Civil war and reconstruction in Alabama By Walter Lynwood Fleming, 1905.
"The conference of governors at Augusta in 1864 recommended the arming of slaves, but Governor Watts asked the Alabama legislature to disapprove such a movement.1 An enthusiastic meeting of citizens, held in Mobile, February 19, 1865, declared that the war must be prosecuted "to victory or death," and that 100,000 negroes should be placed in the field. It was too late, however, for success. Wilson, on his raid, picked up the Confederate negro troops at Selma, and took them with him. 3"
3 Riley, " Baptists of Alabama," p. 305; O. R., Ser. IV, Vol. III, p. 1193. (the O.R. ref. is the same reference to George P. Ring's Order?)
David