November 23, 1861---Free Blacks join Confederate Cause

NOVEMBER 23, 1861:        

Although the Confederate Army officially refused to let Blacks serve as soldiers until almost the end of the war, local militias enrolled small numbers of free Blacks throughout the war.  On this day 150 years ago, the Louisiana Native Guards, known in Creole French as the Corps d’Afrique, fought along the Mississippi River along with White Confederate regiments. The Native Guards consisted of at least 33 black officers and 731 black enlisted men. In a very odd twist of history, the Louisiana State government officially dissolved the Native Guards in 1862; but as a body the Native Guards troops later enlisted in the Union Army under the same name, eventually becoming part of the United States Colored Troops.