As Promised: John Fee

John Fee founded Berea College in 1855 on 10 acres donated by Cassius Marcellus Clay. Berea College is located in Berea, Kentucky, about 40 miles south of Lexington, or about 100 miles southeast of Louisville. Berea College was the first interracial and coeducational college in the South, 65 years before the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote, and almost 100 years before the 1954 Supreme Court’s ruling to desegregate public schools. Today, in keeping with its commitment to offer an education to those who would otherwise be unable to afford higher learning, Berea College offers a tuition-free education on a campus where everyone works.


Book Review: Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad in the Kentucky Borderland, by J. Blaine Hudson. This is a wonderful resource. There are a lot of charts and tables with hard data for serious research, but the number of reported slave escapes can be misleading. The book is enjoyable when recounting escape attempts and is a fascinating read. Was the number of escapes under-reported to protect slave-owners’ claims that slaves were better off held in bondage?

Did you know there were African American Confederate soldiers?

Why would an African American fight for the Confederacy? For the same reason he would fight in the Revolutionary War or The War of 1812, the promise of freedom. Whether voluntarily or in bondage, African Americans served in support positions such as cooks, teamsters, stevedores, and body guards. Confederate Pension records, however, list soldiers applying for pensions as well as the previously stated occupations. In November 1864, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, suggested 40,000 slaves should be impressed into the army with the promise they would be emancipated at the end of their service. Official Rebellion Records, Series IV, Vol. III, p. 780. Journals of Congress, IV, 260.

Did you know that African American soldiers served in the Union Army as early as May, 1862?

Union General David Hunter was head of the Department of the South and authorized Sgt. Charles Trowbridge to recruit escaped slaves into the 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry. His actions, being before the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, forced President Abraham Lincoln to issue another type of Proclamation on May 19, 1862 declaring General Hunter’s actions to be unauthorized and void. The 1rst South Carolina Volunteers was disbanded then reorganized in November 1862 after the Emancipation Proclamation was announced. In 1864 the War Department recognized the First South Carolina and redesigned the outfit the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops (USCT).


Next blog entry: African American Soldiers in the Revolutionary War?