I do want to provide you with at least a direct answer to your question…yes, I’m sure there were some black Confederates who fought as soldiers.There are eyewitness accounts to back that up. The full story is in how many, and what their actual motivation was.

There are also eyewitness accounts from soldiers like the Union sharpshooter who was forced to shoot black Confederate ’soldiers’ who were loading cannons for a CSA artillery crew…’I shot them if they loaded the cannons, and the Confederates (standing in their trenches) shot them if they didn’t’.

There is a ton of data on just about any Civil War topic. So much, that any research proves to be a time consuming project.
Google Books is a good place to start.

Regards

Unfortunately we live in a nation (and maybe a planet) that is driven by Hollywood values, and interpretation. Hollywood has had a love affair with the CSA, since Birth Of A Nation.
That interpretation is very much cemented into the fabric of the general consciousness.

The real story is much more complex, far more interesting, and not exactly friendly to the CSA’s reality.

To answer you question in regards to the willingness of black Confederates to fight, I will leave you with more pertinent questions…If Southern blacks fought for the CSA in significant numbers, (not as teamsters, cooks, and body servants) as real soldiers… Why did the CSA officially authorize the execution of black Union soldiers, and the white officers who commanded them?
Why did it take 100 years, public opinion, and Federal law to end the era of Jim Crow, in the post war South?
Where was the love for those black Confederate soldiers when it counted?

When I posted this on Nicks behalf. I knew it would be controversial and divide opinion.

I live in the UK and am more familiar with European History. Not as familiar with American History. Specifically that which deals with the civil war. However, I think the real question should be. Did these southen black solders fight alongside cleburne willingly, or were they still treated as slaves. I mean we don’t really know a real accurate account of what actually happened in recorded history. All we have is the various points of view of folks that wrote it all down before we were even born. Which, given that everyone has an agenda of some sort or an affiliation of some kind can easily bring certain aspects of recorded history into question.

Hence, you don’t really know exactly how stuff happened or played out unless you was actually there.

However, the story of Cleburne begs an important question…how will African Americans view this story, and how will they perceive black Confederates, to their very real struggle against Southern tyranny, and slavery.
I will answer that question, with another question…How would a graphic novel, depicting the ‘heroic story’ of Vichy collaborators, fighting with the Nazi regime, be received by French comic book readers?

Anne (Ronayne-McCarthy) MacDonald