Black Confederates in the Civil War

Black Confederates in the Civil War

"Black Confederates? Why haven’t we heard more about them? National
Park Service historian, Ed Bearrs, stated, “I don’t want to call it a
conspiracy to ignore the role of Blacks both above and below the Mason-
Dixon line, but it was definitely a tendency that began around 1910”
Historian, Erwin L. Jordan, Jr., calls it a “cover-up” which started
back in 1865.

...It has been estimated that over 65,000 Southern blacks were in the
Confederate ranks. Over 13,000 of these, “saw the elephant” also known
as meeting the enemy in combat. These Black Confederates included both
slave and free. The Confederate Congress did not approve blacks to be
officially enlisted as soldiers (except as musicians), until late in
the war. But in the ranks it was a different story. Many Confederate
officers did not obey the mandates of politicians, they frequently
enlisted blacks with the simple criteria, “Will you fight?” Historian
Ervin Jordan, explains that “biracial units” were frequently organized
“by local Confederate and State militia Commanders in response to
immediate threats in the form of Union raids…”. Dr. Leonard Haynes, a
African-American professor at Southern University, stated, “When you
eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you’ve eliminated the history
of the South.”

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