I would not think it so preposterous when you consider the past practise of our government in covering up what they do not want to be told. Also why should we not consider such a possibility when we see today the modern day revisionist rewitting of our very history before our eyes. There are more examples of cover-ups and half truths told by government agencys, even the "pure at heart" National Archives, than there are examples of forthrightness and honesty. For example why are the Warren Commission Records still sealed and those of the assissnation of Dr. Martin Luther King?
But that being aside from the point.
Your comments refer to the entry level honest efforts to compile those combined service records, of the volunteers and contributors who transcribed those records. But, who Microfilmed those records? You know as well as anybody that the CSR's do not contain the names of very many support personal such as cooks and teamsters and camp labors. There are far too few of these types of personal named not to believe that some of those names were excluded.
Maybe they were not included to cut cost of Microfilming, maybe they were not deamed to be important, or whatever. But I have never seen military records where the vast majority of those records are composed primarily of only "Combat Troops", except in the CSR's.
For example according to orders every regiment in both northern and southern armies were supposed to have 4 Wagons assigned to it. One to carry the Headquarters tents, equipment and records, two to carry the regiments tents, ammunition, cooking and other gear for the 10 companies, and one for the surgeon. Who were the teamsters who drove those wagons? And remember these regimental wagons accompanied their regiment and were in addition to the other ordinance and baggage trains.
This question of logistics and supply alone is a massive one by itself and is where I would suspect that most of the black confederates would have served. They or their masters would have recieved pay records at least. Slaves were paid more for their service than the soldiers were. Yet very few show up. The Confederate Congress passed specific laws regulating the use of blacks in place of soldiers in various duties. You mean that those records didn't show up as to the documentation of that service?
The absence of records to reflect the level of this activity that we have documents of and know to reasonable be true, is what is suspecious. As I said before if 1% of the southern slaves were involved throughout the south, we are talking about 40,000 records that should reasonable be there. There are not nearly that number of records in the CSR's. The problem gets worst if the numbers of 80,000 to 200,000 are excepted as some researchers believe.
As we have already noted the Observation by a Unionist in Frederick Maryland who reported 3.000 blacks in uniform accompaning Jackson's column alone as it marched through that town in Septemebr of 1862, Where are their records? Where are the records of the names of the two Black Confederate regiments raised in Richmond, Virginia in February-March of 1865? If I am not badly mistaken some of them were involved in defending a Confederate supply train near Richmond from a Union Cavalry attack. Which means that they were under military control and authority.
There are too many gaps here in which there are NO records, to not be suspecious.