Pvt. Samuel Munroe

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.