I'd previously discovered letters from Color Sergeant Andrew J. Smith of the 55th Mass., in a collection of papers at Cornell University. The letters were donated by Burt Green Wilder, who was the Assistant Surgeon for the unit. In the collection, I also found a photo of a little girl, who Smith, in a letter, said was his daughter. She was the one who was writing the letters for him because he could not write. Smith had been born a slave, escaped when he learned his half-brother (the master's son) was going to take him and another slave off to the war. Smith, and his fellow escapee made it to the Union lines, and that's how Smith eventually headed east to enlist in the 55th Massachusetts.
I initially tried locating the family through historical societies in Kentucky where Smith had been a slave, and lived after the war. I never got any responses. On a second trip to Carlisle Barracks in Pa., I found a collection of letters from Burt Green Wilder to Andrew Smith, so I had all communications between the two. Since they would not release the contact info for the family member who had donated copies of the Dr. Wilder's letters, I wrote a letter which one of the workers mailed to Smith's family member for me. Within a week I received a communication from his grandson Andy, and he, and his wife met me at the National Archives two weeks later. I met Caruth in Washington a couple of times when the family came in from Indiana. Their son was going to school at Georgetown at the time. In our first meeting, I learned that the photo of the little girl was of Andy's mother, Geneva...Caruth's sister. Andy had never seen a photo of his mother when she was that young. I gave him a copy that I had brought with me.
Years flew by. Geneva, Andy's mother died. One of the things that Dr. Wilder had tried to do, was get the Medal of Honor for Andrew J. Smith because he saved the State and Federal flags at the Battle of Honey Hill, S.C. on November 30, 1864. He was later promoted to Color Sergeant for his bravery that day. Dr. Wilder tried to get the medal, but the statute of limitations had run out. Years later, after finding the info in the Cornell collection, Smith's family decided to try to get the medal for him. It took quite a while, but on January 16, 2001, Caruth received the Medal of Honor for her father from Bill Clinton in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. It was the same day Teddy's Roosevelt's family received the MOH for his bravery at San Juan Heights.
The family wanted Andrew J. Smith's story told, as well as the work that was done to procure the MOH for him. They found a couple of historians in their neck of the woods, and the book was finally published this summer. It's called "Carrying the Colors." I just finished reading it, and it's very good. I was one of the people they dedicated it to. The same authors are now working on a complete history of the 55th Massachusetts, although I don't have any idea when it will be published.
Caruth passed in 2012 at the age of 104. Here's a link to her obituary if anyone's interested:
I forgot to mention that Andrew Smith had been married, but his wife died childless. He later married a much younger woman, who bore him his two daughters. Their mother unfortunately died in a kitchen fire when they were still little. Smith, being up in age didn't feel he could raise a young baby, and sent Caruth to live with her mother's family. Geneva remained with her father for a while, until she too eventually went to live with her mother's family. They did see their father occasionally, when he would make the trip from Kentucky to visit.
I’d previously discovered letters from Color Sergeant Andrew J. Smith of the 55th Mass., in a collection of papers at Cornell University. The letters were donated by Burt Green Wilder, who was the Assistant Surgeon for the unit.
My maternal grandmother was an assistant/nurse for Dr. Wilder at the time of his death (late 20s, early 30s). They were living on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts at the time. That is all I can tell you about the this as she died in 1976 when I was 15. I am aware of the Wilder collection at Cornell which has some obscure references to my grandmother.
My grandmother was about 45 when she gave birth to her youngest, my father in 1932.