John Hunter was thirty-nine years old when he enlisted in the Union Army on August 31, 1864, in Louisville, Kentucky.¹ He did so with the permission of his enslaver, also named John Hunter,² who owned a lucrative farm in Nelson County, Kentucky, with a personal estate worth $100,000 in 1860.³

Upon enlistment, Private John Hunter was assigned to the 5th Regiment, United States Colored Calvary, Company C (5th UCCC),⁴ The 5th Regiment was involved in the “Burbridges Raid” that moved from Kentucky into southwestern Virginia from September 20 to October 17.⁵ This included the “action at Saltville” that would result in tragedy for John Hunter.

A few years prior to enlisting, John Hunter began a relationship⁶ with Alzarena Vaughn, a free black woman and the sister of James Montgomery Greathouse.⁷ Alzarena and James, who went by Montgomery, were born on a farm in the same district of Nelson County as John. Their parents were a free couple, Fleming and Lucinda Vaughn.⁸ Although John Hunter and Alzarena were never formally married, witnesses would later attest that the couple cohabitated together as “husband-and-wife” for years preceding Hunter’s enlistment.⁹ Their union resulted in their first child, John Thomas Hunter, who was born in 1863.¹⁰ When John Hunter left to join the Union in the late summer of 1864, Alzarena was pregnant again with their daughter Sarah, who, sadly, would never get to meet her father.¹¹

Just thirty-tree days after enlisting, on October 2, 1864, John Hunter’s regiment was dispatched into a warzone in Saltville, Virginia, by Brigadier General Stephen G. Burbridge.¹² The new recruits performed with valor, pushing through the enemy’s line where other units had failed. Even though they were “cut off from the rest of Burbridge’s army, the 5th Colored Cavalry held the captured Confederate works for over two hours while running very low on ammunition before being withdrawn at dusk.”¹³

When General Burbridge hastily retreated, he left many of the men of the 5th Regiment stranded in enemy territory. This is when the “Battle of Saltville” became a “Massacre” as Confederate troops retook the salt works, murdering in cold blood any Black servicemen left behind instead of taking them prisoner.¹⁴ Of the 114 5th UCCC men killed in the skirmish, most of the men lost their lives after the battle was over.¹⁶ Tragically, John Hunter was among the brave men who perished on that fateful day.¹⁷

After losing her husband to the war, Alzarena Hunter had to fight through the bureaucratic process of securing her husband’s war pension for herself and her children, with no legal documentation to substantiate their marriage. A “Widow’s Application for Army Pension” document was filed in April of 1866.¹⁸ Fortunately for Alzarena, her brother,¹⁹ James Montgomery Greathouse,²⁰ along with Moses Greathouse²¹ (not related), were both Nelson County natives and knew John Hunter before serving with him in Company C. Therefore, they could attest in a joint affidavit to the validity of the couple’s union.²² Once the pension commenced in August of 1866, Alzarena then had to apply for an increase to account for her children.²³ During this process, witnesses, such as her midwife, testified that John Thomas and Sarah were indeed her children, and others had to corroborate that she had not remarried and was the sole guardian of the children.²⁴ The pension increase was supposed to continue until the children were 16.²⁵

In 1875, while living in Louisville, tragedy would strike again when Alzarena lost her battle to “consumption” (what we now call tuberculosis) and passed away at age 32.²⁶ Again, James Montgomery Greathouse stepped in to help his sister by taking guardianship of John Thomas and Sarah, who were still minors,²⁹ requiring Greathouse to go through the arduous process of ensuring that the orphans received their pension payments until they were 16.³⁰ The process lasted into 1877 when several people from Alzarena and John Hunter’s past were called upon to appear for testimony to the Pension Office to prove the validity of the Hunters’ marriage a second time. This included James Montgomery Greathouse31, Moses Greathouse,³² Emma,³³ and Anna Hunter³⁴ (members of the family that enslaved John Hunter), John Kurtz³⁵, who Alzarena lived with before the war, and many more, all offering testimony as evidence of a marital relationship that existed between the couple before John Hunter enlisted. Finally, after all of that, James Montgomery Greathouse was able to secure his niece’s and nephew’s pension payments, which would continue until 1881.³⁶ Inexplicably, after this time, there are no records detailing what happened to the Hunter children.