I’m extremely impressed by the overall thoughtfulness of your comments on Blog Post #1! These very sharp comments in fact got me thinking a couple of further thoughts.
First, many of you provided ample evidence to show that defenders of the “black Confederate thesis” also usually advance two related arguments: (1) that the Civil War was not about slavery; and (2) that interracial friendship and solidarity was possible in the Confederacy, to the point that some black Southerners willingly fought for the CSA. That many people believe these arguments are linked to the existence of black Confederates is clear from all of your comments. But that made me wonder: would the existence of black Confederate soldiers–even thousands of them–necessarily prove that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, or that slavery was not oppressive? Set aside for a moment the lack of documentation for thousands of black Confederates, and consider this: would the discovery of actual black Confederate soldiers mean the war wasn’t about slavery? What would it take to prove the war was or was not about slavery?
Second, many of you suggested that remembering the Civil War in a particular way fills certain needs people have–to absolve themselves or their ancestors of guilt, for example, or distance themselves from racism. This made me wonder (and some of you alluded to this): if remembering the Civil War as a conflict that was not about slavery meets certain psychological or cultural needs for the people doing the remembering, how does depicting the Civil War as a conflict that was about slavery, or even a war to end slavery, influence the identities or satisfy the needs of people who remember it that way?