Biographical Profile of Corp. Jacob Finley, 108th U.S. Colored Infantry

On a spring day in 1865 soon after the fall of the Confederate capital, all ten companies of the 108th U.S. Colored Infantry performed a formal battalion drill on the grounds of the Rock Island prisoner of war camp, located on an island in the Mississippi River midway between Iowa and Illinois. The exercise proceeded without incident until the regiment deployed for a mock skirmish.⁶³⁵

“By some confusion of orders the companies on the right of the line ran over each other and a number of men were injured by being trampled over,” explained Joe Taylor, a sergeant in Company F.⁶³⁶ Several soldiers were hurt, including Pvt. Jake Finley.

Born and raised enslaved in Kentucky, Finley enjoyed a reputation as a good man of moderate habits. Sgt. Taylor, who had known him before the war, remembered: “He’d take a drink, but I never saw him full but once in my life. … He was a great dancer & attended all the balls.”⁶³⁷

Finley joined the army in the summer of 1864.⁶³⁸ He was assigned to Company F of the 108th. After a few months on garrison duty in various locations in his home state, he and his comrades reported to Rock Island as guards at the prison camp.

According to Sgt. Taylor, during the 1865 mock skirmish, Finley “received an injury in his bowels. He was sent to hospital and remained there about two weeks. When he came out he was excused from duty, but would insist on doing duty” despite constant abdominal pain. Medical personnel diagnosed him with a double hernia and treated him with a truss.⁶³⁹

Sgt. Taylor took pity on his friend. “As soon as I could make a vacancy I made him a corporal on account of his condition.”⁶⁴⁰ The promotion lightened somewhat the physical demand of Finley’s duties. He held the rank until the regiment mustered out of the service in March 1866.⁶⁴¹

Finley returned to Kentucky and worked as a laborer. About 1878 he married, moved to Indiana, and settled in the Indianapolis area. He found a job as a plasterer’s assistant and worked additional odd jobs to make ends meet.⁶⁴²

In 1890, at about age forty-six, he suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed on the right side. His wife cared for him until 1895, when he gained admission to the U.S. National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Marion, Indiana. He died nine years later at about age sixty.⁶⁴³