We agree that

The LNG existed under the militia laws of the State of Louisiana, and
that everyone should have long since wearied of this topic.

I accept blame for prolonging the discussion for three reasons:

• For the first time in twenty years, someone opened a discussion involving state militia organization and the laws which governed them. With the exception of the hard-fighting Missouri State Guard, I've rarely read any message board post suggesting even casual interest in the militia of other Confederate states. You provided a much-appreciated forum for review and discussion of Louisiana militia laws and organizations. I owe you one.


• The unwarranted elevation to LNG members and other militiamen to full equality with Confederate soldiers. Establishing that the LNG existed does not put them on the same level as members of the Crescent Regiment and the Orleans Guard Battalion who fought and bled at Shiloh. Confederate veterans were infuriated by the post-war suggestion that home guards who slept in their own beds at night should receive the same pension benefits as soldiers who endured actual service in the field. I don't much like it either.


• Preferential treatment of members of one race/culture over another. From time to time advocates for one group of people have rewritten history to serve their own purposes, such as certain German writers who elevated those of Nordic ancestry over all others. Recently we have witnessed attempts to do the same for people of African ancestry. This far-ranging effort includes ancient history (claims such as Hannibal and Socrates were really black, and Aristotle "stole knowledge" from the [African] library at Alexandria). It has influenced the 'Black Confederate' crusade and fostered any number of posts on Jim's Civil War message board.

People are welcome to offer opinons. However, I'll continue to object whenever Frederick Douglas is introduced as an expert witness on racial composition of the Confederate army. It always comes with the inference that whatever FD wrote must be accepted at face value. It doesn't seem to matter that he had no first-hand connection to the Confederate military. Other than news accounts he may have read (which we can read for ourselves) or stories he might have heard second or third-hand, what special knowledge or powers did he possess?

Frederick Douglas was a highly educated and articulate former slave. Does that mean he could somehow gaze into the campsites of Confederate troops and understand how many armed black men there were? Was he a really a Pinkerton agent? That's what we're expected to believe, and people seem to accept it.