Rev. Elijah Marrs
In South Carolina Union troops of the 12th Indiana Infantry are defeated by Confederate forces in the skirmish of Gamble’s Hotel in Florence, South Carolina. Albeit meaningless in the course of the war, the moment is a rare triumph for the Confederacy at this late date in the great conflict.
Meanwhile Private Elijah J. Marrs of Kentucky, serving in Company L, 12th U.S. Colored Artillery, is working hard to help freedmen transition into a life of freedom.
Born in January 1840 in Shelby County, Kentucky, to a free black father and an enslaved mother, Marrs grew up as a slave. Converting to the Baptist faith as a youth, Marrs embraced the denomination most favored by Christianized slaves in the South.
Although enslaved, Marrs described his master as more lenient than most. As a young man Marrs, with both the encouragement and caution of his master, learned to read and write. Education fostered the freedom impulse in Marrs, and soon he ran away and, taking a number of enslaved friends with him, joined the Union Army in late 1864.
Reflecting both his literary capabilities and personal strengths, Marrs proved himself a capable leader in the months following. Following a period of military engagements, he is appointed to work with freedmen, of which his wisdom and leadership is put to the test,
Marrs speaks of this period in his life.
My efficiency as a sergeant had proven to the officers that I was capable, and as a consequence I was ordered to report to headquarters for assignment to more important duties. At this time hundreds of women and children, the wives and families of men who had gone into war, had flocked into Bowling Green for protection, their former masters having driven them from their homes. They sought that protection at our headquarters, and I was detailed to collect them together and look after their needs. I made my headquarters in the old colored Methodist Church on the hill, my duties requiring that I should see that their rations were duly distributed among them, and power was conferred upon me to punish the unruly. Unfortunately, the General Government did not provide them with clothing, and as some of these poor people were driven from their homes without even a second garment, their condition was pitable in the extreme, as in four weeks’ time many of them were unable to hide their nakedness. They looked to me as if I were their Saviour. Whatever happened in camp to disturb or annoy them, the story was at once detailed to me, and I was expected to remedy every evil. Sometimes fifteen or twenty would engage in a broil, and the weaker party would invariably come to me for protection. On these occasions I would call a court-martial, sit as judge, examine witnesses, and condemn the guilty to such punishment as in my judgment the offense deserved; as a rule, that was the last of it. There were in camp two or three old women who were always in some row. These I would talk to, and tell them they ought to act as mothers to the younger women, in which they would coincide, but before long would again be in trouble. They used to say of me:
“God knows dat’s a good child! God mus’ be wid him, kase he couldn’t act as he do wid dese niggers.”
Following the war, Marrs becomes first a teacher and then, in 1873, a Baptist preacher. He is best remembered in the Baptist world as the first pastor of the Beargrass Baptist Church of Louisville, Kentucky.
Sources: “Skirmish at Gamble’s Hotel” (link); Life and History of the Rev. Elijah P. Marrs, First Pastor of Beargrass Baptist Church, and Author, Louisville, Ky: Bradley and Gilbert, 1885, pp. 21-23, digitized by Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (link); “Rev. Elijah P. Marrs,” in General Association of Colored Baptists in Kentucky, Golden jubilee of the General Association of Colored Baptists in Kentucky, Louisville: Mayes Printing Company, 1915, pp. 194-195 (link)
