The Civil War
Of late, they has been a fair amount of discussion, on the site, about the role of African-Americans in the Confederate Army.
I think when you look at this issue, you first have to ask, when did the Confederacy actually allow slaves to join the army.
It was only last few months of the Civil War, when the Confederacy where looking at defeat did they allow slaves to join their army.
Considering that the War started in 1861, it took the South well over 3 years to actually let African Americans serve General Lee.
The next question you have to ask, what was the motivation of African American of joining the Confederacy. In order to get slaves to join the army, the Confederacy had to offer them freedom from slavery.
To me, this point undermines those people trying to rewrite the history of the Civil War. Politicans, like Jefferson Davis, knew, that the only way to get slaves to join their army, was to bribe the slaves with the highest reward available, FREEDOM.
The most telling example of how the Confederacy really felt about African Americans, was the Fort Pillow Massacre, in 1864.
Unarmed African-American Union soldiers, where shot or bayonet by the Confederate soldiers. As a result of a Fort Pillow, Grant suspended with the South, because, the Confederacy would not guarantee, that African American Soldiers would be treated as equally as white Union soldiers.
When people try to re-write the Civil War, they are also trying the re-write the history of slavery in America.