"He explains it clearly http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/blackcs.htm " So he does. But I am talking to folks who see the words "Black Confederate" and the number "65,000", and immediately respond: "That a lie! There were not 65,000 African soldiers legally enlisted in the Confederate Army". I have tried to talk about slaves forced to build fortifications, and they respond with the same denial about "legally enlisted soldiers". It would be nice to actually talk about the roles of Africans in the Southern states without having this automatic response. I am struggling to find a way to ask questions without being labeled a "Neo-Confederate". I have yet to determine if Ed Bearss quotation is taken out of context, at least by implication. Brock wrote: "We have not yet gone into detail about how he defined his terms, or how he arrived at the 65,000 number." He explains it clearly http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/blackcs.htm Brock The grandson of Francis Scott Key, Francis Key Howard, the editor of the Baltimore Exchange, arrested by Lincoln and imprisoned at Fort McHenry. September 13, 1861. "The flag which (my grandfather) had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed." When he was finally released on November 27, 1862 he wrote: "We came out of prison just as we had gone in, holding the same just scorn and detestation [for] the despotism under which the country was prostrate, and with a stronger resolution that ever to oppose it by every means to which, as American freemen, we had the right to resort." Arleigh Birchler, MDiv, BSN c/o Helaina Hinson Burton 69 Gray Ghost Lane Benson NC 27504 (919) 934-6323 (Ali Sengaree - Allah'ka cli here chaya) Musick/Porter Fan Club Pleasure, Pain, Power, and Love