bwood%janus.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Blake Philip Wood) (04/12/90)
From: bwood%janus.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Blake Philip Wood) In article <15412@cbnews.ATT.COM> greg@ncelvax.UUCP (Gregory K. Ramsey) writes: >It was the policy of the Confederate forces to kill any black soldier >and his white officer captured, any of the black soldiers not killed >outright were sold into slavery. It's worth noting that the Confederate congress voted to allow slaves to serve in the army in March 1865 (slaves had been used througout the war as laborers, but not as soldiers). Of course, by then it was too late to help - Lee surrendered on April 9. But it is significant in that it was a defacto abolition of slavery, a fact fully appreciated by the Confederate congress (and also the reason they didn't do it earlier when it could have made a difference). I don't know to what degree black soldiers saw action fighting for the south in the final month of the war. Blake P. Wood - bwood@janus.Berkeley.EDU Plasmas and Non-Linear Dynamics, U.C. Berkeley, EECS