Older African American Soldiers from Kentucky during the Civil War

This entry is in response to a patron's reference question about the ages of the oldest African American Union soldiers from Kentucky during the Civil War. Below are the names of a few of those soldiers.

Please keep in mind that many of the African American soldiers who enlisted during the Civil War were former enslaved people whose birth dates were not documented. The enlistment of African Americans resulted from a number of federal orders.

On July 17, 1862 the U.S. Congress passed the Second Confiscation and Militia Act that freed the enslaved who had masters in the Confederate Army. The act was meant for the employment of African American men in the military for labor services. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, calling for African American men in states that had withdrawn from the Union to enlist in the Union Army for battle purposes. This order did not apply to Kentucky because the state had not seceded from the Union.

By October of 1863, all border states were enlisting African American men except in Kentucky, where the enslaved were used as labor for the military. Nonetheless, Camp Nelson, KY was on its way to becoming the third largest recruiting and training station for African American men: it would provide the Union Army with more than 10,000 African American soldiers. Kentucky was second to Louisiana in terms of states that provided the most African American soldiers during the Civil War.

See Camp Nelson, Kentucky: a Civil War history , by R. D. Sears; and Civil War Day by Day: an almanac, 1861-1865, by E. B. Long.  See the "U.S., Colored Troops Military Service Records, 1863-1865" and other military service records in Ancestry for names and additonal information.