Obviously, an oppressed and abused slave carrying the masters weapons could not be trusted. And if the master found himself in a quick fight, obviously, the smartest thing to do would be to give your weapons to your slave, who, obviously, would must likely use them against you. Obviously, arming slaves was against their laws, even if the slaves were merely carrying them- each of those masters should have been arrested, obviously. Obviously, any slave, so armed, would be flight risk to the enemy, and a risk to insurrection. It is so obvious that no slave, anywhere, ever attempted to fight along his master--ever. Obviously, the witnessing reporter was mistaken; naive to his own time and culture, and didn't understand, as we today do, that slaves did not fight alongside their masters against invaders. Obviously, this was only written only for the amusement of 21st century Civil War revisionist, along with hundreds of other such obviously silly reports.

Obviously, the South, had so many weapons for each man, it took an army of slaves just to carry extras into battle- like a golf caddies ("psst, master, I think the Enfield will do better at this range, and when we moves up, I'll switch you out with the shotgun").

Obviously.