In Their Own Words: Letter from the front, Petersburg, Virginia (1864)

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Letter from the front, Petersburg, Virginia (1864)

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In Their Own Words: Sgt. Edmond Carter, Evergreen Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia

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Camp William Penn, ca. 1863-1865, Cheltenham, Pa. Library of Congress.

Sgt. Edmond Carter served with Company G, 45th Regiment, United States Colored Infantry. According to his military pension record, he was born enslaved on the Allen Estate “in the third week of August,” 1844, near Bowling Green, Caroline County, Virginia. He was the son of Lewis Carter and Mary Jones.

He enlisted under the name “Edmond Allen,” the surname of his last owner, at the age of nineteen on July 28, 1864, at Grafton, West Virginia. He mustered in on July 29, 1864, at Camp William Penn, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Edmond was promoted from Corporal to Sergeant on August 16, 1865, and was discharged nearly three months later at Brownsville, Texas, with the surviving members of his regiment.

I located Edmond’s death certificate at the Library of Virginia in early 2015, and later reviewed his pension file at the National Archives in Washington, D. C. His testimony contains a very detailed description of his military experience, as well as the reason he chose to enlist under his former slave owner’s surname.

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Richmond, Virginia: Finding Pvt. Henry Williams, East End Cemetery

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Pvt. Henry Williams, Company G, 51st Regiment, U. S. Colored Infantry. Photo: National Archives, Washington, D. C., 2016.

Originally added to the East End Cemetery database, FindaGrave, July 31, 2015. We were not informed by the Friends of East End that his burial site had been found in 2017 (we had to be a partner to receive that information). Nevertheless, we are happy that Henry Williams’ grave site has been located within the cemetery.