{"id":1594,"date":"2010-06-04T14:10:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-04T19:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=1594"},"modified":"2010-07-21T21:17:07","modified_gmt":"2010-07-22T02:17:07","slug":"alexander-kelly-and-the-battle-of-chaffins-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2010\/06\/04\/alexander-kelly-and-the-battle-of-chaffins-farm\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Kelly and the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Alexander Kelly<\/a> was an African- American Civil War soldier who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.\u00a0 He was\u00a0born on April 7, 1840 in Saltsburg, Pennsylvania and worked as a coal miner prior to his involvement in the war.\u00a0 On August 19, 1863 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania he enlisted in Company F of the 6th United States Colored Troops<\/a> Regiment\u00a0 as a substitute for someone named Joseph Kelly.\u00a0 He was originally trained at Camp William Penn in Chelten Hills, Pennsylvania.\u00a0 Although Kelly was small in stature, standing at only about 5 feet 3 inches tall, he was commended for his actions at Chaffin\u2019s Farm in Henrico County, Virginia on September 29-30, 1864.\u00a0 The National Park Service\u2019s<\/a> website includes a brief summary on the battle at Chaffin\u2019s Farm (also known as New Market Heights) that includes how\u00a0 Union Major General Benjamin Butler<\/a> attacked General Robert E. Lee<\/a> and the Confederate forces at Richmond.\u00a0 A more detailed description of the battle at Chaffin\u2019s Farm is provided in \u201cPennsylvania Negro Regiments in the Civil War <\/a><\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Kelly was awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor\u00a0 on April 6, 1865 for his bravery and leadership at Chaffin\u2019s Farm.\u00a0 General Benjamin Butler noted <\/a>in an order\u00a0 issued on October 11, 1864:<\/p>\n

\u201cAlexander Kelly, first sergeant Company F, Sixth U.S. Colored Troops, gallantly seized the colors, which had fallen near the enemy\u2019s lines of abatis, raised them, and rallied the men at a time of confusion and in a place of great danger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another resource that may be interesting to browse is Black Union Soldier\u2019s\u00a0 in the Civil War<\/em><\/a> which has a valuable list detailing all the Black Union Recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor.\u00a0 Kelly was \u201cmustered out\u201d of service in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1865.\u00a0 After the war, Kelly married his wife Victoria on July 30, 1866, and the two had a son named William <\/a>in January 1867.\u00a0 He served as a night watchman for the Pittsburgh Police before his death on June 19, 1907.\u00a0 Kelly is buried in St. Peters Cemetery<\/a> in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexander Kelly was an African- American Civil War soldier who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.\u00a0 He was\u00a0born on April 7, 1840 in Saltsburg, Pennsylvania and worked as a coal miner prior to his involvement in the war.\u00a0 On August 19, 1863 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania he enlisted in Company F of the 6th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,171,173,174],"tags":[161],"class_list":["post-1594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war-1861-1865","category-historic-periodicals","category-rare-books","category-recent-scholarship","tag-battles-soldiers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1594"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1631,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594\/revisions\/1631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}