18thVirginia
Major
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2012
In other threads, the difficulties for widows of Civil War soldiers in dealing with both Union and Confederate Pension authorities has been documented. For the widows of the 180,000 men who served in the US Colored Troops and who had previously been enslaved, trying to prove marriage, service and cause of death for their husbands must have been an arduous task. But for those looking to find details about their USCT ancestors, the pension files for USCT widows can be an amazing resource.
One huge problem for these widows was that slave marriages were difficult to prove and often required testimony from witnesses that the two people in question had lived together as "married." Another was that men who were slaves might have enlisted in the Union army under a different name than that which was their slave name.
Proving how the USCT soldier died could also be difficult, especially as many Civil War soldiers died of disease and not in combat. A USCT soldier was unlikely to have had a physician prior to the war, so proving his previous health could be even more difficult. Chronic diarrhea and other lung and kidney diseases could be attributed to other problems than military service. I know from reading my own ancestress's Civil War pension file, that trying to prove that the death of her husband from diarrhea was quite a task that involved getting records from various physicians, who may or may not remember the particular soldier.
As many of those formerly enslaved were illiterate, they may have sometimes signed to information that was incorrect and could later be challenged.
On-line records of these pensions can be found at ancestry.com and at Fold3; records not online exist at the National Archives in Washington, DC.
One huge problem for these widows was that slave marriages were difficult to prove and often required testimony from witnesses that the two people in question had lived together as "married." Another was that men who were slaves might have enlisted in the Union army under a different name than that which was their slave name.
Proving how the USCT soldier died could also be difficult, especially as many Civil War soldiers died of disease and not in combat. A USCT soldier was unlikely to have had a physician prior to the war, so proving his previous health could be even more difficult. Chronic diarrhea and other lung and kidney diseases could be attributed to other problems than military service. I know from reading my own ancestress's Civil War pension file, that trying to prove that the death of her husband from diarrhea was quite a task that involved getting records from various physicians, who may or may not remember the particular soldier.
As many of those formerly enslaved were illiterate, they may have sometimes signed to information that was incorrect and could later be challenged.
On-line records of these pensions can be found at ancestry.com and at Fold3; records not online exist at the National Archives in Washington, DC.
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