Goldsboro men members of black Civil War unit
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on February 19, 2017 12:48 AM
News-Argus/PHYLLIS MOORE
Deborah Jones of Goldsboro looks through some of the documents she has compiled over the years during genealogy research of her family.
A program on the little-known 135th U.S. Colored Troops, formed in Goldsboro in March of 1865, will be presented Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Wayne County Public Library.
More than 1,100 men were recruited to the unit during Gen. Sherman's march in the Civil War -- an estimated 200 from North Carolina and 30 believed to have Wayne County ties.
And yet in historical and academic circles, it was virtually invisible in the record books.
Jay and Amy Bauer, a transplanted Goldsboro couple -- who moved here from California three years ago as part of Preservation N.C., purchasing and renovating a historic home downtown -- stumbled upon it while attending a program at the library.
"We went to a presentation on the U.S. Colored Troops," said Mrs. Bauer, who has done genealogy for 30 years.
When an offhanded reference was made to a troop formed in Goldsboro in 1865, she started asking questions. That led to "thousands of hours" of research that took the couple to the U.S. National Archives and countless conversations and efforts to collect more information.
The Bauers have spent over two years sifting through pension records, maps of Gen. Sherman's march, grave markers of soldiers and other documents.
"Goldsboro was a small town, 1,000 people or something, and here comes Sherman's army with over 60,000 men and 30,000 followers," Bauer said. "Almost 100,000 men, it must have been quite overwhelming.
"But there was a railroad hub and that was one of Sherman's goals to move into Goldsboro."
It has been a challenge to compile things from over a century ago, his wife said.
For some there were no birth certificates -- names were written phonetically so spellings were questionable -- and some were buried in unmarked graves or had changed their names to that of the slave owners. Or they changed their names again once they were freed.
The pension records were especially detailed, though.
"The pension records, in their own words, it really makes it interesting," Bauer said. "The amount of documentation they had to submit to get their pension."
"We can quote these men in their own words -- we know who they married, we know the 22 children that (Wayne County soldier) Silas Cogdell has," Mrs. Bauer said. "We know their humor.
"It's an amazing record to get from 1865."
Meanwhile, Deborah Jones of Goldsboro was doing her own family genealogy and kept stumbling across Cogdell's name. Discovering he was a relative and a soldier during a time when there were slaves has been interesting, she said.
"It gives you a sense of awe in that you might be connected to somebody that actually participated in the war for their freedom," she said. "I like to share this with my family. We've got to get people more interested in where they come from."
Through her own research at the library, she was introduced to the Bauers. That has led to a research team of about a dozen residents from the community sharing interests in the genealogy.
The committee, which is open to anyone who would like to join, meets the third Thursday of the month in the local history room of the library.
There is still more research to be done, Mrs. Bauer said. Other presentations are planned, and at a certain point she hopes to compile the findings into book form as well as to find an appropriate place to secure and preserve the documents collected.
Efforts are also being made to create a marker or monument in Goldsboro to commemorate the U.S. 135th. Mrs. Bauer said she has been in discussions with the mayor and city manager about that.
The upcoming program is drawing a lot of attention.
"We have been getting a lot of calls from up and down the East coast," Mrs. Bauer said this week, adding, "There's other U.S. Colored Troops re-enactors. Several of them are coming to Goldsboro for this presentation.
"What we're hoping to do is get men to form the 135th U.S. Colored Troops re-enactors and then we'd have our own -- for Veterans Day and things they could be in attendance."
She also hopes to get the word out to those who may be doing their own genealogy, asking, "Do you have this name in your family tree?"
Some family names they have discovered include Fort, Lewis, Jones, Thompson, Ellis, Sutton, Exum, Barnes, Artis, Faison, Bowden, Darden, Cobb and Flowers.
Earl Ijames, curator at the N.C. Museum of History, will make the presentation at the library this week. The program is free and open to the public.
There is also a Facebook page dedicated to the topic, under "135th US Colored Troops."