21. Mythology emerged regarding slaves in the Confederate Army
The slaves which served with the Confederate Army were just that, enslaved people. Though many were allowed to take on additional work for pay, and some were paid well by the officers they served, they remained slaves. Robert E. Lee, whom apologists often claim erroneously never owned slaves, took two slaves with him to war in 1861, Meredith, a body servant, and Perry, a cook. At the time, Lee was awaiting a decision by a Virginia appellate court over the status of the scores of slaves owned by his wife, inherited from her father. The conditions of the will established their freedom, which Lee was fighting in court, hoping to retain the slaves and profit from hiring them out. The court found against him, ordering Lee to free the slaves on January 1, 1863.
It was the same date the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, one of the great ironies of American history. Though the decision applied to Meredith and Perry, Lee did not release them. Years after the war, when Lee’s servants were long forgotten and the general himself was dead, a self-described minister calling himself William Mack Lee wrote an autobiography describing himself as Lee’s personal servant and cook throughout the Civil War. It appeared in 1918, during the period of the Lost Cause, in which the idea of Black Confederates took shape.