In the months since “BORN FAR FROM FREEDOM” was published I have continued to discover stories of African Americans from our region who fought during the Civil War. A lot of these soldiers and sailors were born in the counties immediately around Roanoke, including Bedford, Botetourt, Carroll, Craig, Giles, Floyd, Franklin, Patrick, Henry and Pittsylvania counties.
Before the Civil War, Virginia had a “surplus” of slaves. By 1860, Virginia “exported” 10,000 enslaved people each year to other slave states. Enslaved people were valued as capital assets, and were traded like livestock or farm equipment.
In 1936 a ninety-one-year-old woman named Sylvia Watkins was interviewed in Nashville. Born in 1845 in Bedford County, she had been born a slave on the farm of Bob and Nellie Rankin. During the interview, Watkins stated that slave children were raised by their masters “ter mek money ohn jes lik we raise pigs ter sell.”
On May 18, 1859 an African American coachman named Walter Garner enlisted in the United States Navy as an Ordinary Seaman at Philadelphia. Born in 1815 at Newport in Giles County, Virginia, Garner was forty-four years old and 5’ 11” tall when he became a sailor.
A limited number African American sailors had served in the U.S. Navy since the Revolution. Black men from all parts of Virginia enlisted in the Navy, and would participate in nearly every major naval engagement in the coming war.
Forty-four-year-old Charles Patten had been born in 1816 in Danville, Virginia. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy on July 28, 1860 at Norfolk.
South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union on December 20, 1860. The war began on April 12, 1861 when the Rebels fired on Fort Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina. Virginia voted to secede on April 17 and Tennessee became the last state to secede July 24. Virginia cast 88 votes approving secession vs. 55 votes against. Most of the delegates from our region voted to leave the Union.
When the Civil War began, African Americans were not allowed to serve in the Union Army. After Emancipation was proclaimed, legislation was passed authorizing the recruitment of “U.S. Colored Troops” in May 1863. Almost immediately the Confederate Congress legislated that captured black troops who fought for the Union would be executed or re-enslaved.
Robert Jackson was born in 1842 in Bedford County. Jackson joined the Navy as a 1st Class Boy on January 23, 1863 at Cairo, Illinois and was assigned to serve on the USS Springfield, a stern-wheel steam powered gunboat that patrolled on the Ohio River. The USS Springfield shelled and burned the Rebel town of Palmyra, Tennessee in retaliation for an attack on the USS St. Clair, another gunboat in the squadron. The Springfield also participated in the Battle of Buffington Island, helping to capture Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and his raiders in July 1863.
Joseph Melvin was only 5’ tall and eighteen years old when he enlisted at Cairo, Illinois to serve on the USS General Bragg, a steam gunboat which had been captured from the Confederacy. Seaman Melvin was born in Christiansburg, and joined the U.S. Navy on July 9, 1862. The General Bragg patrolled the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers before the Battle of Vicksburg.
Levi Barer was born in Salem, Virginia in 1845. On April 15, 1863 he was eighteen years old and enlisted in Company G of the 1st Arkansas Infantry (African Descent) at Helena, Arkansas. On June 29 Private Barer was one of 113 black soldiers captured at the Battle of Goodrich’s Landing near Vicksburg and re-enslaved. He escaped his captors shortly before the end of the war and rejoined his unit in Boca Chica, Texas in June 1865. Levi Barer survived the war and is buried in the Freedman’s section of the Bryan City Cemetery in Brazos County, Texas.
The Red River Campaign in the Spring of 1864 was an unsuccessful attempt by Union forces to capture the city of Shreveport, Louisiana. The USS Lafayette and the USS Ouachita were part of the Mississippi Squadron of naval gunboats that participated in the expedition. and Daniel Mack, born in Bedford County, served on the Ouachita as a Landsman. George Dandridge, born in Roanoke County, would later serve on the Lafayette as a 2nd Class Fireman,
On April 12, 1864 Rebels led by General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a former slave trader, attacked Fort Pillow in Tennessee. Dozens of USCT soldiers were massacred as they tried to surrender. A Confederate sergeant wrote, “The slaughter was awful. Words cannot describe the scene. The poor deluded negros would run up to our men fall on their knees and with uplifted arms scream for mercy but they were ordered to their feet and then shot down.”
Sharpshooter fire was so heavy the USS New Era was forced to close its gunports and stopped firing its cannons at the attackers. Born in Franklin County, Boyce Prince served on the USS New Era during the battle. Prince had enlisted in the Navy in October 1863 at Cairo, Illinois. The USS Hastings arrived on the scene shortly after the massacre. Charles Cooper served on the USS Hastings. Cooper was born in Carroll County and had enlisted in the Navy in May 1863 at Cairo.
In July 1864 a group of miners from Pennsylvania dug a tunnel and placed 8,000 pounds of explosives under the Confederate lines at Cemetery Hill, just east of Petersburg. At 4:44 AM on July 30 the explosives were detonated, creating a crater 130’ x 60’ x 30’ deep and killing over 300 South Carolina troops instantly. A poorly executed attack was repulsed by the Confederates, resulting in hundreds of Union soldiers killed, wounded, and taken prisoner.
Born in Franklin County, Sergeant Richard Vons was wounded in the left scapula (shoulder blade) during the fight. Vons would recover, but would later die of disease in a hospital in North Carolina. During the Civil War, soldiers on both sides were more likely to die from disease than as a result of combat wounds. Private Charles Tinsley, born in Bedford County, had enlisted just 39 days before the Battle of the Crater, and was killed in action in the fight.
General Ulysses S. Grant called the Battle of the Crater “the saddest affair I have witnessed in this war.”
Early in the morning of September 29, 1864, U.S. Colored Troop soldiers attacked Rebel positions along the New Market Road just nine miles from Richmond.
Isaac Payne, born in Bedford County, was wounded. Payne would be allowed to retain his musket after the war, and was awarded a pension in 1902. Samuel Beverly, born in Franklin County, was wounded, captured, and would die in a Rebel prison camp a few weeks later. Sergeant Ferdinand Nelson was wounded in his right arm but would survive the war. William Quann was also wounded. Nelson and Quann were born in Botetourt County.
Born in Craig County, William Griggs enlisted in Company B of the 18th U.S. Colored Infantry at Wyandote, Kansas in February 1864. In December 1864 his regiment would participate in the Battle of Nashville, where Union troops led by George Thomas overwhelmingly defeated Confederates led by John Bell Hood. Frank Lipscomb, born in Roanoke County, joined the Union Army in Tennessee a few days after the battle, and may have participated in the pursuit of Hood’s Confederates as they fled to Mississippi.
USCT regiments helped pursue the Rebels as they retreated after withdrawing from Richmond. Many Union soldiers from southwest Virginia were present at Appomattox when Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9, 1865, including soldiers from the 45th U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment.
Samuel H. Smothers was born free in Franklin County. He made his way to Indiana, taught and became the principal at the Union Literary Institute before he joined the 45th. After the war he helped found the first African American high school in Dallas, Texas.
Ellis Kile, another soldier of the 45th, was born in Roanoke County. After the war he lived at 314 Alabama Street in Salem, and he is buried at the East Hill Cemetery.
Union General George Stoneman led a raid from Tennessee, through North Carolina and into Virginia during March and April 1865. The purposes of the raid included preventing Rebel troops based in North Carolina from coming to the aid of Lee’s army, intercepting the Confederate government as it fled from Richmond, and liberating Union prisoners of war held by the Rebels. Stoneman’s soldiers impacted communities all over our region, including Hillsville, Fancy Gap, Stuart, Rocky Mount, and Martinsville. As they passed through these communities, freed slaves followed the Union troops.
When Stoneman’s troops returned to Greenville, Tennessee on April 26, many of the freed slaves joined the Union Army. Among those soldiers were Othello and Thomas Fraction, born in Montgomery County. Adam and Allen Reynolds likely had been slaves on the Reynolds Homestead in Patrick County.
General Joseph Johnston surrendered to General William Tecumseh Sherman on April 26, 1865 at Bennetts Place near Raleigh, but the war was still not “over.” Fighting would continue in Texas for another two months, and Federal soldiers would be needed to keep order in parts of the South for several more years.
The Fraction brothers had been born into slavery on land that is now part of the Virginia Tech campus. In early 1866 they were allowed to take a month-long furlough to visit their parents. As they were leaving the farm, their former enslaver, Robert Preston, fired at the brothers. They returned fire, were captured by local authorities and jailed in Salem. Eventually the Freedmen’s Bureau helped get them released, but Preston used his influence to have them arrested a second time in 1867. Years passed before they were cleared of the charges.
Over 200,000 African American soldiers and sailors fought for freedom during the Civil War. Generations would pass before the victory they helped win could fully be realized by their descendants. Their history is history we all should know. Their experiences are an important part of our heritage. Their accomplishments have helped the United States to remain a great nation and a beacon of hope and freedom for the world.
I hope you will read “BORN FAR FROM FREEDOM” by John Wood, available on Amazon.com . I also encourage you to leave a review on Amazon, for others that might be interested. Thanks!