Excerpted from African American Faces of the Civil War by Ronald S. Coddington.
Copyright 2012 by Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted by permission of the author and Johns Hopkins University Press. https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/10717/african-american-faces-civil-war
363 The friend, Hudson Sturt, became a private in Company B of the 108th U.S. Colored Infantry. He survived the war. Hudson Sturt military service record, NARA.
364 Edward Rumsey Weir Sr. (1816–1891) lived in Greenville his entire life. In 1861, he raised and partially equipped a company of soldiers for the Eleventh Kentucky Infantry. The volunteers he recruited elected his son, Edward Rumsey Weir Jr. (1839–1906), as captain and company commander. The younger Weir resigned in January 1863. He rejoined the army later that year as lieutenant colonel of the Thirty-fifth Kentucky Infantry. 1860 Slave Schedules; Rothert, A History of Muhlenberg County, pp. 60, 252; Edward R. Weir military service record, NARA.
365 Rothert, A History of Muhlenberg County, p. 340.
366 Wilson Weir military service record, NARA.
367 Theodore Francis Wright, who served as first lieutenant of Company F, wrote these words on the back of his carte de visite of Weir. The complete note reads: “Is Color Corp: marches between the color bearers—is a thorough soldier—does not go on guard.”
368 Lucinda Weir pension file, NARA.
369 Ibid.
*Photo courtesy of the Randolph Linsly Simpson African-American Collection, James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
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