Paul,

Your previous message seems to contradict itself. You said:

"I expect the lack of Federal records of Black Confederates could probably be due to the fact the yankees would not want to advertize that Black Confederates (slaves & former slaves) were shooting at them...this would blow another hole in their claim that they were fightin to free the slaves...which was mostly a myth."

If I understand this correctly, you suggest that Union soldiers deliberately withheld reports and information about black Confederates because it would hurt the image of them fighting to free slaves.

You then say that the idea that Union soldiers were fighting to free slaves was mostly a myth.

Well, if they weren't largely fighting to free slaves, then why would they withhold information about black Confederates? If they didn't care about freeing slaves, then they wouldn't care whether blacks were shooting at them or not or who knew about it.

In short, they wouldn't try to protect the image of them fighting to free slaves if they were NOT actually fighting to free slaves.