Peter Barrow was born a slave near Petersburg, Virginia in 1840. As a child he was taken to a plantation in Alabama. Earlier this year, perhaps when Union naval and army forces invaded and gained control over the Mobile Bay area in February, Barrow, now a young man, managed to escape. Fleeing to Vicksburg, this…
John Fletcher Hamlin from Warren, Pennsylvania is a soldier in the190th Pennsylvania Infantry. Originally having enlisted with the Pennsylvania First Rifles on August 23, 1861, he was 20 years old at the time of his re-enlistment with the 190th. As is the case with many soldiers North and South, Hamlin writes letters to home during…
William Elgin, Baptist minister, is chaplain of the 14th United States Colored Infantry. As the third full year of the war draws to a close, the Union increasingly depends on the growing ranks of black regiments to provide the extra manpower needed to finally win the war against the rebelling Southern states. Elgin is “a…