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Private Samuel Munroe

Pvt. Samuel Munroe

Private Samuel Munroe was born in Franklin County, Virginia, c. 1839. He enlisted as a Union volunteer on April 18, 1864, in Memphis Tennessee with the 2nd USCT Light Artillery, Battery I, agreeing to three years of service. This would have been just four days after the horrific slaughter of surrendered Black Union soldiers at Fort Pillow by Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. It is possible that Munroe’s enlistment was in response to this event. “Remember Fort Pillow!” became a rallying cry for USCT soldiers, and the atrocity was used as propaganda by both sides of the Civil War.

 

Samuel Munroe was 25 years old, 6’ tall, and was described as having a black complexion, black eyes, and black hair. His occupation was listed as farmer. He could not read at the time of enlistment and expressed his name with a mark. It is likely that he was enslaved prior to Emancipation in 1863.

Munroe was posted his entire service career on garrison duty at Memphis, Tennessee. In June of 1865, he was arrested and charged with sleeping at his post and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to confinement and hard labor for one month at Fort Pickering, Memphis, with loss of all pay. He was confined from July 1 to August 1,1865, missing the Battle of Tupelo. He then returned to his regiment until he mustered out in west Tennessee on January 10, 1886, at which time he was due $35.43.

 

Had Munroe been in the Battle of Tupelo, he would likely have seen some action as the Confederate side got washed by the Union. A Union army of 14,000 men cut off 8,000 Confederate soldiers who were making their way toward the railroad and Union supplies. Before the rebels could coordinate a defense, they were swiftly cut off and dismantled by Union General Andrew Smith and his men. While General Smith could have taken out the entirety of the Confederate troops in the battle, he was satisfied with protecting his supply lines.

 

There are only incomplete traces of Pvt Munroe found after the war. It would seem most likely that he remained in Tennessee, but not necessarily. Census records identified that there was a man named Samuel Munroe living in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1880. He was black, 36 years old, single and working as a servant.

 

There was also found a death certificate located for a Black woman born in Virginia named Clara Mitchell, who lived from 1859 to 1916, whose father was identified as Samuel Monroe, born in Virginia. Mitchell appears to be her surname as a married woman at the time of her death. We don’t know whether the informant, Frank Mitchell, identified on her death certificate, is her husband or her son. There was also found a census record for 1870 for Lynchburg, VA, which identified an eleven-year-old schoolgirl named Clara Mitchell in a mixed-race household. The man was listed as white, the woman as Black and four children as white.

It is possible that Clara Mitchell might have been Samuel Munroe’s daughter, born in 1859, before the war. Munroe might have made his way back to this part of Virginia in 1880, searching for family members. It was not unusual for enslavers to have little respect for family relationships of enslaved people, who had no legal rights to their own children. Marriages between enslaved persons were not legally recognized. To formerly enslaved people, freedom meant family.

 

 

Contributors: John Wood, Cathie Cummins, Sarah Plummer, Evan Livingston, Josh Spitler, Ben Hagen, William Barber, Cal Kruse, and Josh Sims

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