27 USCI

In the News: Anglo-African, May 6, 1865

Leave a Comment / Black Commissioned Officers, Soldiers

FROM THE REGIMENTS.

CAMP OF THE 27TH U.S. COLORED REGIMENT.
FAISON’S STATION, W. & W. R.R., April 2, 1865.

MR. EDITOR: Perhaps the people would like to know where we are and what we are doing.

We, i.e. the Third Division of the Twenty-fifth Army Corps, are encamped at present at the above-named place guarding the railroad, and supplies now being sent along this line to the Western army now lying in our front. This division was detached from the main corps in the front of Richmond on the 3d of January and transported to North Carolina, where we with the Second Division of the Twenty-fourth Corps have been operating up to this date.… Read more

USCT in Lawrence County, Ohio

Leave a Comment / Burials, Soldiers, Veterans

Over Memorial Day weekend I will be speaking in Lawrence County, Ohio, about the 27th USCI in Ohio. The General William H. Lytle Camp #10 Department of Ohio Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War is holding a ceremony to recognize the installation of new government headstones at the W.D. Kelly cemetery in Ironton. The two soldiers, John Evans and Jefferson Finley, served in the 27th USCI, and some of their descendants will be in attendance.

Here is a list of Black men who lived in Lawrence County before, during, and/or after the war. I will continue to update this list.… Read more

In the News: The Anglo-African, May 20, 1865

Leave a Comment / Letters, Soldiers

Headquarters 27th Regt. U.S.C.T.
Camp Near Raleigh, N.C., April 26, 1865

Mr. Editor: On the 20th of this month I, together with some of our boys, went on a foraging expedition. We had travelled some twenty miles when we came within two hundred yards of the main line of works of the rebel Gen. Johnston. We immediately came to a halt and lay down, and soon after spied three rebel officers coming out on the road towards us. We then made our way into a swamp not far off. They proved to be Gen. Johnston and members of his staff.… Read more

A Mother Writes to Abraham Lincoln

Leave a Comment / Families, Letters, Soldiers

On December 7, 1864, Alcia Bass wrote to Abraham Lincoln. The distraught mother was concerned about her son, Armor, who served in the 27th USCT. She wrote to the president that her son “was underage and ran away from me,” and that she “would give him up freely” but he was also ill with consumption. Furthermore, he was “sunstruck on the 30th of July at the Battle of Petersburg.” Alcia Bass wanted Lincoln to help her son obtain a discharge. She concluded, “please answer this as soon as you rec’ it I shall expect him in the cours of three weeks for I think that you will send him”

Front of letter (located in the National Archives and Records Administration, RG 94)

Armor Bass enlisted for three years in the 27th USCT on March 7, 1864.… Read more

Soldiers from Rockbridge County, Virginia

Leave a Comment / Families, Soldiers, Veterans

Over 300 of the men who served in the 27th USCI listed Virginia as the state of their birth. On the blog, Southern Unionists Chronicles,  a reader requested information about one of the soldiers in the USCT included on the site’s list of men born in Rockbridge County.  This led me to compare that list with my files. I have so far found at least nine soldiers who served in the 27th USCI who reported Rockbridge County, Virginia, as their place of birth. Here are their stories:

Robert Henry Allen married Harriet Cousins on October 28, 1860, in Ross County, Ohio.… Read more