(07-21-2019, 11:26 PM)B2hibry Wrote:

(07-21-2019, 07:00 PM)Bullseye Wrote: The overwhelming majority were not allowed to have weapons.  Most served as forced laborers, building roads, etc.  Of the few who did actually fight for the Confederacy, most either did so under duress or the misguided hope of improving their status and earning freedom.

Whitewashing history, indeed.

Thanks for proving my whitewashing point. You fail to recognize that blacks were just as ingrained into slavery as whites. They were establishing wealth on the backs of slaves just like the evil whites.

As to the civil war, consider the fact that blacks were not free as of yet and could not fight whether for the Union or the Confederacy. They simply were not able to take up arms by law. With that said, the Confederate victory at First Manassas was because of blacks within the ranks whether as a service corp or fighter. Confederate numbers dwarfed Union numbers because of blacks. Frederick Douglas was pissed that blacks would take up arms for the Confederacy, yet the Lincoln Administration strictly forbid it..."fighting the rebels with only one hand, the white one." Sadly, the Union quickly turned to "contraband" to support Union war efforts.

Frederick Douglas states in 1861, "it is now pretty well established that there are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants, and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets. Slaveholders accept the aid of the black man," he said. "Why should a good cause be less wisely conducted?"

If anyone accepts blacks freely fought for the Union, you would also have to admit they freely fought for the Confederacy.

Fun facts. There were large groups of light-skinned blacks that fought for the Confederacy because they felt closer to the planter class (half white blood).

Support Dem, support slavery.

There was a draft back then on both sides of the war.
Your choices, if you were drafted, were to show up at the army camp waiting for your assignment, or pay someone else to show up for you. If you didn't believe in the cause, and didn't have money, you could and theory try to run away, but, records indicate that few did. At the very very beginning of the war, there were quite a few voluntary enlistments, but that didn't last. most of those who fought during the 4-year long conflict had been drafted.
At first, only white males were drafted, but soon black males were drafted too. Again, on both sides.
So I think you're both missing the point, trying to argue that one person had more of a free choice than another about whether or not to fight the war.
The ones with free choice were the ones at the very top who made the decisions to secede or to fight secession with force.

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