More than 150 years after the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organisations repeat claims that anywhere up to 100,000 African Americans fought in the Confederate army. Kevin Levin explains that imprecise contemporary accounts and poorly understood primary-source material have helped fuel the rise of the black Confederate myth.

"In addition to tracking the evolution of the black Confederate myth, Levin explores the roles that African Americans performed in the army with a particular focus on the relationship between officers and their personal body servants or camp slaves. In contrast to claims that these men served as soldiers in racially integrated regiments, Levin demonstrates that regardless of the dangers faced in camp, on the march and on the battlefield their legal status remained unchanged. Even long after the guns fell silent Confederate veterans and other writers remembered these men as former slaves and not as soldiers. Levin offers an important reminder that how the war is remembered often runs counter to history"--