As I said, the matter wants more investigation. Grissom's argument about a baggage-train of porters and bottle-washers is halfway credible.....but it fails to explain why an army scrupulous about not accepting blacks to serve in arms, would be careless about letting them trail along behind the army in a group, on their own, with weapons. I don't get it. So they were carrying Massa's weapons? Well, just a second -- and he was at the head of the column, and his weapons were with his man, in the train? Doubt it! So whose weapons were they? If the Negroes seen with Jackson were carrying them for their own account, to protect themselves or for waging war or protecting the train, then their carrying raises a problem for people who, as you do, think that Civil-War era Southerners would have been as paranoid about the blacks' being armed for any reason, or in anyone's army. Your side has some 'splainin' to do. The inconvenient assertion is:
a) The were carrying weapons.
b) They were traveling with Jackson's Corps.
c) They were in a body, somewhere in Jackson's column.
d) They were black.
The comment about distinguishing European from Semitic Jews was odd -- it has a whiff of Neo-Nazism about it. I've seen an article somewhere on a DNA study involving Jewish populations or Israeli populations and Palestinians, and I don't remember what exactly it said. There was something about shared, or not shared, DNA between the European and Ashkenazic populations, but I don't remember what it was, and it was only mildly interesting at the time. Why Grissom should prick up his ears and make a big deal about such a distinction suggests he's been reading the wrong people -- IMHO. Since you asked.