William Street: "There is not a man born, who can represent slavery so bad as it is."

Benjamin Drew, a Boston abolitionist acting in cooperation with officers of the Canadian Anti-Slavery Society, visited various towns of Upper Canada around the middle 1850's, interviewing scores of refugees from the slave states and printing their interviews. For reasons of safety, he protected the identity of his informants and used fictitious names. There were about 30,000 people of African descent at that time in Upper Canada, mostly adults who had once been enslaved. 

Will Street was a blacksmith from Middle Tennessee. He mentions knowing of the Perkins family's iron works.  I can't help but wonder if he was somehow related to Williamson County's Reuben Street whom I have written about before.  Street's narrative provides a fascinating description of his escape from a slave trader while onboard a steamboat in Nashville as he was about to be taken south to be sold. 

Below is a full transcript of his story.  I am printing it as an example of what life in Middle Tennessee was like for those who lived under the horror of slavery.  This was not "Gone With the Wind."  These were places of torture and we should not and must not forget that.

A North-Side View of Slavery.The Refugee: or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada.Related by Themselves, with an Account of the History and condition of the Colored Population of Upper Canada: Electronic Edition. Drew, Benjamin, 1812-1903

Testimony of WILLIAM STREET. I am from Middle Tennessee, where I worked as a blacksmith, another man taking my wages. All I got was my victuals and clothes, and not much at that. Twenty-five years I was a slave,--was bred and born a slave, and cannot read or write.

My mother has several times told me that her father was sick, and his mistress drove him out of the house, and he leaned his breast over the fence and died. She often showed me the place where he died. I was hired out when very young--did not get the lash. It was never "Can you do it?" or "Will you do it?"--but "You must go and do it." Sometimes I would do a good day's work, and then have another job put on me. I can't paint it as bad as it is. I have seen a man at the iron-works--Perkins's--who said he did not believe that there was a bit of skin on him that he was born with,--they had whipped it all off.

If a northern man were to go right into a slave State, he would not see the worst of slavery. By the time he was up in the morning, the slaves would be a mile off--he would see but little of the evil--he wouldn't get to see it.

My master died when I was seven; my mistress when I was twenty-five. Then we were divided out: I fell to a son who lived in Mississippi. I had been living with a doctor two years, and I asked him to buy me. But my master wouldn't sell--the doctor offered $1,100 for me. I was put in jail five days--I and my brother, who had fallen to the same man, were there. Our owner came in with irons and handcuffs, and put them on, and took us to the blacksmith to have them riveted. I left two men in the jail who had run away from Mississippi and had lain there eleven months,--in one month to be sold. One of them was a great fellow to pray: I'd hear him praying every morning for the Lord to help him. He said he wished the doctor would buy me. The rivets were fixed: we went to Nashville, and were put on board a steamboat, I and my brother chained together. They were loading the boat, which takes two or three days. I heard some one tell a colored man to pump the boilers full, and they'd put out in the morning. I said to my brother, "When you hear me say to-night, the dog's dead, then we 'll put out."

At 11 o'clock we laid down. I made believe that something ailed me, and kept going out. By and by, I said "the dog's dead." We crept into the wheelhouse, and down on the wheel, to the outside of the guard, and got on board a stone-coal boat. We walked eighteen miles that night,--but we were not away yet--yet had no thought about Canada. I had heard of it, but had no thought about getting to it. We laid down, meaning to stay till next night.

Two men went out to hunt partridges, and at about one o'clock they came across us. "What are you doing here, boys?" We had broken off the chains, but the handcuffs were on each of us. "I am going to Columbia--did n't you see that wagon with the boiler on it?" They said, "Come, go this way," and one threatened with his gun. We up and ran. The slaveholders both followed us. We ran across a field about half a mile: when we got across there was a mill and a creek. We ran through the creek: there was a big hill. I went one side, and my brother the other: they followed after me. I stopped and hailed, "What do you want?" They thought I was coming in to give up,--but I passed them and went into the creek, where I fell down, and got wet all over. I crossed at the mill; they after me: there was a horse tied there, and there were several men about the mill; one a colored man, who had the horse. "Can I take your horse?" "No." I took him any how. I cut the bridle, jumped on, and started. Then a white man put his gun over a tree and shot me--some eight or ten small shot went in--they are most of them in me now. The horse then put out with me--then I was shut of them. They had no horse--he put out like lightning--I did not know where I was going,--I rode two miles, got off, hitched the horse, and went away and left him. Thinks I, they 've gone from the mill now--I'll go back and get my clothes now,--I had left them in my hurry. As I went back to the mill, I saw them and took them, and then I saw the men coming back from pursuing my brother. I heard them say, "Yonder he is! yonder he is!" I ran to an open field where there was a little grass, and laid down. They did not see--they hunted about and gave it up: then I went to an old house that had hay in it, and put my clothes in there. I then walked right before the door of a house where were slaves at work--nobody spoke a word to me. After I got through them, I saw an old colored man with a wagon. He told me, "You go this way, and when they come I'll tell 'em you 've gone that way." I did as he advised me, and got into a tree that had been burned out, and stayed in it till night: then I went and got my clothes, and started for the old place where I was raised.

I went on to where my oldest brother lived in Tennessee and told him the circumstances. I was then told to go into the barn-loft, and stay there,--I did--stayed three days hid in the wheat: then I went in the woods, and stayed eight months without ever going into a house,--from Christmas until the last of August. Then my owner came from Mississippi, with a man named T--, who brought three bloodhounds along with him. A white man who saw me the day before, told them where they had seen me. They went to that place, and put the bloodhounds on my track. I had never seen a bloodhound, but I heard them, and I spoke to myself; says I, "I'm gone." I had a pistol, a big stick, and a big knife. Then I ran out of the corn field into a little skirt of woods, and the bloodhounds got over the fence when I did. I wheeled and shot one of them through and through. He never got away from the place at all. I got back to the corn field, the others both with me in the field; one hold of my wrist, the other of my leg. I have the marks--here they are on my wrist. I struck at the dog with my knife a number of times--but he dodged every time. Then my master came up with a pistol, and said if I did'nt stand, he'd put a ball through me. T--came up and struck me with a hickory stick five or six blows, on the back of my neck. I cried, "Oh Lord! Oh Lord!" then T--made the dogs let go. He then took out his handcuffs and chains, and put them on, and took me to a blacksmith's, to have them riveted, putting in another chain between the cuffs, to make 'em strong, so I could n't get away anyhow.

They concluded I must know where my youngest brother was, but I did not and could not tell them any thing about it. They did n't believe that, I was standing up; a great many gathered round to see me: I was chewing tobacco. T--said, "G--d--you, quit chewing tobacco, and tell us where your brother is, for I know you know." Some fellow asked my master what he was going to do with me,--he said he was going to give me up to T--, because I had killed the bloodhound,--T--would n't have taken five hundred dollars for him; said "he was worth more than him, d--n him." He was the fastest one they had; before they brought them from Mississippi, they had caught a man and torn out his entrails,--T--told me so himself. They kept me going round from that day, Tuesday, to Friday, trying to find my brother,--chaining me to the bedstead at night. Thursday morning they thought they had heard of him; went eighteen miles to Shelbyville. A great many went with them for the fun of the thing. This was in the beginning of September, 1851.

I was now at the old place where I was bred, and was left with master's brother-in-law, in his care. At three o'clock, the brother had some sheep to shear: he took me into the stable, put on shackles, and took off my handcuffs, so I could shear. After dinner, said I, "Mr. E--, won't you give me some grease, if you please, to grease my boots?" "Oh, yes." I went into the kitchen where my mother had lived, close by, and thought over all things that had passed before. Pretty soon he told me to fill a kettle with water. The kettle was some fifty yards from the house; there were some six men on the piazza, who could watch me. I filled the kettle. "Did you see my boys?" says he. I told him, "Yes--behind the barn." The barn was further off than the kettle. "Shall I go and tell them to make a fire about the kettle?" Says he, "Yes." They wanted to kill a shoat against the folks got home with my brother. I stepped to the barn to tell them; I looked round,--no one was looking. I told them. They all started for wood, etc. I looked up to the sun, and said to myself, "it's three o'clock." I threw my boots over a stump, and drew them so I could run, I kept my boots, and ran off to Canada. . . . .

It is above my language to tell how overjoyed I was on getting into Canada. Nothing harasses a man so much as slavery. There is nothing under the sun so mean: after a man is dead, they won't let him rest. It is a horrible thing to think of, the ignorance slaves are brought up in. There is not a man born, who can represent slavery so bad as it is.

I work here at blacksmithing: I own this shop. I have plenty of work, and good pay."

Franklin's USCT Statue Honors Our Native Sons

Today, the final fundraising threshold was met to be able to erect a statue to the US Colored Troops on the Public Square in downtown Frankin. This would not have happened without the hard work of many people, especially those involved in the Fuller Story project.


The statue will be a full-scale bronze representation of a USCT soldier sculpted by Tennessee native Joe F. Howard. Design work and sculpting are already underway. Plans are to unveil the statue in early 2021.


I wanted to take this moment to describe exactly who this statue is depicting - to put a human face on it. The soldiers represented by the statue have direct ties to Williamson County - they were born here, they lived here, married here, enlisted here, served here, raised families here, died here and are buried here. They are our native sons. Many of them left widows and orphans and bereft parents behind. So far, I have identified 59 Black soldiers from Williamson County who died in service to our country during the Civil War. At least ten of these men died of wounds received in the Battle of Nashville. Many of their remains lie in unmarked or unknown graves. When Franklin's Confederate monument was erected in 1899 - 35 years after the Civil War - many of the surviving local USCT soldiers were still living in Williamson County.  Not only was their service not honored, but it was also in many ways a liability.  It is beyond time - these local men all deserve public recognition for their service to us and to our nation.

For some context, you should know that during the Civil War, approximately 180,000 African American men joined the federal forces in the USCT to fight. Tennessee sent the third-highest number of men of any state - more than 20,000.

Tennessee sent the third-largest number of men to join the USCT during the Civil War.
About 20,000 black men from Tennessee joined USCT regiments.

I believe that the 300 men from Williamson County I have identified actually represent a significant undercount. I think the number of local USCT could easily be as much as double that or even triple. The reason for the undercount has to do with the lack of indexed and digitized military service records for these men, incomplete enlistment records, and other issues that make it hard to track and identify the birthplace and residence of these soldiers.

Further, it is important to remember in thinking about the statue and the men it represents, in addition to sending USCT from Williamson County, they were also active in and around our community throughout the War.

For example, in mid-August 1863 more than 60 African American men were enlisted into Company A of the 13th US Colored Infantry right in Franklin - perhaps inside the old Williamson County Court House that sits on the Square - right where the statue will be installed. Later that October 1863, recruiters again were enlisting Black men into US Colored troop regiments in Franklin.

In March 1864, Moscow Carter of the Carter House wrote a letter in which he said a company of USCT was garrisoned in Franklin and he expected a regiment to be sent here. He was probably referring to Company K of the 17th US Colored Infantry. That spring, three soldiers in Company K died in Franklin.

• On March 4, 1864, Pvt. Levi DeBow died in Franklin of lung disease. DeBow was about 27 years old.
• On March 24th, 1864, Cpl. Erasmus Turner died in the Company Camp in Franklin of a gunshot wound.
• On April 6, 1864, Pvt. Israel Stonebreaker died in Franklin from smallpox in the “quarantine hospital”.

Following the War, US soldiers discovered the remains of two soldiers from Company K of the 17th US Colored Infantry who were “Found in Vicinity of Squire Carter’s on Battlegrounds.” These men were later buried in the Stones River National Cemetery. It is probable that these remains belonged to two of the men described above. None of the three appear to have headstones identifying their remains in any of the area National Cemeteries. 

On March 21, 1864, 19-year-old Samuel Cox - who was born in Williamson County - enlisted in Franklin in Company C of the 17th US Colored Infantry. 

Company Descriptive Card
Samuel Cox
17th US Colored Infantry


Peter Bruner
12th US Colored Heavy Artillery

Later that summer, a portion of the 12th US Colored Heavy Artillery was sent here to guard cattle. Pvt. Peter Bruner described in his memoir how,

Then we started on our journey from Bowling Green to Nashville, Tennessee, to guard a thousand head of cattle. Everything went well with us until we arrived at Franklin, Tennessee, except it rained on us every day. After we had passed into Franklin the next night we went into camp, everything began to go wrong. The food gave out and the rebels fired in on us. The rebels had three men to our one but they did not get any of our men or cattle. All of this occurred after night. We managed the next day to go to the mill to get some flour and when we came back we made it up with water and put it on a board and held it up before the fire to bake it. We did not have any salt nor any shortening nor anything. That evening we found a hog that had five little pigs just about three days old and cleaned them and made soup of them. About that time that the soup was done the rebels fired in on us and made us go and forget all about our pig soup. So after this we did not have any more trouble until we reached Nashville with all of our cattle safe.

Most significantly, following the Battle of Nashville, probably hundreds of local men were serving with the 12th US Colored Infantry, the13th US Colored Infantry, the 14th US Colored Infantry, the 16th US Colored Infantry, the 17th US Colored Infantry, the 44th US Colored Infantry, and the 2nd US Colored Light Artillery, Battery A. Their contributions were significant to winning the Battle and bringing about the end of major fighting in the Western Theatre. You can learn more about the contributions of Williamson County's USCT in the Battle of Nashville in this blog post. The next day, these men hounded the defeated and retreating Confederate Army of Tennessee right through Williamson County and Franklin. A few USCT, including Franklin native Sgt. Major Andrew Ewing, was left sick in a hospital here.

As they came through town on their way to Murfreesboro to board trains, these local men - who were returning as triumphant soldiers, no longer slaves, had this remarkable encounter with their commander General Thomas:



Following the War, US soldiers discovered the remains of two soldiers from Company K of the 17th US Colored Infantry who were “Found in Vicinity of Squire Carter’s on Battlegrounds.” These men were later buried in the Stones River National Cemetery. They likely died during the spring of 1863 when they were garrisoned in Franklin.

Even long after the surrender, US Colored Troops were kept on active duty in this area as peacekeeping troops, security forces and burial details. On February 4th, 1866, two brothers of the 17th US Colored Infantry, Co E were on furlough from Nashville. They were traveling on foot to Triune to visit their parents who were living near there. They were attacked by a civilian and one of the brothers, Pvt.Henry Moon was shot and killed.

Pvt. John Dubuisson served in the 100th US Colored Infantry. In my blog post about him, I described how he married his wife Bettie here in early 1867. He died in July 1909 and is buried in the historic Toussaint L'Ouverture Cemetry in Franklin.




Pvt. Freeman Thomas was enslaved just west of downtown Franklin. He was shot in the leg during the Battle of Nashville, raised a successful family in Franklin following the War and owned a house on Franklin Road that still stands. You can read an interview with him in my blog post here. He died on his 91st birthday and is also buried in the Toussaint L'Ouverture Cemetery.



Private Granville Scales was enslaved in the College Grove area of Williamson County with his parents before the War. He enlisted in the 44th US Colored Infantry. He was taken Prisoner of War two times and escaped both times. The second time he was shot in the shoulder so badly that he had to have his arm amputated. In my blog post, I describe how he declined a medical discharge and stayed on active duty, becoming his regiment's principal musician. Following the War, he moved his family to Kansas and then Oklahoma where he built a grocery store and was a leading member of the community.






Felix Battle was born in Williamson County and was just 13 years old when he enlisted in the 13th US Colored Infantry. He served as a drummer boy during the intense Battle of Nashville and after the War raised a large family in Louisiana. He was a very successful farmer and sent his children to school in Nashville.


These are just a few examples of the connections that USCT had in and around Franklin and Williamson County during and after the Civil War. It is long past time to honor and remember them. We have lost their stories and now we can bring their legacies home. I am so grateful to everyone who is making this a reality through their support of the statue.

If you would like to learn more about these men, please subscribe to my blog and follow Slaves to Soldiers on Facebook.

Some additional local USCT Stories can be found here:

• Pvt. Miles German, 13th US Colored Infantry, killed in the Battle of Nashville
• Pvt. Alfred Fields, 3rd US Colored Infantry, born in Williamson County but enlisted in Pennsylvania at the largest training camp for Black men during the War
• Pvt. William Holmes, 5th Massachusetts Colored Cavalry, born in Virginia but moved to Williamson County after the War
• Cpl. Ned Scruggs, 13th US Colored Infantry, enslaved in the Southall area west of Franklin before the War
• 1st Sgt. Andrew Ewing, 12th US Colored Infantry, enslaved near today's Pinkerton Park before the War
• Cpl. Abraham McGavock, 14th US Colored Infantry, was sold when he was four years old from the Perkins family of Del Rio Pike to James McGavock (who lived where the Forrest Crossing subdivision is today); his mother applied for a pension after he died soon after the War from a gunshot he received in service

Tennessee's Confederate Independence Day - June 8, 1861

Today is a big day for the men portrayed by Franklin’s Confederate Monument. #OTD1861 On today’s date 1861, an overwhelming majority of the adult, white male voters in Williamson County voted to secede from the United States and join the Confederate States of America. Today is their “Independence Day.”  

Once all the votes were counted, 1,915 white men voted in favor of the state resolution to secede. Only 28 remained loyal to this country. It is important to remember that the votes of the rebels represented only a small fraction of the total population in Williamson County. At the time of the vote, about 24,000 people lived in Williamson County, more than half of whom were held in cruel bondage.

You have surely heard the arguments -- the South seceded over “States Rights” not slavery.  Well, listen to what the Nashville Republican Banner newspaper said the vote was about the day before it was taken. In an editorial titled, “What is to be voted To-morrow” the paper wrote:

“The people of Tennessee will cast the most important vote to-tomorrow that they have ever been called upon to cast. It is to decide whether Tennessee shall declare her Independence of the Federal Union, or continue a party to that Union under a Constitution violated for the purpose of urging a war upon the Southern States - a war for the extermination of slavery. This is the issue, blink it and pervert it as you will. The people of the Northern States have been for nearly half a century haters of slavery. For many years their pecuniary interests and a regard for their constitutional obligations kept them from making this hatred an active political element. But slowly and surely the once insignificant and contemptible abolition party has gained in strength and numbers, until finally under the name of the Republican party, and under the lead of such men as Lincoln, Greely, and others, and with the watch word of the “irrepressible conflict” between free and slave labor, it absorbed the entire Northen masses, and succeeded in the first grand set of the drama - gaining possession fo the Executive Department of the Government. … Is there a Southern man who is willing to trust his honor, his interests, his constitutional rights in the keeping of a government controlled by the spirit of abolitionism and hatred of slavery which has so signalized the whole public and private career of the men in power at Washington, and which has become the ruling sentiment of the whole North?  . . . "

Pretty clear, isn’t it?  It was a “war for the extermination of slavery.”  Right from the get-go.  And these men were rising to defend it. You cannot whitewash it.

So the next time you see a post that says something like, "We need to keep our historical monuments to preserve our history" or  "Our history should never be forgotten or rewritten." Know that I agree with you in part - this history should never be forgotten and it should never have been rewritten and told as a false narrative. Just remember exactly what history it is that our monuments today are honoring and telling. And whose. Think about what parts of our history we choose to commemorate and to celebrate.  There are other stories more worthy of elevation. 

This is the full text of the editorial -- you can download it here.

Prisoner of War Exchanges and the Impact on Local USCT Soldiers During the Civil War

Following the Battle of Bull Run and for the early part of the Civil War, when soldiers were captured by the enemy, rather than being kept as prisoners of war, they were generally exchanged back to their own side under a complicated set of rules that was called the Dix Hill Cartel. It reminds me of a bit of a card game like Go Fish -- "I will trade you four privates for a sergeant." "No, I don't have a sergeant, but I will take four privates, and one corporal for a captain." This system was codified on July 22, 1862, and called for exchanges until all captured soldiers had been returned back to their original army to fight again another day.

Then in September of 1862, President Lincoln called for the enlistment of Black soldiers into the US Army as part of the preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. This would change everything.  No longer would white soldiers be exchanged for white soldiers. Now, the US Government expected that Black soldiers (many of whom were former slaves) would be exchanged equally - one for one - for white soldiers. So one white private was equal to one Black private in this card game.

On Christmas Eve, December 23, 1862, Confederate President Davis responded by issuing a Proclamation and General Order No. 111 that neither captured Black soldiers (who he considered to be "armed slaves in insurrection") nor their white officers would be subject to exchange under the Dix Hill Cartel rules. In other words, Black soldiers and their officers were worthless to him for the purposes of exchanges:

"3d. That all negro slaves captured in arms be at once delivered over to the executive authorities of the respective States to which they belong, to be dealt with according to the laws of said States. 

4th. That the like orders be executed in all cases with respect to all commissioned officers of the United States when found serving in company with armed slaves in insurrection against the authorities of the different States of this Confederacy."

In fact, his Proclamation said that the Black soldiers would be "dealt with" according to the state from "which they belong."  They were to be treated as runaway slaves.  And that their white officers were to be treated as if aiding a slave revolt. This could mean being sentenced to death.

The Confederate response did not discourage President Lincoln, and one week later, on January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation became official and the United States began the active recruitment of Black soldiers and sailors. 

Locally, General Rosencrans responded from his headquarters in Murfreesboro.  On January 6, 1863, he issued General Order No. 3 stating that, as a result of Jefferson Davis' order "denying paroles to our officers, he [Rosencrans] will be obligated to treat them in like manner. . . . "In accordance with the preceding order, the Confederate officers taken prisoner at the Battle of Stones River [December 31, 1862-January 2, 1863] the other day, and who had been released here on parole with the freedom of the city until an exchange could be effected were the other day sent off to Alton, Illinois, to be kept in confinement."

Instructions for the government of armies 

of the United States, in the field, 1863

(The Lieber Codes)

In April 1863 the US government adopted the Lieber Codes, also known as General Order 100. They stipulated that the United States Army expected all prisoners to be treated equally, regardless of color. 

Instructions for the government of armies 

of the United States, in the field, 1863, p.17

(The Lieber Codes)

On May 1, 1863, the Confederate Congress passed a joint resolution that formalized Davis' December 1862 proclamation that the Confederate forces would not exchange Black US Colored Troop soldiers who were taken prisoner.  It stated its belief that Black US Army soldiers who had been recruited from among escaped slaves were still the property of their former enslavers and that their participation in the US Army was punishable. White officers of these soldiers could also to be put to death if captured.

Sec. 2 . . . [The Emancipation Proclamation etc] and other measures designed or tending to emancipate slaves in the Confederate States, or to abduct such slaves, or to incite them to insurrection, or to employ negroes in war against the Confederate States, or to overthrow the institution of African slavery and bring on a servile war in these States, would, if successful, produce atrocious consequences, and they are inconsistent with the spirit of those usages which in modern warfare prevail among civilized nations, they may, therefore, be properly and lawfully repressed by retaliation.  

Sec. 3 . . . .the President of the confederate States [Jefferson Davis] is hereby authorized to cause full and complete retaliation to be made for every such violation, in such manner and to such extent as he may think proper.

Sec. 4. That every white person, being a commissioned officer, or acting as such, who, during the present war, shall command negroes or mulattoes in arms against the confederate States, or who shall arm, train, organize, or prepare negroes or mulattoes for military service against the confederate States, or who shall voluntarily aid negroes or mulattoes in any military enterprise, attack, or conflict in such service, shall be deemed as inciting servile insurrection, and shall, if captured, be put to death, or be otherwise punished at the discretion of the court.  

Harper's Weekly
Cartoon: “The President’s Order No. 252”
August 15, 1863

On July 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued General Order 252, which effectively suspended the Dix-Hill Cartel until the Confederate forces agreed to treat Black prisoners the same as white prisoners. The Presidential order required that for every US  soldier who was killed instead of exchanged, or for any soldier who was enslaved by the enemy, a Confederate soldier would also be killed or put to hard labor.  Large scale prisoner exchanges largely ceased by August 1863. 

War Department. General Order No. 252.
Washington: July 31, 1863.

This resulted in a dramatic increase in the prison populations on both sides. Large numbers of captured soldiers were held in prisons with terrible conditions such as Andersonville (Confederate) and Rock Island (US Army). It also seems to have meant that soldiers in the USCT were more determined than ever not be captured.

One of the most controversial and gruesome events of the Civil War was the Battle of Fort Pillow. On April 12, 1864 Confederates under the command of Nathan Bedford Forrest attacked the Fort which was garrisoned by about 600 men - about half of whom were Black USCT soldiers with the 6th US Colored Heavy Artillery regiment (formerly the 11th USCI (New)) and the 2nd Colored Light Artillery, Battery D.  When the Confederate's attacked the Fort that day, most modern historians believe and official US Army reports emphasize that a deliberate massacre took place. Federal soldiers who survived stated that even though all their troops surrendered, Forrest's men massacred the Black soldiers in cold blood. Surviving members of the garrison said that most of their men surrendered and threw down their arms, only to be shot or bayoneted by the attackers, who repeatedly shouted, "No quarter! No quarter!"  The phrase "no quarter" generally means that they will take no prisoners -- which would be somewhat consistent with the official Confederate policy toward Black soldiers at the time. However, some controversy does still exists around this event and some Confederate sources say that Forrest's forces were firing in self-defense. I find that hard to believe after reading through all the official records, but to be fair wanted to mention it. 

About two months later, in June 1864, Williamson Countian Obed Carlton was captured at the Battle of Brice's Crossroads while serving with the 55th US Colored Infantry. He returned to his unit (escaped from POW camp) Aug 1, 1864 and mustered out Dec 31, 1865 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Two Williamson County men serving in the USCT were taken POW in late September 1864.  Confederate Nathan Bedford Forrest led his cavalry force into northern Alabama and Middle Tennessee to disrupt the supplies for US General Sherman's march into Georgia. They captured men from the 111th USCT while paroling the white officers. Williamson County's Pvt. Eli Perkins was among the POWs. He was captured on September 24th and managed to escape and return to duty with his regiment on November 1, 1864. The day after Pvt Eli Perkins was captured, on September 25th, 1864, Forrest moved his forces north of Athens along the Nashville & Decatur railroad to attack a strategic trestle bridge near Elkmont, Alabama at Sulphur Branch Creek. A fort, two blockhouses, and a force of 1,000 US Army soldiers - including the 110th USCI  - were defending the trestle. Forrest heavily bombed the fortification and took it and the men as well. Among those captured was Pvt. James Moore (full story here) who lived in Williamson County after the War. The USCT POWs were marched first to Tuscumbia, Alabama. From there, a train took them into Mississippi and finally to Mobile, Alabama. While in Mobile, Pvt. Moore was probably treated terribly. An old cotton warehouse was converted into a prison labor camp that held over five hundred Black prisoners. One man said this about his experience: 

Pvt. James Moore, 1828 - 1893

111th US Colored Infantry Co I

"We were kept at hard labor and inhumanly treated; if we lagged or faltered, or misunderstood an order, we were whipped and abused; some of our men being detailed to whip others."

Two days later, the 14th US Colored Infantry confronted Forrest's men near Pulaski, Tennessee where his men were tearing up the railroad tracks. The commander of the 14th, Colonel T. J. Morgan recalled in his diary that day,

"The massacre of colored troops at Fort Pillow was well known to us, and had been fully discussed by our men. It was rumored, and thoroughly credited by them, that General Forrest had offered a thousand dollars for the head of any commander of a face with Forest's veteran cavalry."  At least 12 Williamson County men were fighting in the 14th that day when they confronted and turned Forrest's men back. 

Additionally, five Williamson County USCT served in the 44th US Colored Infantry and were captured near Dalton, Georgia by General John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee on October 13, 1864. Although the 44th's USCI's Colonel Johnson claimed that his Black troops displayed the "greatest anxiety to fight," he surrendered to Hood and secured paroles for himself and the 150 or so other white troops. Hood had previously vowed to take no prisoners when confronting Black soldiers and later added that he "could not restrain his men and would not if he could." Here is the official report of their treatment that day. Note that the commander of the troops noted that,

 "Although assured by General Hood in person that the terms of the agreement should be strictly observed, my men, especially the colored soldiers, were immediately robbed and abused in a terrible manner. The treatment of the officers of my regiment exceeded anything in brutality I have ever witnessed . . . General Bate [Confederate] was ordered to take charge of us, and immediately commenced heaping insults upon me and my officers. He had my colored soldiers robbed of their shoes . . and sent them down the railroad and made them tear up the track for a distance of nearly two miles. One of my soldiers, who refused to injure the track, was shot on the spot, as were also five others shortly after the surrender, who having been sick, were unable to keep up with the rest on the march.. . . a number of my soldiers were returned to their former masters.."

The regiment's 600 African-American enlisted men suffered a harsh fate. As noted, some were re-enslaved, while others were sent to work on Confederate fortification projects in Alabama and Mississippi. Many ended the war as prisoners in Columbus and Griffin, Georgia, where they were released during May 1865 in what one of them described as a "sick, broken down, naked, and starved" condition. All three Williamson County members of the 44th managed to escape and return to duty with the 44th: Sgt. Henry Lanear, Cpl. Harrison Roberts, and Pvt. Granville Scales (full story here). 

Locally, at least one group of white officers of the USCT were killed instead of being taken POW.  In late December 1864, US Colored Troops were involved in the pursuit of Confederate John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee during its retreat following the Battle of Nashville. As I discussed in this blog post, several white officers of Black troops were taken prisoner by Confederate soldiers. Two were murdered and one was shot but survived. The event was decried by General Ulysses S. Grant.

By January 1865, the Confederate Congress agreed to revise their position and consented to a widescale exchange of prisoners, freeing many USCT soldiers from southern prisons and work camps.

The Bell Town Neighborhood of Franklin, Tennessee

Have you ever heard of the Bell Town neighborhood of Franklin?  If so, it means you are probably one of the area's older residents.  The Bell Town neighborhood has all but disappeared, but at one time it was a thriving African American neighborhood with ties to a Presidential candidate.

Hon. John Bell, Tenn,

National Archives

During the important 1860 Presidential Election (in which President Abraham Lincoln was elected) one of the four Presidential Candidates was John Bell. 

Bell was an attorney who first began his practice of law in Franklin following his admission to the bar in 1816. 

In 1817, Bell got his start in politics when he was elected to the Tennessee Senate from Franklin. Two years later, in 1819, Bell expanded his professional interests into real estate. He subdivided the land south of Five Points between Columbia Avenue and Evans Street, as far as Fowlkes Street, and called it "Bell Town."

Following the Civil War, the Bell Town Neighborhood became a thriving African American neighborhood. ANC Williams pastored a church there, and black doctors and other community leaders lived in the area. 

Bell Town housed several black-owned businesses including a grocery store and hotel, churches, and a Lodge of black Freemasons. A historic marker in the Cummins Street Church of Christ parking lot stands as a testament to the neighborhood and church founder A.N.C Williams. 

• You can learn more about Bell Town by reading the interpretive markers on the back of the Auto Zone (933 Columbia Ave) that was built on land in what was the center of the neighborhood. (Your Williamson article.) The panels outline the fascinating histories of several of Franklin’s most prominent African American residents including John Watt Reddick, a former railroad clerk and leader of the local Mosaic Templars of America chapter.
• Driving Tour.  Bell Town is just one of the historically African American neighborhoods that used to exist - and in some cases still do exist - in Franklin.  Learn more about them in these driving tours.

Dr. J. W. Hudson was a resident of Bell Town. His brother-in-law, Russell Otey, is his passenger.
Photo courtesy: Williamson County Historical Society

Video Resources for Learning about Tennessee and Williamson County's African American History

During this uncertain time with everyone #SocialDistancing and staying inside, I thought it might be helpful to assemble some videos about Tennessee and Williamson County's rich African American history.  Some of you may be parents with children at home, or might be adults looking for a distraction from the alarming news of the day.

I hope you find these videos to be interesting, and perhaps in some ways inspiring.  Humans have endured difficult times before, and will again.

African Americans and the [Civil] War: Looking Over Jordan


Wessington Plantation: A Family's Road to Freedom


First Black Statesmen: Tennessee's Self-Made Men


Soldier & Citizen | The Citizenship Project | NPT

A Time of Joining


Voices Lifted
 

By One Vote: Woman Suffrage in the South


Williamson County - Hardscuffle Community in Brentwood


Williamson County - Carolyn Bright Worthy tribute to her mother Minerva Owen Bright


Franklin's Black History Moment: A.N.C. Williams

Franklin's Black History Moment: The Green House

Franklin's Black History Moment: Schools and Education

Franklin Black History Moment: Downtown African-American Churches

Franklin's Black History Moment: Harvey McLemore / The McLemore House

McLemore House Museum in Franklin TN

Memories of Nashville: Civil Rights
 

Living Legacies in Williamson County: Mary Mills

Williamson Co. Educator Eugene Wade

The Rev. Jermain Wesley Loguen: King of the Underground Railroad

Engraving of J.W. Loguen 

from his 1859 Autobiography

On today's date 1860, Sarah Logue, a white woman from Maury County, Tennessee - just to our south - wrote to her runaway slave Jarman,  who was living in Syracuse, New York. She demanded that he pay her as compensation for her financial losses related to his escape and says that, in return, she will "give up all claim I have to you."

Jarman was not just any runaway slave.  He had changed his name and was now the Rev. Jermain Wesley Loguen - a prominent abolitionist and minister of the AME Church.  Loguen had been born into slavery around 1813, in Davidson County, Tennessee, the son of a black woman named Cherry and Sarah's brother-in-law, David Logue, a white man who enslaved Cherry and her children, including Jermain. 

Later in life, with Loguen's assistance - or perhaps at his direction - Loguen's biography was written.  It contains graphic details of his life as an enslaved child in the Nashville area - perhaps near Mansker's Station in Goodlettsville. The memoir provides a compelling view of life for enslaved people in Middle Tennessee. For example, the book includes a graphic description of the night, when he was about 13 years old when his father sold him and his mother Cherry and his half-siblings to a slave trader.

The Rev. J. W. Loguen, as a Slave and as a Freeman. A Narrative of Real Life., page 67
by Loguen, Jermain Wesley and Rogers, Elymas Payson (1858)

They were driven in a slave coffle through Williamson County to southern Maury County and purchased by Manasseth Logue.  Manasseth was David's brother and Jermain's uncle. 

Life in Maury County.  Manasseth and his wife Sarah Loguen were not kind to Jermain and his family. They not only manufactured but were frequent consumers of whiskey, and this affected their brutal management of their farm and those they enslaved.  Jermain's book described his adolescence - life as a field slave, attendance at a Methodist camp meeting, being leased to a neighboring white man, and the tragic sale of all the plantation's black children to slave traders.  

A portion of Map of the State of Tennessee taken from a survey by Matthew Rhea (1832)
Visible is the Bigbyville and Little Bigby Creek.  I believe Jermain Loguen was enslaved
in this area after his sale to Manasseth and Sarah Loguen.

As he approached adulthood, Jermain Loguen was fortunate to be leased to the white Preston family. The Prestons treated him with respect and introduced him to some basic education. However, during his time with them, Jermain was not shielded entirely from the horrors occuring around him. He witnessed the probate sale of a large number of enslaved people that broke apart many nearby families and the brutal beating of a man named Jerry who they were attempting to separate from his family. After his return to Manasseth Logue, Jermain decided that he could not remain under this barbaric rule and had to escape. 

Claiming Freedom.  After planning for several months, with a group of men, including Jerry, Jermain, and two other slaves did escape at Christmas time around 1834, journeying north until they reached Canada. At the last minute, Jerry decided to remain in Tennesee with his family.

After an arduous journey, 21-year-old Jermain Logue managed to escape across the United States border to Canada.  In Hamilton, Ontario Jermain learned to read and write. He farmed for a short time but in the fall of 1837, Jermain crossed back into the United States and moved to Rochester, New York. He became an active abolitionist, minister, and school teacher. 

Moved to Syracuse. In 1841, Jermain settled in Syracuse, where he married.  His house at 293 East Genesee Street became an important stop on the Underground Railroad. 

During this time, the residents in nearby Cortland, NY decided to try to raise the money to purchase Jermain's mother Cherry from David Logue and obtain her freedom. With the help of two agents who negotiated on his behalf, a written agreement with David Logue was reached by letter.  Cherry was to be purchased for $250.  One of the agents, Nathaniel Goodwin traveled to Maury County to finalize the sale and bring Cherry home.  Upon his arrival, Goodwin learned that the negotiations were the talk of the area - many white residents were concerned that the plan was to "sell a slave to a slave" - something that was actively discouraged. Goodwin and Logue argued and negotiated for several hours. Logue was determined that Jermain had to buy his own freedom before he would sell his mother to him.  At the end of the discussion, Goodwin was allowed to meet Cherry and her daughter Ann (Jermain's half-sister who lived on a neighboring farm) but he was never able to buy Cherry's freedom.

The following day, Goodwin returned to Nashville on his way home to New York.  That night the Methodist convention was occurring, and he went to hear Bishop Soule preach to a black and white audience.  The Bishop was a strong proponent of the 1844 split in the Methodist Church over the issue of slavery.  Goodwin noted that the Bishop ended his sermon in Nashville with the following advice for the enslaved members of the congregation:

The Rev. J. W. Loguen, as a Slave and as a Freeman. A Narrative of Real Life., page 386
by Loguen, Jermain Wesley and Rogers, Elymas Payson (1858)

Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law. In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, which not only allowed David Logue to come after his former slave but it also required Rev. Jermain Loguen's new friends and neighbors to assist in his capture. However, Rev. Loguen was so popular in Syracuse that the citizens agreed to declare the city a sanctuary from the Law. The voters voted 395 to 96 in favor of Syracuse becoming an “open city” for fugitive slaves. They recognized that while it was legal to participate in the capture of runaway slaves - even required - it was not moral.  Instead, Rev. Loguen's white fellow citizens agreed to resist the Law and protect him and any other runaway slaves if they were threatened. 

On October 1, 1851, the city's commitment to its position was tested for the first time. A man named William Henry who had escaped from bondage was arrested under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Loguen joined a committee of abolitionists, black and white, who managed to rescue Henry  (using the code name "Jerry") from slave catchers and assist him in escaping to Canada. Loguen was later indicted for his role in helping Henry, but he was never charged or convicted. I have to wonder if Rev. Loguen used the code name Jerry in honor of his friend that he had to leave behind in Tennessee in 1834.

The following year, on March 13, 1852, Manasseth Logue died in Maury County.  The inventory of his estate included "one negro women named Cherry, aged about fifty-five" [this was Rev. Loguen's mother] as well as "one negro boy named Jerry aged about fifty-two." It is interesting to me that the other enslaved person is named Jerry.  I wonder if this could be his long-lost friend Jerry.  

Manasseth Logue's will left both Cherry and Jerry to his wife Sarah.  

Meanwhile, Rev. Jermain Loguen continued to live and prosper in New York. In 1855, he and his family were counted in the NY State Census living in Syracuse. He was working as a "clergyman."

1855 New York State Census, Syracuse City, Ward 8, Onondaga - page 30

Loguen continued to preach, organize and write - and to work as the "King of the Underground Railroad." His friend Frederick Douglass described how, one night in 1857, he arrived at the Loguen home with a family escaping from slavery:  “The night was exceedingly dark and the rain was very heavy. . . . We had scarcely struck the door when the manly voice of Loguen reached our ear. He knew the meaning of the rap and sang out, “Hold on!” A light was struck in a moment. The door opened, and the whole company, the writer included, were invited to. Candles were lighted in different parts of the house, fires kindled and the whole company made perfectly at home. The reception was whole-souled and manly one, worthy of the noble reputation of brother Loguen.” Post-Standard, November 18, 1857. 

Years later, another member of the Underground Railroad reminisced about the contributions of Rev. Loguen to the Underground Railroad:

St__Louis_Globe_Democrat_Thu__Jul_10__1884

In 1859, Rev. Logeun's memoir, The Rev. J. W. Loguen, as a Slave and as a Freeman. A Narrative of Real Life was published.

Syracuse_Daily_Courier_And_Union
Mon__Mar_26__1860

The following year - perhaps in reaction to the book - the wife of his former master, Sarah Logue, wrote Jermain Loguen a letter demanding $1000 compensation for his running away:

February 20th, 1860.

To JARM:-

I now take my pen to write you a few lines, to let you know how well we all are. I am a cripple, but I am still able to get about. The rest of the family are all well. Cherry is as well as Common. I write you these lines to let you the situation we are in—partly in consequence of your running away and stealing Old Rock, our fine mare. Though we got the mare back, she was never worth much after you took her; and as I now stand in need of some funds, I have determined to sell you; and I have had an offer for you, but did not see fit to take it. If you will send me one thousand dollars and pay for the old mare, I will give up all claim I have to you. Write to me as soon as you get these lines, and let me know if you will accept my proposition. In consequence of your running away, we had to sell Abe and Ann and twelve acres of land; and I want you to send me the money that I may be able to redeem the land that you was the cause of our selling, and on receipt of the above named sum of money, I will send you your bill of sale. If you do not comply with my request, I will sell you to someone else, and you may rest assured that the time is not far distant when things will be changed with you. Write to me as soon as you get these lines. Direct your letter to Bigbyville, Maury County, Tennessee. You had better comply with my request.

I understand that you are a preacher. As the Southern people are so bad, you had better come and preach to your old acquaintances. I would like to know if you read your Bible? If so can you tell what will become of the thief if he does not repent? and, if the the blind lead the blind, what will the consequence be? I deem it unnecessary to say much more at present. A word to the wise is sufficient. You know where the liar has his part. You know that we reared you as we reared our own children; that you was never abused, and that shortly before you ran away, when your master asked if you would like to be sold, you said you would not leave him to go with anybody.

Sarah Logue.

A few weeks later, Rev, Jermain Wesley Logan wrote a scathing reply which was published first in the local newspaper and then copied in publications throughout the country:

March 28, 1860.

MRS. SARAH LOGUE-

Yours of the 20th of February is duly received, and I thank you for it. It is a long time since I heard from my poor old mother, and I am glad to know she is yet alive, and, as you say, “as well as common.” What that means I don’t know. I wish you had said more about her.

You are a woman; but had you a woman’s heart you could never have insulted a brother by telling him you sold his only remaining brother and sister, because he put himself beyond your power to convert him into money.

You sold my brother and sister, ABE and ANN, and 12 acres of land, you say, because I ran away. Now you have the unutterable meanness to ask me to return and be your miserable chattel, or in lieu thereof send you $1000 to enable you to redeem the land, but not to redeem my poor brother and sister! If I were to send you money it would be to get my brother and sister, and not that you should get land. You say you are a cripple, and doubtless you say it to stir my pity, for you know I was susceptible in that direction. I do pity you from the bottom of my heart. Nevertheless I am indignant beyond the power of words to express, that you should be so sunken and cruel as to tear the hearts I love so much all in pieces; that you should be willing to impale and crucify us out of all compassion for your poor foot or leg. Wretched woman! Be it known to you that I value my freedom, to say nothing of my mother, brothers and sisters, more than your whole body; more, indeed, than my own life; more than all the lives of all the slaveholders and tyrants under Heaven.

You say you have offers to buy me, and that you shall sell me if I do not send you $1000, and in the same breath and almost in the same sentence, you say, “you know we raised you as we did our own children.” Woman, did you raise your own children for the market? Did you raise them for the whipping-post? Did you raise them to be driven off in a coffle in chains? Where are my poor bleeding brothers and sisters? Can you tell? Who was it that sent them off into sugar and cotton fields, to be kicked, and cuffed, and whipped, and to groan and die; and where no kin can hear their groans, or attend and sympathize at their dying bed, or follow in their funeral? Wretched woman! Do you say you did not do it? Then I reply, your husband did, and you approved the deed- and the very letter you sent me shows that your heart approves it all. Shame on you.

But, by the way, where is your husband? You don’t speak of him. I infer, therefore, that he is dead; that he has gone to his great account, with all his sins against my poor family upon his head. Poor man! gone to meet the spirits of my poor, outraged and murdered people, in a world where Liberty and Justice are MASTERS.

But you say I am a thief, because I took the old mare along with me. Have you got to learn that I had a better right to the old mare, as you call her, than MANNASSETH LOGUE had to me? Is it a greater sin for me to steal his horse, than it was for him to rob my mother’s cradle and steal me? If he and you infer that I forfeit all my rights to you, shall not I infer that you forfeit all your rights to me? Have you got to learn that human rights are mutual and reciprocal, and if you take my liberty and life, you forfeit your own liberty and life? Before God and High Heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man?

If you or any other speculator on my body and rights, wish to know how I regard my rights, they need but come here and lay their hands on me to enslave me. Did you think to terrify me by presenting the alternative to give my money to you, or give my body to Slavery? Then let me say to you, that I meet the proposition with unutterable scorn and contempt. The proposition is an outrage and an insult. I will not budge one hair’s breadth. I will not breathe a shorter breath, even to save me from your persecutions. I stand among a free people, who, I thank God, sympathize with my rights, and the rights of mankind; and if your emissaries and venders come here to re-enslave me, and escape the unshrinking vigor of my own right arm, I trust my strong and brave friends, in this City and State, will be my rescuers and avengers.

Yours, &c.,
J.W. Loguen

A few months after Rev. Loguen penned this letter, in June 1860, he and his family were counted in the federal Census, still living in Syracuse.  Loguen was noted to be a Methodist Clergyman.

1860 Federal Census - Syracuse Ward 8, Onondaga, New York - page 39

Ironically, Rev. Jermain Loguen was quite successful - more than Sarah Logue appears to have been.  He claimed $4,500 worth of real estate and $1,500 worth of personal property - more than enough to buy himself out of bondage.  For slaveholders in the southern states that year, the personal property column would be used to indicate the value of the people kept in bondage. 

Meanwhile, Sarah Logue was living with a son Ephraim Logue.  She claimed no assets in her own name. Ephraim Logue was holding two people in bondage - one was a 67-year-old black woman that I believe could have been Jermain's mother Cherry.

1860 Slave Schedule - Maury County, Tennessee District 7, page 1

Within a year, the Civil War had begun.  Loguen's son-in-law (Frederick Douglass' oldest son) joined the US Army to fight. 

A portion of an article published in the
Clarksville (TN) Jeffersonian_Wed__Nov_7__1860

Reunion.  Following the War, Rev. Loguen came to Maury County to look for his mother.  This newspaper account described their meeting:  

"Mr. Loguen returns to Tennessee, his native State, unmolested, and finds his mother still alive, at or about the age of 75 years or so - Reaching the old log hut, Mr. Loguen sent a man to see if his mother was there. The man came back saying, 'Yes, Old Aunt Cherry is here.' His mother had her right mind and knew her son Jarman Loguen, as soon as she saw him and exclaimed, "Here is my son Jarman!" Old Mrs. Loguen [Sarah Logue? the letter writer?], is still alive  and Mr. Loguen also saw her." [Awkward]   "Old Aunt Cherry heard her son preach while in Columbia. As soon as he had done his sermon, the old lady made her way to the pulpit and hugged and kissed him."

The_Belvidere (Illinois) Standard_Tue__Jul_18__1865

So it appears as though, Rev. Loguen was able to respond to Sarah Logue 1860 letter's challenge. She had written: "I understand that you are a preacher. As the Southern people are so bad, you had better come and preach to your old acquaintances."  She probably never imagined that he would return, a free successful citizen, to take her up on the offer.

Interestingly, in the 1870 Census, Rev. Loguen's mother Cherry was still living in Tennessee - next door to Ephraim Logue's family.  She was 80 years old. 

1870 Federal Census, Maury County, Tennessee District 7

It is not clear why she did not go to live with her son in New York.  Perhaps the ties to her remaining children and her home in Tennessee were too strong to break her away.  Sadly, her reunion with her son was all too brief.

In 1872, at the young age of 59, Rev. Jermain Wesley Loguen died while in Saratoga, New York.  The newspapers mourned his death.

New_National_Era, Washington DC - Thu__Oct_3__1872

Ten years later, Cherry Logue was still living in Maury County. She was listed as being 90 years old and "superannuated" (i.e. disabled by old age). She was living with two of Manassas and Sarah Logue's daughters.

1870 Federal Census, Maury County, Tennessee District 7

I have not determined when Cherry Logue died. However, she lived to see freedom, and that of her children. She also witnessed the success of her son at a level that she likely never could have imagined.