I was watching the South Carolina House debate over the Confederate flag flying at the State House, and one representative referred to the recent arguments by some that the Confederate flag also honors the black confederate soldiers. He pointed out that there were actually zero black confederate soldiers as South Carolina did not permit African Americans to enlist until shortly before or after Appomattox.
I was wondering if someone could point me to the date when South Carolina voted to allow African Americans to enlist. Also, was this similarly true for other Southern states?
You could probably just look up the exact date on online, but the Confederate Congress passed a law that allowed the enlistment of slave soldiers a few weeks before Appomattox, as the Representative pointed out. The only know slaves to be organized under this late law occurred in Richmond, but the units never transitioned into anything official as the war ended before this could occur. The law applied to all the Confederate States, but it seems only Virgina was able to act on it in the incredibly short time that was left.