I present for your inspection the following quote:
In the Confederate Army blacks were intergated with the Southern troops. In the union army blacks were segragated into seperate units. What do you think this tells us about race and the union?
Well, don’t just sit there, mouth agape. Answer the man. 🙂
Crossroads 
I think the quote pretty much stands on its own!
🙂
I think it tells us something about the quotee but nothing about “race and the union”.
Ditto, both Marc and Ned 😉
Sometimes that ” quotee” of the post, post stuff on that list just to pick at and mess with Ric and Mike. Sometimes that ” quotee” gets a phone call from Ric and Mike asking ” why are you picking at me” then both parties laugh. Mike reminds the ” quotee” of his dad, and Ric reminds the ” quotee” of an uncle he like to yank his chain. The” quotee” does not take” that list” as serious as some do.
I’m disappointed at the level of textual analysis displayed by some people I know to be intelligent. Among other things, look at how the author, despite his effort to “integrate” Confederate forces, segregates blacks from southerners? The author’s implicit assumption is that to be a southerner one must be white.
That’s one. Now find others …
Not needing to be white, or the assumption to be white. Just during that time period whites controlled the south,its politics and economy( also the north was controlled by whites). Groups like slaves, Creek, Choctaw & Cherokee Indians had almost no input in southern society. Most of the time when terms like “Southerner” or “Northerner” are used relating the ACW time period its meaning is, the whites living in the north and south. When referring to blacks of that time period often terms like Free blacks, slaves, USCTs, ect are used. The author acknowledges that just because the confederate army was physically mixed and physically integrated did not mean blacks were equal.
The author portrays the Union army as emblematic a northern society whose racism demanded that black folks be kept apart from white folks. But as illustrated by the Jim Crow South, white southern society was itself deeply committed to the concept of racial segregation. That reality is neatly covered over by the postwar myth of white and black CSA soldiers serving shoulder-to-shoulder.
Leaving aside his conflation of “Southern” and “Confederate,” if we assume the writer wrote what he meant to say, he is saying “Blacks” were integrated into units with the (as you pointed out) white troops. That doesn’t mean the “Blacks” were soldiers. Servants would fit that description, and that statement would be accurate. If we assume the writer meant to be writing about “Blacks” serving as combat troops, since that number is extremely low (e.g., Art Bergeron’s documented cases of just over a dozen and Robert Krick’s number of around a dozen) with these soldiers primarily passing as white, then the first part of the statement is correct again, though not due to any conscious policy on the part of the Confederates. There were no units organized to contain mulattoes passing for white troops. If we assume the writer is asserting a conscious policy on the part of the Confederates to place black combat soldiers among white soldiers, the writer is simply making a blanket statement that has no historical validity. Even when blacks were allowed to enlist in the Confederate armies (VERY late in the war), they were kept in separate units.
Looking at the second half of the sentence, if the writer was talking about servants, then blacks were integrated into the Union armies as well. If he’s talking about combat troops, the Federals may well have had some mulattoes passing as white join prior to the EP authorizing the enlistment of black troops, which would mean those troops were integrated with white units as well.
Of course, we have what we see often among Confederate Romantics–the paternalistic assertion that “the South” was a multicultural paradise with “happy darkies” having a close and loving relationship with Southern whites, and their Southern masters lovingly watching over them and caring for them and always wanting to be near them, whereas “the North” was a place filled with hard, cold, uncaring racists who didn’t want to be near any black people. It’s a caricature.
It means by integration standards we use today the Union army was segregated. “In the Confederate Army blacks were integrated with the Southern troops” Not as equals but as cooks , teamsters ect they were intermingled with white southern troops. Back home as slaves it was the norm for blacks to be intermingled with whites when it came to work. So why would the Confederate army be any different?
Also keep in mind post like this are often made in sarcastic jest and sarcastic parody to a group that is perceived to be candied. Not always to be taken seriously. Its like avant-guard art, its the reaction that is observed not just the art itself.
You are being kind, Charles. Perhaps too kind. 🙂
Al you stated the belief by this Confederate Romantic >”the South was a multicultural paradise”< No it wasn't , Al with all due respect, and you are due plenty of respect this "Confederate Romantic"does not believe that. Just as in the Caribbean , what is one persons paradise on earth is often another persons "hell" on earth. Al I have pointed this out many times, last Nov when visiting St John and walking around the ruins of a sugar plantation ,I was the one that pointed it out to the group of people that was in ahh of their beauty. My bottom line belief is ,in the 19th century and the centuries before where colonization of the western hemisphere took place, life in general was horrible for most blacks in the Americas.
In that comment, it meant blacks were integrated into Confederate units as servants not as soldiers by any conventional use of the term soldier. Or maybe mixed in is a better term. In old South social culture it was not uncommon for black slaves to live in the house with whites. And im not suggesting they lived with whites as equals but as servants to their owners. So many whites were use to living with and working along side blacks.
Ever read about southerners like Robert Stafford of Cumberland island Ga? Interesting reading.
Sorry , my mistake , I thought that was a paraphrased quote of mine. It sounded like something I posted . But it was a quote of someone else. well my reply’s are my thoughts on the mater .
No problem, Charles. The person quoted is not you.
I did plead guilty of messing and picking at Ric and Mike 🙂
Hey … You posted here. Some other folks seem skeered. 🙂