Not sure what to make of this other than the love

between her dad and the master's family must have been deep.

After Years Of Research, Confederate Daughter Arises
"This year marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. It's of particular importance to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization for female descendants of Confederate soldiers.

The group includes 23 elderly women who are the last living daughters of those who served. One of them is black.

But, Rice says, her father went to war willingly, though his story is complicated. He ran away with his best friend, who was white and the son of his master. Rice says no matter how historians view that narrative, she's glad she proved her father contributed to the Confederate cause."
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/07/138587202/after-years-of-research-confederate-daughter-arises

In another article, it said that he saved master's son twice, carrying him off the battlefield. And the story above said that he performed personal service for Robert E. Lee. I've tried to find what the complicated reasons were but came up short - a lot of conjecture and she doesn't seem to say. If you know, please share because I can't imagine it, but then I'm living now and have a completely negative view of slavery and would slit my wrists before fighting with those who'd want to keep me in bondage - even if they were very nice people.

on black participation on the confederate side of the Civil War. The relatively few black participants (the count is still in dispute) were not official members of the confederate army but were members of state militias or volunteer units that fought for the confederacy. The article is not clear on whether he was on the front lines, or, like most black people then, was in support or construction roles.

Too much of black people's roles are "whitewashed" from history, pun intended. It is especially true when that participation is unsettling, such as the Haitian troops that fought in the American Revolution for the USA, or black slaves fighting for the confederacy. I can see acknowledging a forgotten part of history, but for this as a source of family pride, well, I don't get it. :shrug:

Yes, I do understand the need to acknowledge participation in a forgotten part of history. I just hope these men got their pensions - something the articles left out or I somehow missed.

Shaking my head.

To each its own.

This story isn't complicated, it is just ... unbelievable.

First, her father impregnated a woman at age 81.

O.K.

Right.

The first question to spring to mind is: is this man really her father? I worked with a woman who claimed her father was 75 at the time she was born; I believed it at the time and came to wonder later on. Then, I wondered who else the mother was seeing, being 50 years younger than her husband.

The pension benefits claim was real, from the article. It is a hope to get paid.

The reason this black woman is embraced by the Daughters of the Confederacy is that she confirms the fantasy of the familial bonds slaves allegedly had for their masters. This is important to the Confederate narrative, as false as it my be.

I didn't crunch the numbers, but it's enough to make you say "eww". I've never heard of too many 80-something old men with young wives, unless they were rich men. In addition to the "eww" factor, we don't really know what went on behind closed doors--or behind whose closed doors.

I don't know how records and paper information traveled from place to place, but I'd like to know how a pensioner's record from a SC volunteer unit found its way to the NC state archives.

From what I could find, not many of the black confederate pensions were actually paid.

This plays into the neo-confederate narrative of masters and slaves as "family" and the confederacy was fighting for hearth and home from the invading yankees and that slavery wasn't so bad.

OMG, I guess I naturally believed her because being from Africa, my paternal grandmother was the youngest wife of 4, married off at 13 to my much, much older grandfather. I don't think that he was in his '80s but he was definitely not a young man. Plus, I thought men could father kids until they died :shrug:

Thanks for clearing up the pension. Strom Thurmond's biracial daughter was candid about why she joined the Daughters of the Confederacy - she simply wanted more access to genealogical records and made it clear that it was not to honor the Southern soldiers who fought for that way of life. They must have an amazing archive.

It just bugs me that this woman won't state why she wants to join over something so curious and controversial.