"you people"???
...but I've never once heard one of you explain the last sentence of the paragraph: "The fact was patent, and rather interesting, when considered in conection with the horror rebels express at the suggestion of Black soldiers being employed in the National Defense."
What's to wonder about? Blacks being loyal to the South and fighting for it, whether directly as soldiers or in some other capacity, were a natural thing and welcomed by the Confederates. They fought for the South just as they fought for the Colonies against the British. The use of black troops by the North was the very opposite of that in their eyes. The blacks in question were overwhelmingly runaway slaves, that is, Southern blacks. They were seen as traitors. To the Confederate, they were the equivelent of tories during the American Revolution, with the added runaway slave issue thrown in to boot. The opposition was not merely one of race, which no doubt was a part, even Northerners objected heatedly to black soldiers. The treachery it represented to Confederates was the major component. Arthur Freemantle, a british officer, described a situation that happened after the battle of Manassas, in which a slave who had run off to the Northern side right before the battle was captured in it's aftermath. He described how two black servants with the Confederate army demanded, quite insistently, that he be shot or hung as a traitor. If those two slaves felt that way about a runaway intending to help the enemy with his labor (this was before the North would arm a black), how worse it would have been if he could have taken up arms. To a Confederate of any color, US Colored troops were seen as traitors from their own midst who had taken up arms against them, much worse than the Northerners who were 'merely' invading their States.
From Fort Pillow to Olustee to Poison Spring to the Battle of the Crater to Saltville and battles in between there is instance after instance of black Union soldiers being shot while trying to surrender or shot after surrendering. Why is that?
Shall we list the innumerable instances of Northern war crimes and ask the same question? BTW, some of your examples are not acknowledged instances of your position.
The fact of the matter is that there weren't thousands of black combat soldiers. Oh there were blacks with the confederate army, but in supporting roles as teamsters and stevadores and servents and the like.
Once again you call Douglass a liar, and now you call Chief Inspector Steiner a liar. Everyone's a liar that disagrees with you, I guess. Especially if they were there and knew what they were talking about. A most wonderful defense for your position, one that is disproven by the record. Tennessee, for example, legally sanctioned the recruitment of free blacks into the ranks of regiments. The 14th Tennessee Infantry listed 65 "free men of color" on their Roll of Honor, one whom was killed in action carrying their colors in Pickett's Charge. The references to black Confederates serving in combat roles are numerous within Northern newspapers, letters of Union soldiers, reports of Union officers, etc.. That neo-unionist revisionists and anti-Southern hatemongers are so upset by something well evidenced in the historical record is strange. I suppose that after they eradicate Frederick Douglass and Horace Greely from the record, they will next eliminate the patriotic actions of American blacks, most slaves, during the American Revolution, because they would have "obviously" fought for the British and gained their freedom. Oh, I forgot to quote Greely, he, like Douglass, pointed out the black soldiers in the Confederate Army: "For more than two years, Negroes have been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They have been embodied and drilled as rebel soldiers and had paraded with white troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union." Another 'liar' that will now have to be expunged from history.
The idea that a south, where every single state placed restrictions on black ownership of firearms, would welcome thousands of armed blacks in their army as combat soldiers is laughable.
Not as laughable as how upset hatemongers and revisionists get whenever the subject comes up.
I'm not calling anyone a liar, not even you although I think you are putting words in Dr, Steiner's mouth. I don't disagree that there there thousands of blacks along with the southern army in a support role. And Dr. Steiner's account bears this out. I'm disputing the southron fairy tale of tens of thousands of black combat soldiers marching side-by-side with their white bretheren against the Yankee foe. That is the part that is ridiculous, that is the part that is wrong. You would like us to believe that the same society that placed restrictions on any ownership by firearms by blacks would suddenly welcome them in the ranks. The same states which had laws, sometime Constitutitons, against free blacks living in their state would welcome armed blacks in their regiments. The society that went to tremendous lengths to segregate their institutions would integrate their army. That is the ridiculous part. And that same society which, according to you, owed so much to the efforts of free black confederate soldiers during the war would repay that loyalty by passing the Black Codes after the war that placed those loyal black veterans, some of whom must have been free for decades, to a condition as closely resembling slavery as possible. If you are correct, if there were thousands of black combat soldiers in the southern ranks, then you did have an odd way of showing your appreciation.
The 14th Tennessee Infantry listed 65 "free men of color" on their Roll of Honor, one whom was killed in action carrying their colors in Pickett's Charge.
The 14th Tennessee was in the Third Brigade of Heath's Division. They did not participate in Pickett's Charge. Be careful of what you believe.