Hours after the battle, Ewell proposed to President Jefferson Davis that in order for the Confederacy to win the war, the slaves must be freed and join the ranks of the army; he was also willing to lead the blacks into battle. But Davis considered that "impossible" and that topic never came up between him and Ewell again. Nevertheless, Ewell, like Patrick Cleburne, was one of those few Confederate generals who believed that the Confederacy needed all the manpower it could get, regardless of race.