Private Daniel Colbert
Pvt. Daniel Colbert
Pvt Daniel Colbert, born in Franklin County, VA, enlisted May 1, 1863 at Milliken’s Bend, LA and mustered on August 7th, 1863, at Natchez, MS. It is unusual that there were several months between Pvt Colbert’s enlistment date of May 1 and his official mustering on August 7th. Research on a vicious battle at Milliken’s Bend provided the answer. In the spring of 1863, Brigadier General Lorenzo Thomas was sent from Washington to aggressively recruit African Americans from the Mississippi Valley into the Union’s war effort. At the very same time Major General Ulysses S. Grant was determined to capture Vicksburg. Organized into regiments only weeks earlier, with little to no preparation for combat, Pvt Colbert was among those formerly enslaved who, in June, fought stubbornly in a hand-to-hand struggle at Milliken’s Bend on the Mississippi River levee northwest of Vicksburg. The conduct of these Black soldiers, all raw new recruits, won the highest respect of white soldiers and officers. A soldier in the military hospital at Milliken’s’ Bend discussed the fight with other white men who had been there. “All concur in saying the negroes fought like tigers,” he wrote to his father in Illinois. “The negroes on that day demonstrated their character as fighting men. They were all raw recruits and had just received their arms still they fought like veterans.” (June 10, 1863, Charles Otto Henthorn Papers Clements Library, University of Michigan)
It would be weeks later when these Black soldiers officially mustered in at Natchez. Military records described Pvt Daniel Colbert as 28 years old, 5’8” tall, with black complexion, black eyes and curly hair. His occupation was listed as Farmer, with remarks that he was “married” (in quotation marks) with family in Fauquier County, VA. He served with the 5th Heavy Artillery, Company D, when it was organized in April of 1864, attached to the 1st Division of the United States Colored Troops, District of Vicksburg, MS.
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Pvt Colbert served continuously for three years, fulfilling his commitment, though he was charged and punished for using abusive language directed to his superior officer (a white man). While on guard duty, Christmas Day, 1863, Pvt. Colbert called his sergeant “a damned liar.” He was sentenced to thirty days hard labor with a ball and chain, but this was mitigated to just 30 days hard labor, without the ball and chain. Daniel’s unit mustered out on May 20th, 1866, at Vicksburg, MS. Four officers, and 124 enlisted men in the 1st Division were killed or mortally wounded. An additional 697 enlisted men died from disease. Daniel survived. He was paid $9.68 when he left the army, and was allowed to retain one knapsack, one haversack and one canteen.
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It is difficult to determine how, when or why Daniel left Franklin County and ended up in Mississippi. When he enlisted, he reported that he left family behind in Fauquier County, VA. The quotations marks around “married” on the handwritten document suggest that he and his wife were enslaved. Marriages between enslaved persons were not legally recognized. The name Daniel Colbert was not found in the 1850 nor 1860 Census records, but there was a possible match on a slave schedule for Fauquier County. Enslaved people frequently used the enslaver’s surname when they lacked their own. Schedules found for slave owner William S. Colbert in Fauquier County, VA for 1850 and 1860 list individuals by sex and age, but not by name. There is a match for our soldier, Daniel Colbert, but there is no way to know with absolute certainty that this is the same person.
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There was also an enslaved man named Daniel with an age corresponding to a birth date of 1812, who was owned by Thornton B. Colbert, of Fauquier County, VA, and later his widow Ann Colbert. This Daniel was described as missing one eye. A possible match for this man turned up at the same location as the soldier Daniel Colbert, in Mississippi, after the war.
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Freedman’s Bureau Marriage Record for Mississippi found through Family Search indicated that a Daniel Colbert married June Courtney on Aug 16, 1867, in Warren County (Vicksburg) MS. This handwritten record was very difficult to read and included nothing except names and dates. Another record stated that there was a payment of $23.05, administered by the Freedman’s Bureau in1870, with the handwritten notation “Daniel Colbert was in D Co 5th HA, lives about two miles from Vicksburg on the city grave road – has need of his bounty.” Pension records suggest that Daniel did apply for his pension himself in August of 1890, when he would have been 55 years old. He identified himself as an “invalid” and did not identify dependents. This application was filed in Vicksburg, MS, so it appears that he stayed in Mississippi after the war, and did not return to Virginia.
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Census records for 1870 found the older Daniel Colbert, birth date 1812 (now age 58) in Vicksburg, MS, married to a woman named Mary, age 40. This man could be a match for the older man who was formerly enslaved called Daniel, owned by a Colbert, missing an eye, on the Fauquier County slave schedule. He was identified as unable to read or write, and he was born in Virginia. Could both men have left Fauquier County, VA, together and travelled to Mississippi where the young Daniel enlisted in the Union Army? Was the older man not able to enlist, but stayed in Vicksburg? Could they have been father and son?
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There was nothing on post war Census records corresponding to the younger Daniel or his wife, June. In the 1880 Census, there was again information for the older Daniel Colbert, now age 70, and his wife, age 50. This Daniel and his wife Mary had two sons, Louis age 10 and Walter age 8. The family still resided in Vicksburg, MS, with a different address.
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In the census for 1900, there were no Daniel Colberts in Vicksburg, Mississippi, but there is L. Colbert, described as age 28, approximately the right age to be Louis Colbert. He married Irenia Colbert, age 26, 1897. He was a Black farmer and able to read and write. He rented property in Beat 1, Sunflower, MS, not far from Vicksburg. There were no children. In the 1910 Census, there was the name Louie Colbert, at the same address, described as widowed, and a boarder. There is nothing for 1920.
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When Mississippi seceded from the Union, documents citing its reasons for doing so denounced the notion that negros should ever be socially and politically equal to white men. Violence against Black communities remained an issue for another century, and even to this day. Life as a farm laborer in rural Mississippi was incredibly hard, especially for those who fought for their freedom, and who continued to have freedom and civil rights challenged.
Contributors: Lydia Callabresi, Sarah Plummer and Cathie Cummins
