OTL the 1st Louisiana Native Guards Regt, or CORPS D'AFRIQUE, comprising free blacks and ex-slaves from New Orleans, volunteered their services to the CSA at the ACW's outset, but were never actually deployed into combat before the city was taken by Union forces under Gen Ben Butler in May 1862 whereupon the black regts of the Native Guards volunteered to serve the Union instead. Prior to the fall of NO, the Louisiana Guards had been employed only in manual labour erecting defences around the city.
WI the Confederacy had been more expeditious and less doubtful in employing black combat troops, and actually utilised the Corps d'Afrique in combat early in the war ? Could the Confederacy have totally changed its policy on the use of blacks in such a manner as to improve the South's chances of winning the CW ? How would the North have reacted- would there have been a popular backlash against Negroes based on the view that they're traitors to the Union's cause ?
WI the Confederacy had been more expeditious and less doubtful in employing black combat troops, and actually utilised the Corps d'Afrique in combat early in the war ? Could the Confederacy have totally changed its policy on the use of blacks in such a manner as to improve the South's chances of winning the CW ? How would the North have reacted- would there have been a popular backlash against Negroes based on the view that they're traitors to the Union's cause ?
