They have to be more numerous than you suppose. I mentioned one several weeks ago cited by John Washington Inzer, 58th Alabama Regt. shortly before his capture on Missionary Ridge, Nov. 25, 1863. He mentioned two items of interest shortly before the fighting began. First, the arrival of a group of conscripts from camp of instruction at Talladega. These were distributed among the regiments of his brigade. Second, in an incident which he meant to be amusing, Inzer describes how a Federal shell passed over the his soldiers and exploded in the rear, sending the newly-arrived conscripts, black cooks and teamsters flying. At the very least Inzer is telling us that the brigade included a substantial number of black cooks and teamsters who typically could be found some distance behind the front lines.

If Black Confederates blended into the ranks to be assigned as sharpshooters and "armed picked blacks" on a regular basis, they can hardly have been unnoticed by white comrades. As Edward, Joe and others remind us, Black loyalty was a quality greatly admired by white Southerners. Stories about Black Confederates behaving bravely under fire (such as the one you cited from the Battle of Port Republic) must be available from Southern sources in great number. The diaries and letters I mentioned in my post to Edward are readily available. You probably have many of them on your bookshelf at home.

Let me confess that it burns my bacon to cite Northern sources freely and almost unanimously and without question on the use of black men in the Confederate army. If Southern reports from the Official Records are ever referenced, I have missed them. For example, any review of events in an action like the one at Vienna VA, June 17, 1861, should include accounts from military leaders on both sides. We quote General Schenk's account of 150 "armed picked blacks" that he learned about from a resident after the action ended, men hidden in a field of grain who never fired a shot. One might suppose that Col. Maxcy Gregg, 1st South Carolina P.A.C.S., the Confederate officer who filed a report of the action, might have been the "picker" of these silent, hidden armed blacks.

Why isn't Maxcy Gregg even mentioned? If African-Americans under his immediate command were sent out as decoys or on some other mission, wouldn't he have alluded to it? The war had just begun, and officers provided much detail in 1861 that wasn't noted later when military action became commonplace. He has nothing to say to support Shenck's account of 150 "armed picked blacks" that neither Shenck or his men ever saw, but as the victor in this early action of the Civil War, doesn't he deserve to be named?

David, you and I both know that there are more first-hand Confederate accounts of the war than we could read in a lifetime. Twenty years of visits to the ADAH have convinced me that Alabama alone has a seemingly endless stock of uncatalogued Confederate material. Is it too much to expect a BCA to spend a few months or years searching Southern state archives for accounts to support their claims? Shouldn't there be references in a book like that by Robert Stiles, Four Years Under Marse Robert, or something by Col. John S. Mosby or Col. Basil Duke? I mention Stiles as a Confederate artillery officer of the ANVa who should know something about the integrated "Richmond Howitzers", and Mosby and Duke, because as partisans and raiders they should have made good use of Black Confederates in their exploits.

Why are first-hand accounts by Confederate officers and men never mentioned? What's the basis of this love affair that BCAs have with the Yankees?