There is some useful new scholarship on this question.  See Bruce
Levine: CONFEDERATE EMANCIPATION on the plans to (and the resistance
against) more fully exploiting the African American numbers in the
Confederate South.   Levine also takes up the issue of motivation of
Black recruits.   Although the Confederate offer of emancipation was
taken up by some southern blacks, far more found the Union's offer of
freedom to be more promising; no doubt the experiences of dealing with
white slaveholders made the enslaved, shall we say,  wary of southern
promises.

One can also turn to Robert Durden's older work: THE GRAY AND THE BLACK.

David Kiracofe

David Kiracofe
History
Tidewater Community College
Chesapeake Campus
1428 Cedar Road
Chesapeake, Virginia 23322
757-822-5136
>>> <[log in to unmask]> 06/15/07 9:07 AM >>>
Another curious aspect of the realities of Black slavery are  the
accounts of 
Black slaves and freemen serving in the army of the  Confederacy.  C.F.
Black 
Confederates and Afro-Yankees in the Civil War  Virginia by Jordan; The 
Louisiana Native Guard by Hollandsworth;  Black Confederates by Barrow,
Segars and 
Rosenburg; Black  Southerners in Gray by Bataile, et. al; and Black 
Southerners in  Confederate Armies by Segars and Barrow.
 
I find it hard to believe that these slaves and former slaves served out
of  
fear of being whipped.  Rather, they must have had some deep felt
feelings  
for the South to risk their lives in battle for "the cause".
 
J South



************************************** See what's free at
http://www.aol.com.