Sorry, Candace, -but cooking, working as a teamster, digging ditches, etc. does not make a person a soldier. I have to agree with Tom Phillips, Bennie McCrae and others on that.

Yes, there were thousands of Blacks who were IN the war on the Confederate side-but they were there as body servants, laborers, etc. Plain and simple, it was illegal for Blacks to carry arms or to serve as soldiers in the Confederate Army until March 1865, less than three weeks before Appomatox.

Neither does the fact of a pension necessarily indicate military service. Thousands of slaves were contracted by their owners as laborers, and their services were at least partially paid by the Confederates to the owner.