The historical record gives us a general overview of the participation of Kent County’s African Americans in the Civil War, while some documents give us a more specific glimpse into the lives of particular veterans and the hardships they endured. Pension records, for example, are huge files full of bureaucratic paperwork, but they also on occasion provide something approaching an account by these veterans — many of whom were illiterate and could not write their own stories — of their lives in their own words. Below are a few sketches of African American veterans of the Civil War, based on a review of various military records, census records, pension files, and other documents.

Private George Ambrose, a brickmaker born in Kent County around 1836, enlisted with the 30th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Infantry in January, 1864. Six months later, he was killed in action at the bloody Battle of the Crater outside Petersburg, Va. After the war, his widow, Frances Ambrose, filed a pension claim. In support of her application, Ambrose’s former comrade, Corp. Jenkins Young from Philadelphia, testified that Ambrose was “wounded in the knee in the front of Petersburg on the 30th day of July, 1864, and the last that I saw of him he was lying on his belly after I was taken to the hospital wounded. I was informed by some of my comrades that Ambrose had his head mashed by soldiers passing over him whilst they were advancing on Petersburg.”

Many pension records contain letters from officers demanding birth records be included with applications, to which pension claimants were then compelled to explain they had no such records or even exact knowledge of their age. John Gould of Chestertown, for example, when he was approximately 73 years old, had to declare:

“No sir, we have no record of our ages. But I was 21 years old in December before I enlisted in March of 1864, and this is one way I have always remembered my age. I was a bound boy, but it seems there is no record of it, and the people who I was bound to are all dead.”

Gould had enlisted in the 30th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Infantry and suffered a shell wound in his back during the mine explosion at the Battle of the Crater. He died three years after the above statement, survived by his wife Annie and four children, and is buried in the cemetery of Jane’s Church.

James Bowser was born in Chestertown around 1820. Slave manifest records suggest that when he was in his early 20s, he was shipped to New Orleans by a slave trader named Hope H. Slatter, who operated a large slave pen in Baltimore. Slatter regularly advertised in The Kent News his interest in purchasing African Americans to then be sold to various locations in the South. Bowser was sold to Dr. Henry Doyle, who owned a large sugar plantation, known as the Eureka Plantation, in Iberville Parish, near Baton Rouge, La. He married another slave on the plantation on Jan. 31, 1847.

After the U.S. Navy attacked nearby Donaldsonville on the Mississippi River, Bowser escaped. In a later pension application, his widow Sidney Bowser recounted the moment: “When the Yankees came along, he ran and enlisted.” Bowser served on the Navy gunboats USS St. Clair and Milwaukee, and was discharged at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on Jan. 31, 1867.

After the war, James and Sidney Bowser lived in Chicago. He died on Dec. 16, 1889, and is buried on the South Side of Chicago at Oak Woods Cemetery, the same resting place for journalist and co-founder of the NAACP, Ida B. Wells, for Chicago’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington, and for Jesse Owens.

John Charles Bailey was born into slavery in Queen Anne’s County around 1842. At the age of 19 he enlisted and served as a drummer for Company C in the 7th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Infantry. He was mustered out on Oct. 13, 1866, in Indianola, Tex., a state to which he would later return in the line of duty.

After the war, Bailey first lived on a farm near Centreville, then moved to Chestertown. He then re-enlisted in the Army, joining the 10th U.S. Cavalry, one of the original “Buffalo Soldier” regiments. He enlisted on Feb. 5, 1877, and joined the company in St. Louis, later being promoted to Corporal. He was wounded in the field in Texas during the Indian Wars, and was discharged at Fort Peña, Col., on Feb. 4, 1882.

He returned to Chestertown, living on College Avenue, and became one of the founding members of Charles Sumner Post #25 of the Grand Army of the Republic. While he was in Texas, he and his wife separated, and upon returning to Chestertown he married Virginia Bolden in 1890 at Bethel A.M.E. Church. He died on Jan. 27, 1911, and was survived by four children: Adell, Marcellus, Rose Kate, and Arthur. His son Marcellus Bailey would serve overseas with the 371st Infantry in World War I, and was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with Bronze Star.

Charley Leary has a Ph.D. from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. With his father, Bill Leary, he co-curated the 2022 Legacy Day exhibit on "African American Veterans from Kent County."