Posted on 08/31/2006 9:07:31 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
On Sunday afternoon at Old Union Cemetery in southern White County, over 180 people gathered to pay a debt owed nearly 80 years. The group included members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Sons of Confederate Veterans, family and friends, all there to memorialize the service of Pvt. Henry Henderson, a black Confederate soldier.
Henderson was born in 1849 in Davidson County, NC. He was 11 years old when he entered service with the Confederate States of America as a cook and servant to Colonel William F. Henderson, a medical doctor. Records show Henry was wounded during his service, but he continued to serve until the war's end in 1865. He was discharged in Salem, NC, age 16.
After the war, Henry married Miranda Shockley, of White County, TN. The couple raised five children.
"We're here to honor him," said his great-grandson, Oscar Fingers, of Evansville, IN. "I think he would be proud his family has come this far and to know all we have done." Several other family members made the trip with Fingers from Indiana for Sunday's ceremony.
Sons Dalton and Lee received Henderson's first and last Tennessee Colored Confederate pension check upon their father's death in September 1926. The check provided enough funds to bury their father, but not enough to buy a headstone for his grave.
The 60,000-90,000 black Confederate soldiers are often called "the forgotten Confederates," but through the concerted efforts of the Capt. Sally Tompkins Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy along with the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, several graves have been found in the Upper Cumberland and have been or will be marked.
Pvt. Henry Henderson's service was finally recognized and his grave officially marked on Sunday, all to the snap of salutes from the grandsons of fellow Confederates, volleys of gunfire and cannons shot toward the distant hillsides of his final resting place.
Official U.S. government grave markers are available to all Confederate veterans. For additional information, contact Barbara Parsons, 484-5501.
I will fight against ANY ARMY of ANY COUNTRY that invades my home. As to this soldier, he deserves honor and respect, you sir, have neither.
The article is interesting, but I've made my point and must get back to work. BTW, the War on Terror and the need to retain GOP control of Congress are much more important than this subject. Cheers,
Why is it so hard to respect this man and give him a proper burial?
Why is it so hard to honor his sacrifice?
The UDC, SCV, and his family have no problems with it - why do you?
So you bring the fight to this thread and then say this man's memorial is unimportant.
black served in the Luisiana militia.
According to a documentary on the History channel about the northern POW camps, black confederates were shot on the spot and would not be taken captive.
I would, if you have no objection. Let's start with...oh, with this item here:
"It was not just Southern generals who owned slaves but northern generals owned them as well. General Ulysses Grant's slaves had to await the Thirteenth Amendment for freedom. When asked why he didn't free his slaves earlier, General Grant said, "Good help is so hard to come by these days.""
I'd like to know how this was possible. Grant was living in Illinois prior to the rebellion and slavery wasn't allowed there. His wife and in-laws were from Missouri, a slave state, but slavery was ended there by amendment to the state constitution in January 1865. How could Grant have owned any slaves in December 1865 when neither he nor his wife were living anywhere where he legally could?
And you "know" all this, HOW?
"According to a documentary on the History channel about the northern POW camps, black confederates were shot on the spot and would not be taken captive."
The History Channel deserves a couple points here, for being accurate. I also remember reading comments made regarding no need to waste valuable rations on them thar soldiers. I also read accounts of them being shot and killed, when taking them prisoner was clearly an option. But due to a tarnished view, Northerners chose to shoot and kill...
"I'd like to know how this was possible."
Here's your answer:
Union General Ulysses S. Grant was a slaveholder of record. He refused to give up his slaves until the passage of the 13th Amendment. The Grant’s wife Julia confirms having slaves through 1863 as she wrote in her Personal Memoirs, that:
"Eliza, Dan, Julia, and John belonged to me up to the time of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. When I visited the General during the war, I nearly always had Julia with me a nurse. She came near being captured at Holly Springs"
One of Grant’s slave’s name was William Jones. In 1858, while attempting to make a go in civilian life as a farmer near St. Louis, Missouri, Ulysses S. Grant bought the slave, William Jones, from his brother-in-law. Grant's also became the owner of record of his wife’s inheritance of four slaves, but as was the case at the time, women could not actually own slaves, so they were under the control of Grant. No record has been found of these slaves having been freed prior to emancipation in Missouri in 1865.
http://www.scv674.org/SH-3.htm
Blacks did indeed form two regiments for service in the Louisana rebel militia, but the rebel state government refused to accept them, so they joined the Union Army when General Butler captured New Orleans.
No hurry. I'll welcome your comment when you return from work, or do you not want to confront something that goes against your preconceived (ill conceived?) beliefs?
Do you think a draftee had any choice but to do as he were told? Does that make him any less a soldier?
Get a real life.
I would answer that January 1863 is not December 1865. You post a quote from Mrs. Grant's memoirs stating she freed her slaves early in 1863. There is no record of Mrs. Grant being seen with any of her slaves after early 1863. When she visited Grant with her children during the Petersburg campaign she brought a hired German girl as nurse and not one of her slaves. And you also ignored the fact that Missouri emancipated all slaves in January 1865. So I will ask once again in the face of all evidence to the contrary, how can the claim that Grant owned slaves until the adoption of the 13th Amendment be true when neither he nor his wife were living anywhere that slave ownership was legal and there is no evidence at all of their being present any time after January or February of 1863?
In 1858, while attempting to make a go in civilian life as a farmer near St. Louis, Missouri, Ulysses S. Grant bought the slave, William Jones, from his brother-in-law. No record has been found of these slaves having been freed prior to emancipation in Missouri in 1865.
On the contrary, Grant's memoirs state, and Missouri records confirm, that ownership of William Jones was transferred to Grant from his father-in-law and not his brother-in-law. Grant's memoirs further state, and Missouri records also confirm, that Grant emancipated Jones in 1859 prior to moving to Illinois, not 1865 as you claim.
AND those 210,000 black soldiers and sailors served MOSTLY in the capacity as cooks and manservants for white officers. Yes we've all heard of the 54th Mass, and they were the exception rather than the rule. IN FACT black sailors served mostly as mess stewards up until the first few years of WW2. Blacks were in segregated units in the US ARMY. In fact one of the better units of the US Army in WW1 was "The Harlem Hellfighters" an all black unit.
Of course its probably difficult for you to accept the fact that most black slaves voluntarily followed their owners to war out of loyalty and a love of their adopted homeland. You foolishly believe that they were all driven to the fight with the bullwhip. You're just another one of the many "Because we say its so, it MUST have been that way" crowd.
"You post a quote from Mrs. Grant's memoirs stating she freed her slaves early in 1863."
No that's not what the quote says.
And I don't have time to chase this particular rabbit anymore. Perhaps you could do the legwork and get back to me?
That is a little over the top, don't you think?
This soldier may not have carried a gun but so what? He served the Confederacy. He deserved this honor.
There were 166 black regiments in the Union army. 145 were infantry, 7 cavalry, 12 heavy artillery, 1 light artillery, and 1 engineer.
How many of those black regiments were conscripts?
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