The fiftieth anniversary of the War Between the States was on the horizon, and Confederate veteran F. T. Roche maintained a vigilant watch for Yankee propaganda. Though one wonders just why he would bother reading a publication like the National Tribune (published for the Union veterans’ organization, the G.A.R.), Roche may have felt it his special duty to serve as a watchdog for Confederate memory.

In February 1910, he was apoplectic over Yankee falsehoods. Writing in the Confederate Veteran magazine, and quoting from the opposition, Roche insisted on broadcasting and vindicating the truth as he saw it:

Interesting how this dedicated Confederate veteran doesn’t seem concerned about the Tribune’s assertion that it was the slavery question that drove the nation apart. Roche doesn’t respond to the larger issues from the original article about the causes of the war. No, he objects to the assertions that blacks served with distinction in earlier U.S. wars, and he still bears vitriol for the Union army enlisting blacks during the Civil War. Roche doesn’t sound like the kind of fellow who would support, recall with enthusiasm, or proclaim with pride that blacks served as soldiers in the Confederate army.

Surely if the veterans themselves were as adamant about blacks serving in the Confederate army as some of their literal or ideological descendants are today, the opinions expressed like Roche would have been in the minority. Like Kevin Levin, I believe the phenomena of “Black Confederates” is a recent development – not true to the veterans themselves. To be sure “loyal slaves” were much admired, commemorated, and celebrated in the post-war years. “Black Confederates” as soldiers, however, were, as a good ol’ Southern saying goes, “As scarce as hen’s teeth.”

Let the facts be made known!