Your statement is true for 1861, when the thought of black men being enlisted on either side would have seemed ludicrous. However, by early 1863, much had changed. While no one had suddenly become colorblind on race issues, a strong movement to enroll blacks was underway in the North, and Confederate officers like William C. Oates were talking to anyone who would listen about emanciation and enrolling slaves as soldiers. A petition signed by nearly every member present for duty in his regiment -- the 15th Alabama Regiment -- supported placing black men in the trenches to fight alongside them. This appeared in a Richmond newspaper in 1864 and was printed with others like it in Durden's The Gray and the Black, mentioned in another post.

Joseph E. Johnston, Robert E. Lee, A. P. Hill, John B. Gordon, Cleburne and others favored a measure which would leverage black manpower for the Confederate war effort.

Noteworthy resistance came from President Davis, Generals Bragg, Wheeler and Longstreet, plus a majority of Southern political leaders in Congress and in state legislatures.