Pensions

Benjamin Vann, 24th United States Colored Infantry: “please have it corected sose eye can get my pay”

Soon after private Benjamin Vann of the 24th USCI enlisted in Allegheny City in February 1864, the provost marshal of Harrisburg detailed the private to serve as a cook. Vann first worked at Pennsylvania’s Twenty-third Congressional District headquarters, then at Camp Reynolds near Pittsburgh. Almost eleven months later, Vann joined his regiment at Camp William Penn as a member of Company B. At some point that summer, he discovered that the time he labored before January 5, 1865, had not been counted towards his three-year military enlistment period.

Benjamin Vann, 24 USCI, enlistment papers

In early April, 1865, Vann sought assistance from James W. Kirker, the provost marshal of the Twenty-third Congressional District.… Read more

Benjamin Vann, 24th United States Colored Infantry: “please have it corected sose eye can get my pay” Read More »

A Mother Writes to Abraham Lincoln

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.

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To read more about “underage” enlistments, families at home, and the post-war lives of men from the 27th USCT, see For Their Own Cause: The 27th United States Colored Troops, The Kent State University Press, 2016.… Read more

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Soldiers from Rockbridge County, Virginia

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:

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Want to learn more about the 27th United States Colored Infantry?… Read more

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