"As examples of Southerners (us) accepting Federal sources hook, line and sinker, this is exactly what I had in mind. There are many more than these. Why advocates of the Confederate Negro theory don't produce citations from Confederate accounts in the Official Records is beyond me.
To be fair, most of these are references to putting slaves &c to work building fortifications, driving wagons and providing auxillary support. Southern newspapers often include notices to planters that slaves were wanted for hire on military construction projects. Obviously officers in Federal service could see the value of doing the same."

Alan,

I have no idea. I would guess most people are like me busy and find the ORs tiresome and very boring to read. I there was a concentrated effort with several people the task would not be so bad. I do know one thing, and I hate to do this, but now I have to go back through my posts and find all information relevant to the subject and save to another format for the future.

As for the use of these black men, a black doing the same job in the Union army was called a soldier although very few of them actually were in combat. It is my way of thinking these Black Confederates were still soldiers even though they may not be formally enrolled in the Confederate army, they stayed willingly and performed their duties. myself have no problem saying that some of these were not regular Confederate soldiers, but did work for the Confederates. Of course we do know from several other sources, and I do believe that each and every OR reference I post mentions "armed", that black southerners did fight and die as soldiers, they should be recognized as such and not just assumed they were only "here and there" as it has been proposed.

The argument against black Confederate soldiers is based solely on the fact that others do not want to admit the contribution of blacks to the Confederacy, or lack of knowledge. I think it has more to do with their own biased and prejudice than historical accuracy.

I think it is time we give these men the honor they earned. The state of Mississippi seems to agree with me as they approved a little over 1,000 pensions for these black men.