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In "The Anatomy of the Myth," Alan T. Nolan troubles the "more or less official" Confederate stereotype of the "faithful slave" (16). Nolan reminds us that "faithful slaves" and "black Confederates" often "fle[d] in wholesale numbers to the Federal lines as those lines advanced southward" (21), and that "approximately 180,000 African Americans, mostly former slaves, were enlisted in the armies of the United States" (22). In turn, while Ervin L. Jordan, Jr. concedes that "Black Confederate loyalty was more widespread than American history has acknowledged" (216), he is careful to draw out the nuance and ambivalence(s) of that "loyalty": "Some ['black Confederates'] were sincerely patriotic; others were alarmed individuals acting on behalf of their own self-preservation and economic interests" (231). |