By late 1863 and 1864 war was not looking good for Confederacy -Union naval blockade became v effective and likelihood of British aid vanished -armies sulfide from defeats in Vicksburg and Gettysburg in 1863 and Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia in 1864 -white southerners began to discuss possibility of arming black men -some newspapers advocated it -General Patrick Cleburne recommended enlisting slaves and promising freedom if they remained loyal -argued policy would gain recognition and aid from Britain and disrupt union military efforts to recruit black southerners -prospect of arming slaves and free black men appealed most white southerners -Pres Davis said no speaking of that -most white southerners convinced that to arm slaves it defied assumptions on which southern society was based -black ppl were inferior, and proper status was to be slaves -Civil war for white southerners was a war to prevent the abolition of slavery -now they were saying to abolish slavery to save the southern nation -south moved toward employing black troops -General Robert E. Lee was critical to determining whether the Confederacy would decide to arm black men -no southerner was more revered or respected -Lee had freed nearly 200 slaves in keeping with instructions of his father in law will which said they should be free 5 years after his death in 1857 -Lee announced he favored both enrolling and emancipating black troops -Congress voted to enlist 300,000 black men between ages of 18 an 45 -receive same pay, equipment and supplies as whites but those who were slaves would not be free unless owner consented and the state where they served agreed to emancipation -didnt really help, Lee surrendered
