Private Jesse Wood
Pvt. Jesse Wood
Private Jesse Wood was born c. 1840 in Franklin County, Virginia, and enlisted on October 8, 1864, in Richmond, Indiana. It was not known how Jesse came to be in Indiana, and whether he had been free or enslaved in Virginia, or both. There was a slaveowner with the surname Wood in Franklin County in 1860, who reported ownership of 18 individuals. There were also free Black families who migrated to Indiana and Ohio.
​
Military records describe Wood as 24 years old, 5’10" tall with copper complexion, black eyes, and black hair. His occupation was recorded as laborer, and he enlisted for one year. On his Declaration of Recruit, the standard enlistment term of three years was marked out and annotated to denote his specified term of one year. At the time of his enlistment, he could not read, and his signature was expressed by a mark.
Pvt Wood served with 188 other men in the 14th USCT Infantry, Co. I, which was organized at Gallatin, TN. He was posted to garrison duty at Chattanooga until November 1864, at which time he marched to Dalton, Georgia. There the regiment participated in military action at Dalton and the Battle of Decatur, Alabama, from October 26 to October 29, 1864, as part of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign. Wood was one of fewer than 5,000 men under Brigadier-General Robert S. Granger who prevented 39,000 Confederates under General John Hood from crossing the Tennessee River at Decatur.
​
Wood was discharged on October 11, 1985, after the end of his one year of service, in Chattanooga, TN. He was paid the rest of his bounty, $29.66.
​
There were several Freedmen’s Bureau files for Jesse Wood in South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, and Mississippi. It was unlikely that any of these represented the USCT soldier who had enlisted in Indiana. Pvt Jesse Wood had already migrated north prior to emancipation and identified himself as a laborer rather than a farmer. An 1880 Census record for Jesse Wood in New York might be a match. Jesse Wood, 40, lived in New York City with his family and he was employed as a waiter. He was married to Rosa, 38, and they had an 8-year-old daughter, Mary E., and a 4-year-old son James A. Virginia is identified as the birthplace of Jesse, Rosa, and their daughter Mary, but the son James was born in New York.
If this was Pvt Jesse Wood, the USCT soldier born in Franklin County, then the information suggested that he did return to Virginia after the war. Having already travelled north once before, Jesse might have migrated with his wife and young daughter to New York before 1876. Tragedy struck this family when Jesse and Rosa’s son, James Augusta Wood, died at age 16, in 1892. James was described as a schoolboy in the death record but the cause of death was not specified.
​
In the 1900 Census, Rosa Wood, a laundress, resided alone in Manhattan. No pension files, death certificate or grave were located for Jesse Wood.
​
Contributors: Sarah Plummer, Toni Smith and Cathie Cummins