Melvin Ely: Civil War history is a battlefield
...Melvin Ely, professor of history and black studies at the College of William and Mary, knows the drill. Rumors offered as fact. Secondhand sources. Snippets of quotes with no context, chronology or original source.
"People who say that there were black soldiers seem to think that we have a political problem with the idea that there would be black soldiers for the Confederacy," Ely told me. "If there were soldiers fighting for the Confederacy, I would be the first to come out and say it. My interest as a historian would be to get at the truth."
Free and enslaved blacks were conscripted for work crews. Many Confederate officers also kept personal servants, Ely says, and in the heat of battle some servants would pick up a gun and use it. But not till February 1865 did the Confederate Congress authorize black soldiers.
"About two dozen were recruited," Civil War historian James I. Robertson Jr. of Virginia Tech said in an e-mail. "They paraded around Richmond's Capitol Square one day in March. That was their soldier service."...
Read entire article at Hampton Roads Daily Press
"People who say that there were black soldiers seem to think that we have a political problem with the idea that there would be black soldiers for the Confederacy," Ely told me. "If there were soldiers fighting for the Confederacy, I would be the first to come out and say it. My interest as a historian would be to get at the truth."
Free and enslaved blacks were conscripted for work crews. Many Confederate officers also kept personal servants, Ely says, and in the heat of battle some servants would pick up a gun and use it. But not till February 1865 did the Confederate Congress authorize black soldiers.
"About two dozen were recruited," Civil War historian James I. Robertson Jr. of Virginia Tech said in an e-mail. "They paraded around Richmond's Capitol Square one day in March. That was their soldier service."...