The Sunday symposium was billed as a look at a long-overlooked chapter in history:  the story of the Louisiana Native Guards, black Civil War-era soldiers who served first with the confederacy and later with the Union. Yet to the roomful of amateur and professional history buffs who gathered at the Cabildo, conversation hinged less on the story itself than about how it finally got told.

Speakers at the symposium—sponsored by the Louisiana State Museum, the University of Southern Mississippi’s History Department and the National Park Service—ranged from a professor who has written about the troops, to a Virginia woman who discovered a revealing period diary, to the park rangers who want to tell the world of the soldiers’ triumphs and travails. In addition to sharing their findings, all talked of the difficulty of tracking down information on society’s disenfranchised, pleading for anyone with any piece of the still incomplete puzzle to come forward.

Members of the Native Guards, the country’s first black soldiers to see battle under the command of black officers, were stationed for months at Ship Island and later fought at Pascagoula and Port Hudson.  Among the men who served as officers were Maj. Francis E. Dumas, the highest-ranking African-American to fight in the war, and Pickney Benton Stewart Pinchback, who would go on to briefly serve as the state’s only black governor.

Speaker Jim Hollandsworth, a University of Southern Mississippi historian, has written two books on the subject, and fellow speaker C.P. Weaver has edited the diary of the remarkably progressive white commander Col. Nathan W. Daniels. A new volume by Stephen Ochs, "A Black Patriot and a White Priest," tells the story of war hero Andre Cailloux, who was killed in battle.  The new book fills in some gaps, Hollandworth said, by "giving us a much better idea of the social fabric of free men of color before the Civil War."

But much is still unknown, he said, including the motives of those who signed on to fight with the Confederacy in the first place.  Common theories range from fear to pride to economic self-interest. Whatever their reasons, the Confederate government used the unit for public relations, such as staged parades, but gave them little of substance to do.  When New Orleans fell, the Native Guard units were disbanded and sent home, then recalled months later by Gen. Benjamin Butler, Union commander in New Orleans.

But with few exceptions, Union leaders weren’t much more hospitable.  Although the men were lured with promises of pay equal to their white counterparts, Hollandsworth said it was three years before that became a reality.  A number of officers resigned over prejudicial treatment.

Hollandsworth finished up his remarks with a plea for anyone with additional details or documents to come forward.  Two other speakers, Jean Lafitte National Historical Park rangers Ramon Johnson and Philip Rose, made a different plea:  to get the word out. Decked out in Union blue, the two rangers talked of the "living history" program they’ve been working on since 1998, when a schoolteacher asked Johnson to visit her class during Black Histroy Month and talk about a homegrown hero. Rose, Johnson’s colleague, had read Hollandsworth’s book and thought the topic might fit.  Among his inspirations: the story of his own great-great-uncle John Rose, a free man of color who enlisted at age 32 as a private and who is mentioned in Weaver’s book.

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