Alan, Oates is a very complex, interesting man. And maybe it is only his wishful thinking, his after the fact maybe my brother would be still be alive fantasy, but he clearly went to his grave convinced that with just a few more men in the right spot, at Little Round Top, against Chamberlain, Gettysburg and perhaps the War would have been won for the South. (Certainly at the very least, a decisive Union loss at Gettysburg may have caused Lincoln to lose reelection, putting the Northern peace party in power. Even Chamberlain and the North later saw Little Round Top as perhaps one of the most important pivotal moments of the entire War.) And Oates came home and looked at the millions of able bodied slaves, almost half the population of the South, and thought, "if only.... if only". It caused him a lifetime of grief and regret.

General Thomas C. Hindman is another... a close companion of Cleburne, he was almost assassinated with Cleburne, perhaps over this very issue.. he probably in fact is the true motivater behind the Memorial that carried Cleburne's name. He was a strong advocate of arming slaves to fight for their own freedom and Southern Independence. And of course there were others. Their ideas were not accepted until 1865

When you read however what the actual bill that finally passed in 1865 contained, it is so tepid, so weak, it would hardly have changed a thing, maybe even made things worse if possible, even had it been adopted earlier. Reading the provisions of that final bill, Alan, I think one can only conclude that even grasping at the very last desperate straw, the leadership of the CSA, congressional and executive, chose slavery over any hope of independence even at that late hour.