http://www.factasy.com/civil_war/2008/02/29/some_surprising_facts_abut_confederacy2.
The Confederate president himself, Jefferson Davis, came to strongly support ending slavery. So did CSA Secretary of State Judah Benjamin, Governor William Smith of Virginia, and leading CSA Congressmen Ethelbert Barksdale and Duncan Kenner (who was one of the largest slaveholders in the South).3.
The CSA's two highest ranking generals, Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston, both disliked slavery and supported emancipation in various forms. Lee called slavery "a moral and political evil." Johnston called it "a curse." (Johnston initially opposed using slaves as soldiers only because he feared it would be disruptive and ineffective, not because he had any sympathy for slavery. He later came to support the proposal.) Other Confederate generals who supported emancipation included General Daniel Govan, General John Kelly, and General Mark Lowrey.4.
The majority of Confederate generals did not own slaves and did not come from slaveholding families (Hattaway and Beringer, Jefferson Davis, Confederate President, p. 37).
5.
Thousands of African Americans, Hispanics, and Indians fought for the Confederacy. Many of the slaves who served in the Confederate army did so because they hoped that by doing so they would be granted freedom after the war or because they were specifically promised freedom if they would serve. The same was true of most of the slaves who fought for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.
The chief inspector of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, Dr. Lewis Steiner, reported that he saw about 3,000 well-armed black Confederate soldiers in Stonewall Jackson’s army--he added that those soldiers were "manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederate Army" (Issac W. Heysinger, Antietam and the Maryland and Virginia Campaigns of 1862, New York: Neale Publishing Company, 1912, pp. 122-123; cf. John J. Dwyer, general editor, The War Between the States: America’s Uncivil War, Denton, Texas: Bluebonnet Press, 2005, p. 409).
Three Confederate states authorized free blacks to enlist in state militia units. The first to do so was Tennessee, which passed a law on June 21, 1861, authorizing the recruitment of state militia units composed of "free persons of color" between the ages of 15 and 50. In 1862, Louisiana assembled the all-black 1st Louisiana Native Guard, and Alabama authorized the enlistment of creoles for a state militia unit in Mobile.
6.
The Confederate Congress specified that black soldiers in the Confederate army were to receive the same pay, rations, and clothing that white soldiers received. In contrast, black soldiers in the Union army were paid much less than white soldiers were paid for over a year. The Union army began using former slaves and free blacks as soldiers in September 1862. They were paid $7 per month. Technically, they were paid $10 a month, but they were forced to pay a clothing allowance of $3, which meant their net monthly pay was only $7. White soldiers, on the other hand, received $13 per month and were not forced to pay a clothing allowance.
Thus, in the Union army white soldiers were paid nearly twice as much as black soldiers were paid. Black Union soldiers didn’t start receiving equal pay until June 1864. When the Confederate Congress authorized the recruitment of slaves as soldiers, it stipulated that they were to receive “the same rations, clothing and compensation as are allowed to other troops” (An Act to Increase the Military Force of the Confederate States, March 13, 1865, Section 3). In addition, when the Confederate Congress authorized salaries for black musicians in the Confederate army in 1862, it specified that they were to receive the same pay as white army musicians, stating "whenever colored persons are employed as musicians in any regiment or company, they shall be entitled to the same pay now allowed by law to musicians regularly enlisted."
7.
According to the 1860 census, only 31 percent of Southern families owned slaves. Seventy-five percent of the families that owned slaves, owned less than ten and often worked side by side with them in the fields. Approximately half of the free blacks in America lived in the South. The percentage of Southern citizens who held slaves was probably no more than 25 percent (some scholars put the percentage as low as 10 percent).
