The 1619 Project of the New York Times has a new installment today. In response to the series, African American families have been sending in documents and pictures related to their ancestors born in slavery. The Times has published some of them with constextualizing text. You can read the compilation here. Below is part of just one of the stories. It concerns the African American veteran pictured in the reunion photo above.
The Civil War Veteran
The Rev. Moses Berry, 69, of Ashgrove, Mo., shared this photograph and the story behind it.
The Photograph This was always in the family picture book. Every 10 years, the Missouri Sixth Cavalry had a reunion and a group photo was taken. This one was from November 1908. My great-grandfather Wallace White sits at the bottom, third from the right.
The Story Wallace was freed before the end of the Civil War by Union soldiers, from the field where he was enslaved in Mount Sterling, Ky.
As the story goes, when the cavalry came through, they asked Wallace if he wanted to go and fight with them, to which he replied “’Deed I do!” He stayed with them until he mustered out at the end of the war.
The fellow to the left of him in the image is one of the men who helped free my great-grandfather. His last name was Whiteford. Later, Wallace saved his life. At some point during their campaign in Vicksburg, Miss., Whiteford needed to use the bathroom, and the best place for him to do it was behind a haystack.
All of the sudden, there was a Confederate soldier who was about to kill him, and Wallace White saw the man and killed him. I can only imagine he would have killed him with a gun, because if not, it would have been another part to the story — that he killed a man with his bare hands. He saved Whiteford’s life, so Whiteford was always indebted to Wallace.
The Legacy My grandmother Mamie White, Wallace’s youngest daughter, gave me my middle name: Wallace. So it’s always held a special meaning for me. He was long suffering.
When Wallace was asked by my father and uncles why he was so kind to the very people who had held him in captivity, he replied, “Because I want to go to Heaven.” He was a symbol of keeping your eye on the prize.
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