitement of the times, looking for adventure. Still others realized that although the might be near the bottom of the social order, it was still their state and they ought to defend it. Others had hopes of freedom if their patriotism was displayed during this time of crisis.

There are many good accounts of blacks and Jews in the Confederacy - lots of research is being done. North & South magazine ran a great article "Black Confederates: Myth or Reality?" (vol. 5 no.3) with many good sources and accounts. Enjoy!

[Dante3]

I inquired about the book LOOK AWAY but was told it won't be available for sale until next year.

[Non-Sequitur]

And as Davis pointed out, the reasons why free blacks and slaves supported the confederacy were many and varied, but one reason was the hope that their patriotism might be recognized and their conditions improved. Of course their hopes were in vain. At the same time that South Carolina slave was waving his sword in Richmond, Alabama had just adopted a constitution which completely outlawed the emancipation of any slave for any reason. As that Virginia farmer was offering the land for the war effort, Florida had amended its constitution, creating a special court whose sole purpose was to try slaves, mulattos and free blacks. The juries were to be made up only of slave owners. And as Robert Toombs himself said, if a black man could be given a gun and made into a soldier then that placed him on equal footing with a white man and that would mean their whole system of slavery was a mistake. I have never doubted that there were free blacks who fought as soldiers in the confederate army. But they can be counted in the dozens, maybe hundreds. The idea of thousands of black confederate combat soldiers is ridiculous.