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(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) Jake Hays[?] Testimony of his service as his servant to a Confederate general and a Union captain.

(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) Jake Hays[?] Testimony of his service as his servant to a Confederate general and a Union captain. Manuscript in the hand of Wilmon Blackmar (see previous lot), signed with a mark. One page, 8 x 4¾ inches, plus integral blank docketed "Colored servant's receipt"; folds, ink stain on docket leaf. Wheeling, WV, 16 July 1865

  • Notes: "I was captured by Capt. Blackmar Aug. 7th 1864 at the Battle of Morefield. I was then serving Gen. Bradley T. Johnston, C.S.A. Since that time I have served Capt. Blackmar. He has always fed and clothed me as well as he could, considering the constant and long marches & raids we have been on. I have always been clothed and fed as comfortably as he was himself. He has paid me in full for the time I have served him and gives me a parting present of $60."

    The man who signed this testimony had presumably been enslaved by Brigadier General Bradley Tyler Johnson of Frederick, MD, a Confederate cavalry commander who suffered a defeat at the battle of Moorefield in West Virginia in 1864. He was then a free servant to Captain Wilmon Whilldin Blackmar of the 1st West Virginia Cavalry in the Union Army. Blackmar won a Medal of Honor at the Battle of Five Forks in April 1865, and went on to a long political career in Massachusetts. The fate of Jake is unknown.

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