Private Jordin Roberts
Pvt. Jordin Roberts
Private Jordin Roberts was born c.1824 in Franklin County, Virginia. Roberts enlisted on February 27, 1864, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, for three years. He was described as 40 years old, 5’8.5” tall with a black complexion. His occupation was listed as distiller.
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Private Robert’s name is spelled several diverse ways throughout his records, with muster rolls listing his name as “Jordin, Jourden, and Jordon Roberts.” Missing are the critical documents which illuminate his in-person volunteer enlistment, which we chose as a convention for determining the spelling of a soldier’s name. The name Jordin was used in the company descriptive record, when he enlisted, and Jourden when he mustered out. In between the name Jordon is used on occasion.
Private Roberts was a member of the 52nd United States Colored Infantry, along with two other men from Franklin County, Virginia, Edmund West and Reuben Boyd. This unit held garrison duty in Vicksburg, Mississippi, but saw action at Coleman’s Plantation at Port Gibson on July 4, 1864, and on October15th, 1864, a skirmish at Bayou Liddell. In June 1865, after fighting in the Civil War was essentially over, the regiment was dispatched to various points with the Departments of Mississippi and the Gulf. The soldiers were mustered out in May 1866.
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Roberts, with the spelling “Jordan” was living in Weakley County, Tennessee in1880, just across the river from Vicksburg, Mississippi. There Roberts is listed as a farmer born in Virginia, married to Dolly (b. 1847 in Kentucky), with four children. Many USCT soldiers made lives for themselves near where they were stationed during the war. There would have been steamboat transportation and the lure of work opportunities across the Mississippi from Vicksburg in Weakley County.
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In 1900, Jordan Roberts was working as a servant for a white family in Weakley County. Twenty years since the 1880 document, his wife may have passed away and his children would be adults. Roberts was 76 in 1900 and working alone as a servant, a disheartening but not unusual story for USCT soldiers.
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Researched and compiled by Riley Peloquin, Toni Smith and Cathie Cummins
