It took four years for Confederate Leaders, whose Government’s “foundations were laid,” and its “cornerstone rested upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man;” to authorize enlistment of some free blacks and slaves in Confederate armies, despite examples of 200,000 black soldiers—very many of them Southerners—in Union armies and their service in Colonial times and by both sides during the American War for Independence and the War of 1812—nearly always under white officers. This book, a companion to U.S. Colored Troops Defeat Confederate Cavalry: Action at Wilson’s Wharf, Virginia 24 May 1864, describes slave revolts, political conflicts from 1819-1860 that resulted in secession of eleven Southern slaves states and war to preserve the Union, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and Confederate General Patrick Cleburne’s futile advocacy to emancipate slaves and enlist some, blacks who served in civilian support roles with Confederate armies and the few “private” soldiers, and conversion of mixed-race Confederate Louisiana militia into Union soldiers.