Former National Park Service, Chief 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.

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I would ask you to visit www.petersburgexpress.com and read some of the information contained on it's many pages in relation to blacks in Confederate service. During the capture and occupation of Richmond one of the companies of the Richmond Howitzers was manned by black uniformed Confederate soldiers. Authors and historians that air on the agenda of the National Park Service and the Federal Government will never fully acknowlege the extensive service of the black man in the Confederate military. To do so would contradict the notion of a war fought to free slaves and liberate a race of people. Surely a noble cause but not even close to the truth. Slavery wasn't even the "hot button" issue at the onset of the war.

I also apologize to Ken if I seemed to question his "Southerness". It's time for us folks that are proud of our Southern heritage to stop this perpetuation of lies that has become the accepted history of the WBTS.

Keith