The reenactor is Ed Gantt, who is in my reenactment unit (54th Massachusetts). Ed is an excellent speaker, particularly on the 23rd United States Colored Infantry. He is a reenactor with that unit as well.
I had to work last weekend, so I was not able to make the event. But had I been there, the following would have been my answer t…
The reenactor is Ed Gantt, who is in my reenactment unit (54th Massachusetts). Ed is an excellent speaker, particularly on the 23rd United States Colored Infantry. He is a reenactor with that unit as well.
I had to work last weekend, so I was not able to make the event. But had I been there, the following would have been my answer to the question:
I worked for the National Archives for 16 years. For 8 of those, I worked directly with Civil War records. I encountered many people requesting individual military service records for Union and Confederate soldiers. These requests came from historians, people writing books, and people doing family research. We had many requests for USCT soldiers from all kinds of people, but not one time in the 8 years I was there did anyone ever ask for records for a Black soldier in the Confederate army.
We can't show Ed or anyone else any Black Confederate records because they don't exist.
Kevin,
The reenactor is Ed Gantt, who is in my reenactment unit (54th Massachusetts). Ed is an excellent speaker, particularly on the 23rd United States Colored Infantry. He is a reenactor with that unit as well.
I had to work last weekend, so I was not able to make the event. But had I been there, the following would have been my answer to the question:
I worked for the National Archives for 16 years. For 8 of those, I worked directly with Civil War records. I encountered many people requesting individual military service records for Union and Confederate soldiers. These requests came from historians, people writing books, and people doing family research. We had many requests for USCT soldiers from all kinds of people, but not one time in the 8 years I was there did anyone ever ask for records for a Black soldier in the Confederate army.
We can't show Ed or anyone else any Black Confederate records because they don't exist.
Wonderful. Do you have contact information for Mr. Gantt?
Yes, I will send you the info.
Thank you.