The secondary cause of the "War between the States", right behind states rights, was that the North treated the South as if they were colonies, and still do. Even with the North and Lincoln Slavery was a minor issue until the end of the 3rd year when the North was afraid the British were going to come to the aid of the South. Abolition was a natural way to go since the British were anti-slavery. So it was a slick political move for the North to pass the "Emancipation Proclamation". Afterala over 80% of the Confederate soldiers did not own any slaves or have any one in their families that owned slaves. Do you really think they were fighting to keep the institution of Slavery. I don't think so! Un fortunately some of you mentioned revisionist history. You are right but it is you who have been subjected to revisionist history. History has taken a turn for Lies and unimportant events in the last 50 or so years. You youngsters are being brainwashed by revisionist non history. Go back and read some history books fron the 50's or 60's or better yet the 30's. But last of all remember it was A. Lincoln who wanted to send the blacks back to Africa and probably would have had he not been killed.

If you want proof of any black Confederate soldiers look up some of the official reports of Union officers in Tenessee fussing about black sharpshooters plauging their command and how they were able to track them down and kill them. That's part of your proof. It's in the official records just look.

The website below has black Confederates illustrated in a Union newspaper.

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1863/battle-of-fredericksburg.htm

Dr. Lewis Steiner, Chief Inspector of the United States Sanitary Commission while observing Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson's occupation of Frederick, Maryland, in 1862: "Over 3,000 Negroes must be included in this number [Confederate troops]. These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in the rebel ranks. Most of the Negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabers, bowie-knives, dirks, etc.....and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederate Army."
No more hearsay. The history of the South is the history of the Black man in America. If we wish engage in moral condemnation of slavery let us ask who it was who brought the slave to America; backwoods "rednecks" and "hillbillies" or perhaps Yankee seafaring traders(hint: Newport News, RI)? Who financed the slave trade - the yoeman farmers of Virginia and the Carolinas or perhaps it was Northern capitalists in New York and Philadelphia? And while we are at it where did the federal tax money come from to develop all those Northern railroads and factories? Did not the Union have within its ranks slave states (Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky and officially Missouri). Didn't Lincoln call for the deportation of all Blacks from the United States? The one event that did not occur in the South was a "Haiti" type slave revolt and race war, much to the dismay of many a Northerner (I guess black folks of the day had more love of their homes than the Union invaders). The war was a life and death struggle for the South, who throughout its history did nothing without the Black man, unlike the North which willing sold all their slaves, both domestic and foreign, to the plantation class of the South, and once all the profit was squeezed out of the trade suddenly found its morality. Yep, Yankee morality followed its wallet then and still does today.

I'm Ron Here in South Fla. I'm a Full Time Listener To NPR Locally Here../
We Usually Have NPR ON During The Day at the Workplace./Starting in the AM at 8:00.
We Have Absolutely NO Idea Why NPR Began To Carry Your Show Down Here Last Year.
The Minute Your Show Is Que'd, We Instantly Shut-You-OFF.
Your Delivery Is Poor / Your Duration Became Simply Tiring / That Audio Segway Sound Effect (blip) Noise Is More Annoying Than You Can Imagine.
We Wish NPR Would STOP Carrying Your Shpeal.. Its Really Tiresome../ We've Written NPR Countlessly To Remove 'Take Away' .
I'm Sorry But It's Just Pure Garbage..
Nothing Personal..

Well, well, well, whaddya know? Gary from Georgia misquoted Frederick Douglass in a small but crucial way. Douglass didn't say the HE SAW black Confederates. He actually said: "It is now pretty well established, that there are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels." Douglass may have considered it pretty well established, but he's clearly presenting hearsay evidence, and as with all hearsay evidence, its value turns on the quality of the reports he's getting. There's a reason why hearsay evidence doesn't count in court, and it shouldn't count here. Sorry, Gary.

Gary from Georgia, WHERE in the
Official Congressional Records does it say there were black Confederate soldiers? And WHERE in writings of Frederick Douglas does he state that he "saw companies of black troops in with the NC and GA troops, with rifles on their shoulders, carteridges and shot in their pockets, prepared and willing to shoot down any federal soldier." CItations, please, and then we can evaluate the evidence (if any).

To all of those that deny the existence of Black Confederates (be they large or small in number), needs to read the Official Congressional Records and the writings of Frederick Douglas. Mr. Douglas stated that he "saw companies of black troops in with the NC and GA troops, with rifles on their shoulders, carteridges and shot in their pockets, prepared and willing to shoot down any federal soldier."
To deny the existence of Black Confederates is to call both the OCR and Frederick Douglas liars.

yes, the moronitude astounds. the original segment didn't mention any controversy, just that "thousands of black soldiers fought for the confederacy." why do we pay for such idiocy? the last time from me.

What a pathetic story. You should fire whoever was in charge of this. I'm never listening to your show again. You simply cannot be trusted to put out credible journalism.

Wow some of the folks here are really uninformed or just in denial. I hope you don't consider yourself, well read........There is all kinds of info out there documented and written by "Noted Black Scholars"..........hey, catch up, or be left behind.......While your at it, Study real close the Free Soil Movement, might enlighten you on just why blacks would have fought in support of there southern states.....

Pappy Yokum from Kansas, I was fascinated by the quote in your comment:
"There is no historical evidence of actual black soldiers (as opposed to slave laborers and slaves accompanying their masters) in Confederate service, prior to a desperate attempt in the last month of the war to enlist some slaves with the permission of their masters."

You didn't say who wrote it, so I looked it up on the internet and it's from the Columbia University historian Eric Foner. Like you, I find it odd that he says some slaves were forced to accompany their masters to war, but that they weren't soldiers. If you're going to war, if you're cooking for military personnel, if you're digging trenches, if you're transporting supplies, you're a soldier. Maybe not a willing soldier, but still a soldier.

People are forced or compelled to do things that are not necessarily in their best interest or the best interest of their race during war. Think of all the Japanese Americans who fought for the u.s. during wwII even though the u.s. was imprisoning their wives and children in internment camps. It's impossible for us to say that no slaves were forced or compelled to fight for the south during the civil war as well. War and race are complex matters.

"There is no historical evidence of actual black soldiers (as opposed to slave laborers and slaves accompanying their masters) in Confederate service, prior to a desperate attempt in the last month of the war to enlist some slaves with the permission of their masters."

That is nonsense. How is a slave laborer or a slave accompanying a master less a soldier than say, a Yankee conscripted into service? A conscript does not have a choice concerning his service. Is a soldier who drives a wagon for the army any less a soldier than the one who carries a rifle? What of slaves who were sent by their masters to join the GAR? There were some of those too. Were they soldiers? What of slaves who were freed by their masters while serving, like those of Nathan Bedford Forrest, but remained in the Confederate cavalry after they were given their freedom? Are they any less soldiers? Slaves served in both armies as did conscripts. They were all soldiers.

Thanks everyone for your comments (here and on Twitter). We have spoken with a number of historians today to hear different perspectives on this debate. We have planned a discussion with one of those historians for tomorrow's show to address your concerns (Kevin Levin, who is working on a book called "Searching for Black Confederates in History and Memory" ). Please feel free to weigh in again then.

Celeste,
Your bias really came through with your statements regarding the cause of the War with Mr. Wimbush. How about a read of "An American Dilemma" by Gunnar Myrdal and "A Southern Tradition at Bay" by Weaver?

I did do a lot of research. now get your head outta your ... and do some too.
http://blackconfederatestruth.blogspot.com/

I agree this was pretty bad.

Enjoy The Takeaway!

Today's segment on 'Black Confederates' was an embarrassment however. I'm going to echo Jim Hart's comment above. This is pure revisionist crap from the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

I'd commend the cwmemory.com site as well. They've been quite instrumental in debunking such historiacl revisionism.

http://blackconfederates.blogspot.com/

This was an embarassing and shameful segment - why did you give these Confederate apologists any airtime? This is not a credible documentary and the history it presents is false and distorted.

Morever, why didn't your interviewers challenge Mr. Armstrong's false assertions about black slave ownership and white indentured servitude, both of which had been eliminated in the South decades before the Civil War.

Did you guys do no research on this? I find it disgraceful that your "journalists" ignored known and settled history in favor of presenting false controversy. Especially odious were Celeste Headley's blithe, airheaded comments to the affect tjat this history is still not settled. That's just blatantly wrong - Historians have long settled these questions if you had bothered to ask.

Shame on The Takeaway - this was pandering FOX News style "journalism" at its worst!

Not only that, but why does John H. refer to Nelson Wimbush's grandfather as his "granddaddy"?

One of the silliest remnants of the Civil War is that many southern whites still refer to any white person from the Northeast as a "yankee." Since most of our NE ancestors arrived in the US well after the Civil War - why refer to us that way? And, since many many original "yankee" families have moved south since then (think Bush) and many southern families have moved north - Why the silly (and devisive) regional slur?

Don't spread a myth based on isolated incidences. You must know that officially the Confederacy opposed the raising of black troops. Even the raising of black Union troops was controversial, how could it have occurred with little notice in the Confederacy? After all the point of the Civil War was to maintain the subjugation of blacks. Now you're putting them on equal footing with whites by putting them in uniform?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-opinions/2010/10/the_myth_of_the_black_confeder.html

You have really undermined your credibility as journalists with your gullible segment on "black Confederates" this morning. Did you conduct any real research on this? Before you brought Stan Armstrong before a national audience, you really ought to have checked with someone who knows what he's talking about. There is no historical evidence of actual black soldiers (as opposed to slave laborers and slaves accompanying their masters) in Confederate service, prior to a desperate attempt in the last month of the war to enlist some slaves with the permission of their masters. See Bruce Levine's book "Confederate Emancipation" for a full treatment, or just check out this brief review of Armstrong's "documentary" by a real teacher and scholar of Civil War history:

"I‘ve seen this video around, but have never seen any clips from it until now. This has got to be one of the most convoluted and confusing documentaries that I’ve ever seen. After the glaring mistake of identifying March 1864 as the year that the Confederate Congress authorized the enlistment of slaves and within six minutes the video moves freely between discussions of slave loyalty to the master class before the war to slaves volunteering for service in the Confederate army to slaves serving as labor in the army. I have no idea who is being interviewed and I suspect they have done little or no research on the subject – at least nothing that I could find. The director, Stan Armstrong, is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (what a surprise). Click here for a short article on Armstrong’s interest in the subject. It turns out his great-great grandfather “took his black son to war.” I have no clue what that is supposed to mean. Enjoy."

http://cwmemory.com/2009/09/30/black-confederates-in-gray/

You get an F minus on this one.