Yearly Archives: 2010

Descendants’ Profiles – Alisha Sanders

Alisha Sanders

This profile was published in “Grand Review Times: A Call for the Descendants of USCT Troops from Camp William Penn 1863 to the Harrisburg Grand Review, 1865,” a supplement that appeared in the March 22, 2010 issue of ShowcaseNow! Magazine. ““Grand Review Times” is avalible for download as a PDF file here. (Adobe Reader must be installed on your computer in order to read this document.)

Alisha Sanders was born in Gettysburg and grew up there developing an interest in genealogy when she was in the ninth grade.

“At the time,” she said recently from her home telephone, “Gettysburg College was offering a special program with my high school and I enrolled. “And I have been bitten by the history bug ever since,” she confesses.

Ms. Saunders’ great-great grandfather William H. Matthews was a son of Edward Matthews, a known Underground Railroad operator. William lied about his age, she tells in recalling the story of his life, and enlisted with Company I of the 127th Pennsylvania in September, 1864. It is assumed he signed up for the Army at Camp William Penn in Philadelphia. He was mustered out at Bravos Santiago, Texas on September 8, 1865. Continue reading →

Descendants’ Profiles – Darlene Colon

Abraham Quamony

Darlene Colon lives and breathes history. Her work hours as well as her leisure hours are filled with historical matters. She has found through her research that the stories of her family are woven into dozens of stories putting them directly into the main stream of Pennsylvania and American history.

It was not long after the list of 100 USCT Veterans was posted, one worker noted recently, that Ms. Colon found one of her ancestors and was able to piece together his story with things she already knew about eight or nine other ancestors she had traced through records in archives and libraries and other places where she could find creditable sources.

A resident of Lancaster, Ms. Colon is a member of the Pennsylvania Past Players, a living history group created by the Cultural and Heritage Tourism Office of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Tourism. In this group of highly-trained, professional actors Ms. Colon portrays the renowned Lydia Hamilton Smith, the “colored woman” who lived with Thaddeus Stevens (dying, incidentally with an estate of roughly a half million dollars, Continue reading →

Descendants’ Profiles – Christopher Frisby

Historic Marker in Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Mercersburg, PA

Christopher Frisby, a native of Mercersburg, is a descendant of a number of soldiers who served in the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War. Among them is his great-great-great grandfather, Hezekia Watson who served as a member of Company I of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. This is the regiment spotlighted in the film, Glory, starring Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman, and Denzel Washington. Watson was wounded in the Battle of Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863, the same battle chronicled in the film. Born in Mercersburg, Watson also died there and was buried in the town’s African American burial ground, Zion Union Cemetery, a three-acre property in the Franklin County community that rests along the Mason-Dixon Line. The cemetery was incorporated in 1876, and was funded in part by the pension funds earned by Mercersburg’s USCT veterans. 38 USCT Civil War veterans are buried here and records show that 13 of these men served in the 54th Massachusetts.

Frisby holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history and relates that his other great-great-great grandfather buried at Zion Union, Robert Henry Stoner, Sr., was a member of the U.S. Colored Infantry. Stoner was born in 1838 and served in Company F of the 8th U.S. Colored Volunteer Infantry. He was discharged as a corporal on June 24, 1865. He is also related to Thomas Cuff who served in the 54th Massachusetts and William Cuff who served in the 55th Massachusetts.

Frisby has been one of the leaders in the conservation effort to bring a proper dignity back to the Cemetery and has worked with many other local people including boy scouts and girl scouts to improve the site partly as a memorial to this Continue reading →

Descendants’ Profiles – Anthony Taylor

Anthony Taylor

Anthony Taylor, a software computer engineer living in Coatesville, feels a definite responsibility in the knowledge he carries about with him as a descendant of a soldier in the United States Colored Troops.

“I started out with just a little information passed on by the family,” Taylor said recently while discussing his ancestor, Solomon Butcher, “And I was able to grow from there – to add to it, and to help preserve the story and pass it on.”

Taylor is quick to credit his wife, Dr. LaTonya Thames Taylor, with spurring his interest in his family history and helping him to mine the resources available. His wife, a professor of history at West Chester University, is a scholar, or lead instructor, in the Live and Learn program sponsored by the Bureau of Cultural Heritage Tourism, a high intensity learning seminar that combines reading, discussion and analysis with fun and recreation and travel.

Anthony Taylor’s great-great grandfather Butcher enrolled in the army at Lancaster on January 4, 1864, he learned, and served in the 25th Regiment, Company A. Born in 1844, Butcher was 20 years old when he entered the Army and after his service he lived a full life, dying Continue reading →

Bucktoe Cemetery – Chester County, PA

Lenwood Sloan at William Maxwell’s grave

The following pictures are from Bucktoe Cemetery, which is located in Chester County, Pennsylvania. One of the images is of William Maxwell’s headstone, who served in Company K of the 32nd USCT Regiment and died on May 18, 1903. Watch a short slideshow or click on one of the pictures below to see a larger version.

(Pictures courtesy of Fred Kelso)
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Union Hill Cemetery – Kennett Square, PA

Union Hill Cemetery

Union Hill Cemetery is located in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

Moses Dunmore, whose headstone is in the pictures below, served in Company E of the 3rd USCT Regiment. He died on February 13, 1920. Watch a short slideshow or click on one of the pictures below to see a larger version.

(Pictures courtesy of Fred Kelso)
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Lincoln Cemetery – Penbrook, Pennsylvania

The pictures below are the headstones of three soldiers who served in the USCT and were buried at Lincoln Cemetery in Penbrook, Pennsylvania.
Watch a short slideshow or click on one of the pictures below to see a larger version.

(Pictures courtesy of Afrolumens.com and Calobe Jackson Jr.)
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Midland Cemetery – Harrisburg, PA

The Midland Cemetery is the final resting place for slaves, former slaves, men of the United States Colored Troops, Buffalo Soldiers and numerous leaders of the area’s African American community. In recent years, the Friends of Midland have rescued this historic burial ground from an overgrown field to a tranquil garden of peace and remembrance.

The pictures below are the headstones of three soldiers who served in the USCT and were buried at Midland Cemetery. Watch a short slideshow or click on one of the pictures below to see a larger version.

(Pictures courtesy of Pennsylvania Civil War Trails and Calobe Jackson Jr.)
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Alexander Kelly and the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm

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

“Alexander Kelly, first sergeant Company F, Sixth U.S. Colored Troops, gallantly seized the colors, which had fallen near the enemy’s lines of abatis, raised them, and rallied the men at a time of confusion and in a place of great danger.”

Another resource that may be interesting to browse is Black Union Soldier’s in the Civil War which has a valuable list detailing all the Black Union Recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Kelly was “mustered out” of service in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1865. After the war, Kelly married his wife Victoria on July 30, 1866, and the two had a son named William in January 1867. He served as a night watchman for the Pittsburgh Police before his death on June 19, 1907. Kelly is buried in St. Peters Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

William H. Carney at Fort Wagner

On May 31, 1897, the city of Boston erected a monument created by the American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in honor of the 54th Massachusetts and its colonel, Robert Gould Shaw. The monument commemorates the regiment’s participation in the second attack on Fort Wagner, South Carolina on July 18, 1863. The August 8 edition of Harper’s Weekly, available in a transcribed form at Assumption College’s primary source-rich database “Northern Vision of Race, Religion & Reform” recorded that at Fort Wagner: “The 54th Massachusetts (negro), whom Copperhead officers would have called cowardly if they had stormed and carried the gates of hell, went boldly into battle, for the second time, commanded by their brave Colonel, but came out of it led by no higher officer than the boy, Lieutenant Higginson.” Sergeant James Henry Gooding of Company C of the 54th wrote weekly letters to the New Bedford Mercury, a periodical in the company’s hometown. Gooding’s letters were published as On the Altar of Freedom: A Black Soldier’s Civil War Letters from the Front, and some are available on Google Books. Gooding’s July 20 letter documents the 54th’s attack of Fort Wagner: “When the men saw their gallant leader [Colonel Shaw] fall, they made a desperate effort to get him out, but they were either shot down, or reeled in the ditch below. One man succeeded in getting hold of the State color staff.” The “one man” who reached the flag was Sergeant William H. Carney, originally of Norfolk, Virginia, as he maintained the sanctity of the flag by keeping it from touching the ground. Though Carney was wounded in both of his legs, one arm, and his chest he kept the flag aloft and is recorded as exclaiming, “the old flag never touched the ground, boys!” During the 1897 monument dedication Carney raised the flag once more, an action that Booker T. Washington recorded in his autobiography, Up from Slavery (1901), as causing such an effect on the crowd that “for a number of minutes the audience seemed to entirely lose control of itself.” Three years later, Carney received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions at Fort Wagner. Though Carney is often listed as the first African-American recipient of the Medal of Honor, instead, Carney’s rescue of the colors at Fort Wagner was the earliest African-American act of bravery to be recognized with a Medal of Honor. The medal notation reads: “Medal of Honor awarded May 9, 1900, for most dinstinguished gallantry in action at Fort Wagner, South Carolina, July 18, 1863.”