Sergeant Lewis Gill
Sgt. Lewis Gill
Sgt Lewis Gill was born in Franklin County, Virginia in 1835 to Abe and Jane Gill. He had two sisters, Sarah and Ann Matilda, and a brother, David Gill. He is believed to have been enslaved prior to the Civil War. By August 19, 1864, he was in Pulaski, Tennessee, where he joined Company B of the 106th United States Colored Troops as a Private and was assigned to guard duty along the Nashville and Decatur railroad line. He was likely recruited from a ‘contraband camp’ that had been set up in Pulaski for enslaved persons who had been freed by the presence of the Union Army. Just over a month after Private Gill joined the army, his regiment was assigned to participate in an expedition of 1200 Union troops to Athens, Alabama to prevent the town from falling into Confederate hands.
3500 Rebel troops commanded by Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest moved towards Athens to capture the railroad and disrupt the flow of troops and supplies supporting General William Tecumseh Sherman’s march through Georgia after the siege of Atlanta. On September 23, 1864, the Confederates attacked, forcing the Union troops commanded by Colonel Wallace Campbell to retreat to Fort Henderson, just outside the town. On the morning of the 24th the Confederates began shelling the fort with artillery. That morning Forrest convinced Campbell during a personal meeting that there were more than 8000 Rebels ready to storm the Fort. Believing his force was hopelessly outnumbered, Campbell surrendered to Forrest around noon.
On September 25, Forrest’s Confederates attacked a fort guarding the Sulphur Creek Trestle, a railroad bridge across the Tennessee River six miles away. Rebel artillery shelled the fort from higher ground nearby, killing more than 200 defenders inside the fort, including their commander, Colonel William Hopkins Lathrop. The remaining 800 troops guarding the trestle were surrendered by Colonel George Spalding.
The white Union soldiers taken prisoner in these engagements were sent to Castle Morgan, also known as Cahaba Federal Prison, near Selma, but the black soldiers were sent to provide slave labor, building up the Confederate earthworks around Mobile, Alabama.
Lewis Gill, who had escaped from slavery and served just over a month in the Union army, was again a slave, taken prisoner near Athens by Forrest’s victorious Rebels. The prisoners remained at Mobile in captivity until the Confederates surrendered on April 9, 1865.
Gill rejoined his unit after the Confederacy surrendered. On November 7, 1865, the 106th USCT consolidated with the 40th Regiment, US Colored Troops. Gill was assigned to Company G and promoted to Corporal that same day. On January 11, 1866, Lewis Gill was promoted to Sergeant and mustered out of the Union Army with the rest of his unit on April 25, 1866.
In pension files for this soldier, his widow recalled that she was enslaved in Alabama when they met and married. Sergeant Lewis Gill returned to his wife Letha and would make a
new home with her and daughters Mary Jane (born 1868) and Caledonia (born 1867) in Madison, Alabama after the war, only 21 miles from where he had been captured during the Battle of Athens. He registered to vote in Madison in 1867.
​
Lewis Gill was listed on the U.S. Selected Federal Non-Population Schedules for the Production of Agriculture in Township 4 in Madison County, Alabama in 1870. He is listed as having 23 acres of land and a cash farm value of $230. He is noted to have mules as his source of livestock, and the value of his mules are listed as $110. He is also noted to have “Indian Corn” as his source of crops, with 120 “bushes”.
By the time of the 1880 Census Lewis and Lethe had another daughter, Ann Eliza, and had moved to Chickasaw. Mississippi. In 1900 the Gills were living in Tunica, Mississippi and had a grandson, Lewis Gill Jr., 12 years old living with them. In 1910, Sergeant Lewis Gill, Letha and grandson Lewis Gill Jr. (22) are in Coahoma, when the Sergeant passes away on December 12, 1910, having lived 75 years. Letha filed for a widow’s pension that year and died in Coahoma in 1915. During his life Lewis Gill had twice been a slave and twice been a soldier. Ultimately, he was a free man, raised a family and owned land himself.
Contributors: Autumn Curnutt, Sarah Plummer and John Wood