The 1864 amendment allowed Black men in Union slave states to become soldiers and compensated enslavers. Many Kentuckians, like Barney Stone, didn’t wait for their enslaver’s permission to join the military.
Category Archives: Loretta Williams
Biographical Profile of Corp. Edward Fields and Brother John Fields
Bettie says the most surprising thing about her second great-grandfather John’s interview was that his brother Edward had killed their original enslaver, a man named Bob McFarland.
Biographical Profile of Sgt. Elijah P. Marrs
Elijah P. Marrs became a well-known politician, educator, and minister after the Civil War, but like many Black people born in Kentucky before 1865, he started his life enslaved.
Biographical Profile of Sgt. Major Henry C. Marrs
Marrs eventually moved to Louisville where he convinced his brother Elijah to join him in forming the Baptist Normal and Theological Institute, which would become today’s Simmons College.