These professional historians don't accept the notion of black rebel soldiers and you look silly putting it forward.
You look silly denying history and calling all those union soldiers and newspaper reporters liars. Read the regimental history of Berdan's Sharpshooters, for example. There are at least two stories in there about black Confederate sharpshooters they contended with. I guess you think they lied. Read through the Northern newspapers. You will find stories that mention black Confederates. What the revisionists you quoted are talking about is the idea that the Confederacy was a multicultural Army where all races were equal and so forth. That was no more true for the Confederacy than it was for the Union. That is not what we are talking about. What we are talking about is whether or not blacks served in the Confederate Army, and the answer is yes. True, most were support personnel, either servants or hired blacks, but many served as soldiers as well. Some commanders allowed it, some didn't. No, black Confederates were not treated as equals. Blacks up North or in the Union army were not treated as equals, either. AMERICA, NORTH AND SOUTH, was a plethora of race prejudice in the 1800's. That is the simple truth, Walt. There were black Confederates, Frederick Douglass knew it, Horace Greeley knew it, the union soldiers knew it, the northern newspapers knew it, Dr. Steiner knew it. Anyone who would doubt it would also have to believe that blacks did not participate in the American Revolution, because they could have run off and joined the British to gain their freedom.
You look silly denying history and calling all those union soldiers and newspaper reporters liars.
You haven't provided any credible evidence of any number of black soldiers. Certainly Frederick Douglass didn't see any black rebel soldiers. His source that such existed in September, 1861 is unknown, at least to me. It's hearsay.
Dr. Steiner said the rebel army numbered as much as 64,000, when it really was no more than about 45,000. Both he and Douglass were proponents of enlisting blacks in the federal armies. Their comments can add context to an interpretation, but taken with other evidence, there is simply no credible evidence of more than a handful of black rebel soldiers. As I indicated yesterday, if there were blacks fighting for the rebels, then rebel congressmen, rebel generals, and even the rebel president seemed unaware of such. Jefferson Davis' suppression of General Cleburne's proposal to arm slaves is well known. There was -no-way- the rebels were going to allow blacks to arm -- they were terrified of slave revolt. Your "interpretation" is made up of a few quotes. When the context is viewed, your position simply can't be sustained.
Walt