Black Confederate Soldier
During the latter phases of the Civil War the Union, and the Confederacy, considered allowing blacks to fight. Both sides had suffered massive troop loses, and a Union victory was not a certainty. Consequently, In 1863 the Union(North) recruited, enlisted, trained, and deployed over 200,000 United States Colored Troops(USCT), and over 12,000 Latino soldiers.
As for the Confederacy, Gen. Robert E. Lee proposed enlisting southern slaves into the rebel army. His proposal was met with strong resistance. But, Lee got his way. Ultimately, over 65,000 blacks joined the Confederate rebel forces to fight against the Union.
At the end of the conflict in 1865, President Lincoln declared that the war against the rebels would have been lost without the help of the "colored" volunteers.
