Noland Veal was discharged from the U.S. Naval hospital ship Red Rover in 1865 and, like many Black veterans of the Civil War, made his way back to his hometown of Woodville, Mississippi. As a 16-year-old serving aboard a naval vessel, he had likely traveled the length of the Mississippi…
After the surrender of Vicksburg and Port Hudson in July 1863, the Union Navy moved quickly to split the confederacy by cutting off Texas, Arkansas, and parts of Louisiana. Using squadrons of gunboats, the Navy blockaded the Mississippi River and divided it into operational districts, each protecting key ports such…
The testimony of family and friends in Noland Veal’s 1908 Civil War Navy pension file centered around establishing his birth year as 1845, thus allowing him to receive his pension. Other testimonies within the pension file give us more insight into his life, his family, and the enslaved communities in…
I have written about Noland Veal in several of my blog posts, including those on the 1918 influenza pandemic, Profiles of Five Wilkinson County Black Freedom Fighters, and Noland Veal: 1st Class Boy. What I knew then about Noland came from census records, military service records, and accounts by descendants…
Frederick Alexander and Burrell Scott were enslaved on the same Mississippi plantation, ran away together seeking freedom, and died in service to the Union Army during the Civil War. Frederick Alexander was born around 1828 in Wilmington, North Carolina. Burrell Scott was born around 1839, likely in Mississippi. Both men…
The William Veal of So Red the Rose is a fictional person, but no doubt his character is appropriated from the real-life William Veal of Holly Grove Plantation in Wilkinson County, Mississippi. In the novel, he is imagined as a loyal family servant, a defender of the slave owners, and their view…
