The story of Louisa Miller, wife of Private John Miller, 97th U.S. Colored Infantry and Private Peter Fisher, 10th U.S. Heavy Artillery (Colored), and sister-in-law of Private James Madison Butler, 97th U.S. Colored Infantry
Louisa Davis Miller was a slave who was previously owned by John Charlton Beatty who was a Scottish lawyer and had a sugar plantation in lower Louisiana. While at the Muggah Hotel on a vacation with his family, a hurricane stuck and he, his wife, and all but one child, who was rescued by a slave, perished in the storm. The property, Orange Grove Plantation and all equipment, livestock and slaves were sold at auction as a single lot in 1857 (See image of the newspaper, Houma Ceres, April 25, 1857, below). The plantation was purchased by Stephen Josephus Davies, who was a Methodist minister. He was born in Cardiganahire, Wales, raised in Kentucky, and then moved to Louisiana and resided on the Orange Grove Plantation (photo on right), built in 1850 on 2,500 acres near Houma, about five miles from Brashear (now Morgan City) on Bayou Boeuf.
Davies belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South which differed from its abolitionist northern branch. As such, Davies owned quite a few slaves. In 1860 he was reported to have been serving 44 whites and 276 blacks “working on plantations.” Just one year later, after the war began, there were only 45 whites and 100 blacks on his circuit. Although Catholicism was the predominant religion in the region, the Methodist religion was said to be popular with the enslaved population because church services included both white and black although there was separate seating, and communion was taken together. They were eagerly accepted into the church and the preachers spoke plainly to all on a simple level.
In his forties, Davies, her owner, had been married to Julia Ann Muggah in the summer of 1847 and was said to be “a man of strong impulses” and “embittered by strange and deep afflictions.” He had two sons. One only five when the war affected the family and the other an infant born in the late summer of 1863.
Prior to the capture of New Orleans in the spring of 1862, Louisa became the wife of a fellow slave named Peter Fisher who belonged to Thomas Muggar, the brother in law of Davies, as they were partners in the sugar business. As her owner and a Methodist preacher, Stephen Davies performed the marriage but did not record it, as slave marriages were not considered legal. Louisa and Peter Fisher had eight children, but all of the children had passed away by the end of the Civil War. When the Federal Forces reached the vicinity of the Orange Grove Plantation, Davies took all the able-bodied male slaves, including her husband Peter Fisher, and started for Texas. He left behind only the female slaves and one old man. Two days later, before reaching Texas the slaves ran away from him and were captured by Federal soldiers. Peter Fisher then enlisted into the First Regiment Louisiana Colored Heavy Artillery (10th US Colored Heavy Artillery) as a private and to garrison forts near New Orleans. At 23 years old, Peter enlisted in New Orleans on November 16th and was mustered into Company A of the regiment on the 29th. Neither Peter of Louisa communicated during their years of separation (Private Peter Fisher will be listed as sick and at St. James Hospital in New Orleans from March to December 1863).
Davies came back the next spring and reported that all the male slaves he had taken with him had fled. After Fisher disappeared, Louisa married John Miller, a slave, born in Kentucky, who lived on Henry Effingham Lawrence’s plantation which was about a mile away. Henry Lawrence owned numerous slaves, grew sugar, and was married to Frances Emily Brashear. Henry's first wife had died three years earlier. The wedding was done by Robert Foster, a colored Baptist preacher, who was a slave to a man named Burres and later relocated to Kansas. There was no license or record of any of Louisa’s marriages. John Miller had come to the Orange Grove Plantation and had persuaded Louisa to go to the Lawrence’s plantation and marry him. She moved to her new place of residence the day she got married. On Louisa's pension paperwork she placed her date of marriage with John Miller as October 10, 1862. Her maiden name was listed as Louisa Watson.
According to Louisa, ‘the Yankee soldiers were all around the neighborhood when I was married to John Miller, who was a stout black man, about 5 foot and 8 or 9 inches tall. He was older than I but I cannot tell you his age. He had a son, by a former wife, nearly grown when I married him.”
In Mid-August of 1864, about six of seven months after her marriage to John Miller, he and several other enslaved men, including James Madison Butler, John Miller’s previous wife’s brother, went to Brashear City and enlisted into the army. He was sent to New Orleans where, on September 1st, in the Touro Building, which was serving as a recruiting depot, he was mustered into service as a private, Company A, 97th U.S. Colored Infantry. His enlistment into the army came with a hefty monetary incentive; a $300.00 bounty. His age at enlistment was listed as 38 years old, and his height five feet and six inches.
James Madison Butler mustered into Company H as "James Madison" because the mustering officer told him that his full name was too long. The regiment had already shipped out to Dauphine Island, Alabama where they were preparing for the land campaign against Mobile. He arrived by steamer, officially mustering into the regiment at Fort Gaines by Lieutenant Richardson and Captain Stafford on September 28th. It would not be until the spring of 1865 before Private Miller received his first installment of his bounty, $100.00. Private James Madison (Butler) would remain with the 97th U.S. Colored Infantry until it mustered out on April 6, 1866.
On the Lawrence's plantation Louisa received a letter left for her from a mail boat on Bayou Beouf from John Miller telling her to come see him in camp. She left the plantation and went to Brashear where she caught a train on the New Orleans, Opelousas, and Great Western Rail Road and road on one of the cars with several other women to Algiers, across from New Orleans, where the men were camped. According to her first petition statement, she went to Morganza "the regiment was just about starting for Mobile" and that "the other soldiers' wives went with the Regiment to near mobile where the troops encamped. We didn't go to Mobile." After arriving back to Algiers, Louisa stated that she and other women went to New Orleans for join the men of the 97th U.S. Colored Infantry but the Provost Marshall at Algiers told them that the troops were headed towards Mobile, Alabama and that they were not permitted to follow them. The were told to return to Algiers. Louisa did not see John Miller after he enlisted. She remained at the camp in Algiers with the other soldiers' wives and children.
Almost a year later, Louisa heard news that her husband, Private John Miller, had been shot and killed in Mobile after its capture. The information was not accurate, as she later found out that while he was part of the occupation force in Mobile, he had contracted small pox and was sent to the Small Pox Hospital on the Spring Hill Road just outside Mobile. He died on December 11, 1865. To the best of her knowledge, Louisa Miller was now a widow.
After the war had ended, Louisa remained in Algiers, Louisiana. She heard that her first husband, Peter Fisher, was in New Orleans and had been looking for her, and had threatened to kill her for marrying John Miller during his absence. Then, one day, while in New Orleans, she met him at the office of Morgan & Dedricks and she ran away from him. He overtook her and they had a "little talk" and agreed to live together again as husband and wife and did so.
She had a room on Religious street and, according to her, "visited and we took up the position of husband and wife. Peter Fisher was then employed as a steamboat hand, and was only at my house a few times during the day. But, when his boat was at New Orleans he came to me at night and occupied my room and bed." In her pension file statement, Louisa added, "We did not get married over again but he told me he he was going to get a license and marry me in accordance with the U.S. Laws. He also told me that he had been a soldier and was honorably discharged. He showed me a paper with an eagle on it - and said that there was some money coming to him and we would live comfortable."
The steamboat that Peter Fisher was employed with was the Mittie Stephens. The 312 ton sidewheeler, was one of the largest packets that travelled from New Orleans up to Jefferson and was owned by the New Orleans and Jefferson Express Passenger Packet. The steamboat was built in Indiana in 1863 and was originally part of Admiral Porter's Mississippi Squadron that participated in the Red River Campaign and was rescued by the efforts of the 97th U.S. Colored Infantry, Actg. Engrs. that participated in building Bailey's Dam at the rapids above Alexandria in the spring of 1864. At Shreveport, Louisiana, the steamer loaded up with 300 bales of cotton and 104 passengers. Louisa Miller and Qoral Baker, the wife of another steamboat hand and friend of Louisa, met their husbands before departure in the evening, about an hour or more before casting off. Louisa gave Peter a new or set of clothes that evening. Both wives bid there husband goodbye, the ships side-by-side, one bound for Jefferson, Texas, the other for Fulton on the Upper Red River.
About 10 o'clock in the evening, February 11, 1869, the Mittie Stephens, with Peter Fisher on board, caught fire on Caddo Lake. Torches on the deck ignited hay on the bow and the vessel erupted in flames. Most of the passengers jumped off the steamboat and into the waters. The women helped pick up a few of the crew but most of the men were lost, including her husband, Peter Fisher. Between 75-100 were killed either by fire or drowning despite the fact that the vessel beached in shallow, some say only shoulder deep, water. It was the worst river boat tragedy in the state's history. Many were killed by the ships paddlewheels as they attempted to swim to shore.
Louisa found herself to be a widow for the second time in her life.
About a year before the incident, on March 7, 1868, Louisa Davis Miller filed a claim for a pension as a widow of John Miller. She was paid from then until December 4, 1886 as the widow of John Miller. Some time prior to 1881 she also filed a claim for a bounty and back pay due he diseased husband Peter Fisher, who had been with the 10th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery. With two claims for deceased husbands, the pension office abruptly cancelled payments. Multiple witnesses gave sworn statements and the result was a pension file with over 200 pages. In her final testimony Louisa stated. "I have not lived in adultress cohabitation with any man since August 7, 1882. The children I had by Peter Fisher are all dead. George Butler, Madison Butler, and Rachael Thompson all living in Algiers know about my connection with Peter Fisher and John Miller."
Her date of passing and burial location I have not yet discovered.
The Orange Grove Plantation, where at least two soldiers of the 97th US Colored Infantry lived before escaping and enlisting and at least one soldier of the 10th US Colored Heavy Artillery self emancipated before enlisting, is still standing and currently available for weddings and overnight stays.
Sources:
Pension Files, National Archives Fold3 File No. 305224395 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/99372737?objectPage=4
Obituaries, https://www.la-umc.org/obituary/1548276 and https://archive.org/stream/methodismalongthebayou/methodismalongthebayou_djvu.txt
Orange Grove Plantation, https://gardevoirci.nicholls.edu/2020/john-c-beatty/
Louisa Davis Miller was a slave who was previously owned by John Charlton Beatty who was a Scottish lawyer and had a sugar plantation in lower Louisiana. While at the Muggah Hotel on a vacation with his family, a hurricane stuck and he, his wife, and all but one child, who was rescued by a slave, perished in the storm. The property, Orange Grove Plantation and all equipment, livestock and slaves were sold at auction as a single lot in 1857 (See image of the newspaper, Houma Ceres, April 25, 1857, below). The plantation was purchased by Stephen Josephus Davies, who was a Methodist minister. He was born in Cardiganahire, Wales, raised in Kentucky, and then moved to Louisiana and resided on the Orange Grove Plantation (photo on right), built in 1850 on 2,500 acres near Houma, about five miles from Brashear (now Morgan City) on Bayou Boeuf.
Davies belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South which differed from its abolitionist northern branch. As such, Davies owned quite a few slaves. In 1860 he was reported to have been serving 44 whites and 276 blacks “working on plantations.” Just one year later, after the war began, there were only 45 whites and 100 blacks on his circuit. Although Catholicism was the predominant religion in the region, the Methodist religion was said to be popular with the enslaved population because church services included both white and black although there was separate seating, and communion was taken together. They were eagerly accepted into the church and the preachers spoke plainly to all on a simple level.
In his forties, Davies, her owner, had been married to Julia Ann Muggah in the summer of 1847 and was said to be “a man of strong impulses” and “embittered by strange and deep afflictions.” He had two sons. One only five when the war affected the family and the other an infant born in the late summer of 1863.
Prior to the capture of New Orleans in the spring of 1862, Louisa became the wife of a fellow slave named Peter Fisher who belonged to Thomas Muggar, the brother in law of Davies, as they were partners in the sugar business. As her owner and a Methodist preacher, Stephen Davies performed the marriage but did not record it, as slave marriages were not considered legal. Louisa and Peter Fisher had eight children, but all of the children had passed away by the end of the Civil War. When the Federal Forces reached the vicinity of the Orange Grove Plantation, Davies took all the able-bodied male slaves, including her husband Peter Fisher, and started for Texas. He left behind only the female slaves and one old man. Two days later, before reaching Texas the slaves ran away from him and were captured by Federal soldiers. Peter Fisher then enlisted into the First Regiment Louisiana Colored Heavy Artillery (10th US Colored Heavy Artillery) as a private and to garrison forts near New Orleans. At 23 years old, Peter enlisted in New Orleans on November 16th and was mustered into Company A of the regiment on the 29th. Neither Peter of Louisa communicated during their years of separation (Private Peter Fisher will be listed as sick and at St. James Hospital in New Orleans from March to December 1863).
Davies came back the next spring and reported that all the male slaves he had taken with him had fled. After Fisher disappeared, Louisa married John Miller, a slave, born in Kentucky, who lived on Henry Effingham Lawrence’s plantation which was about a mile away. Henry Lawrence owned numerous slaves, grew sugar, and was married to Frances Emily Brashear. Henry's first wife had died three years earlier. The wedding was done by Robert Foster, a colored Baptist preacher, who was a slave to a man named Burres and later relocated to Kansas. There was no license or record of any of Louisa’s marriages. John Miller had come to the Orange Grove Plantation and had persuaded Louisa to go to the Lawrence’s plantation and marry him. She moved to her new place of residence the day she got married. On Louisa's pension paperwork she placed her date of marriage with John Miller as October 10, 1862. Her maiden name was listed as Louisa Watson.
According to Louisa, ‘the Yankee soldiers were all around the neighborhood when I was married to John Miller, who was a stout black man, about 5 foot and 8 or 9 inches tall. He was older than I but I cannot tell you his age. He had a son, by a former wife, nearly grown when I married him.”
In Mid-August of 1864, about six of seven months after her marriage to John Miller, he and several other enslaved men, including James Madison Butler, John Miller’s previous wife’s brother, went to Brashear City and enlisted into the army. He was sent to New Orleans where, on September 1st, in the Touro Building, which was serving as a recruiting depot, he was mustered into service as a private, Company A, 97th U.S. Colored Infantry. His enlistment into the army came with a hefty monetary incentive; a $300.00 bounty. His age at enlistment was listed as 38 years old, and his height five feet and six inches.
James Madison Butler mustered into Company H as "James Madison" because the mustering officer told him that his full name was too long. The regiment had already shipped out to Dauphine Island, Alabama where they were preparing for the land campaign against Mobile. He arrived by steamer, officially mustering into the regiment at Fort Gaines by Lieutenant Richardson and Captain Stafford on September 28th. It would not be until the spring of 1865 before Private Miller received his first installment of his bounty, $100.00. Private James Madison (Butler) would remain with the 97th U.S. Colored Infantry until it mustered out on April 6, 1866.
On the Lawrence's plantation Louisa received a letter left for her from a mail boat on Bayou Beouf from John Miller telling her to come see him in camp. She left the plantation and went to Brashear where she caught a train on the New Orleans, Opelousas, and Great Western Rail Road and road on one of the cars with several other women to Algiers, across from New Orleans, where the men were camped. According to her first petition statement, she went to Morganza "the regiment was just about starting for Mobile" and that "the other soldiers' wives went with the Regiment to near mobile where the troops encamped. We didn't go to Mobile." After arriving back to Algiers, Louisa stated that she and other women went to New Orleans for join the men of the 97th U.S. Colored Infantry but the Provost Marshall at Algiers told them that the troops were headed towards Mobile, Alabama and that they were not permitted to follow them. The were told to return to Algiers. Louisa did not see John Miller after he enlisted. She remained at the camp in Algiers with the other soldiers' wives and children.
Almost a year later, Louisa heard news that her husband, Private John Miller, had been shot and killed in Mobile after its capture. The information was not accurate, as she later found out that while he was part of the occupation force in Mobile, he had contracted small pox and was sent to the Small Pox Hospital on the Spring Hill Road just outside Mobile. He died on December 11, 1865. To the best of her knowledge, Louisa Miller was now a widow.
After the war had ended, Louisa remained in Algiers, Louisiana. She heard that her first husband, Peter Fisher, was in New Orleans and had been looking for her, and had threatened to kill her for marrying John Miller during his absence. Then, one day, while in New Orleans, she met him at the office of Morgan & Dedricks and she ran away from him. He overtook her and they had a "little talk" and agreed to live together again as husband and wife and did so.
She had a room on Religious street and, according to her, "visited and we took up the position of husband and wife. Peter Fisher was then employed as a steamboat hand, and was only at my house a few times during the day. But, when his boat was at New Orleans he came to me at night and occupied my room and bed." In her pension file statement, Louisa added, "We did not get married over again but he told me he he was going to get a license and marry me in accordance with the U.S. Laws. He also told me that he had been a soldier and was honorably discharged. He showed me a paper with an eagle on it - and said that there was some money coming to him and we would live comfortable."
The steamboat that Peter Fisher was employed with was the Mittie Stephens. The 312 ton sidewheeler, was one of the largest packets that travelled from New Orleans up to Jefferson and was owned by the New Orleans and Jefferson Express Passenger Packet. The steamboat was built in Indiana in 1863 and was originally part of Admiral Porter's Mississippi Squadron that participated in the Red River Campaign and was rescued by the efforts of the 97th U.S. Colored Infantry, Actg. Engrs. that participated in building Bailey's Dam at the rapids above Alexandria in the spring of 1864. At Shreveport, Louisiana, the steamer loaded up with 300 bales of cotton and 104 passengers. Louisa Miller and Qoral Baker, the wife of another steamboat hand and friend of Louisa, met their husbands before departure in the evening, about an hour or more before casting off. Louisa gave Peter a new or set of clothes that evening. Both wives bid there husband goodbye, the ships side-by-side, one bound for Jefferson, Texas, the other for Fulton on the Upper Red River.
About 10 o'clock in the evening, February 11, 1869, the Mittie Stephens, with Peter Fisher on board, caught fire on Caddo Lake. Torches on the deck ignited hay on the bow and the vessel erupted in flames. Most of the passengers jumped off the steamboat and into the waters. The women helped pick up a few of the crew but most of the men were lost, including her husband, Peter Fisher. Between 75-100 were killed either by fire or drowning despite the fact that the vessel beached in shallow, some say only shoulder deep, water. It was the worst river boat tragedy in the state's history. Many were killed by the ships paddlewheels as they attempted to swim to shore.
Louisa found herself to be a widow for the second time in her life.
About a year before the incident, on March 7, 1868, Louisa Davis Miller filed a claim for a pension as a widow of John Miller. She was paid from then until December 4, 1886 as the widow of John Miller. Some time prior to 1881 she also filed a claim for a bounty and back pay due he diseased husband Peter Fisher, who had been with the 10th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery. With two claims for deceased husbands, the pension office abruptly cancelled payments. Multiple witnesses gave sworn statements and the result was a pension file with over 200 pages. In her final testimony Louisa stated. "I have not lived in adultress cohabitation with any man since August 7, 1882. The children I had by Peter Fisher are all dead. George Butler, Madison Butler, and Rachael Thompson all living in Algiers know about my connection with Peter Fisher and John Miller."
Her date of passing and burial location I have not yet discovered.
The Orange Grove Plantation, where at least two soldiers of the 97th US Colored Infantry lived before escaping and enlisting and at least one soldier of the 10th US Colored Heavy Artillery self emancipated before enlisting, is still standing and currently available for weddings and overnight stays.
Sources:
Pension Files, National Archives Fold3 File No. 305224395 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/99372737?objectPage=4
Obituaries, https://www.la-umc.org/obituary/1548276 and https://archive.org/stream/methodismalongthebayou/methodismalongthebayou_djvu.txt
Orange Grove Plantation, https://gardevoirci.nicholls.edu/2020/john-c-beatty/
Private Adam Palmer,
1st La. Engrs., 95th, 87th, 84th USCT's
Adam Palmer was born about the year 1820. He resided on a plantation in East Feliciana Parish
Louisiana owned by the descendants of Archibald David Palmer. This could have been on a
property owned, or partially owned, by Micheal A. Dickson and his wife Hannah Elizabeth
Palmer (daughter of A.D. Palmer who had died in 1848). The Dickson and Palmer marriage
increased the land and slave holdings of the two landed families. Other children of A.D. Palmer
could also have owned properties in the parish.
Near the town of Clinton, East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, Adam was one of the more than ten
thousand enslaved in the region. The parish produced large quantities of corn, oats, cotton, sweet
potatoes, and livestock on its numerous plantations (1860 census). Sometime before the war
Adam wed a fellow slave named Charlotte. No record of the marriage has yet been found. When
Adam was given, or when he chose, his surname of Palmer is not known. He could have been a
mulatto offspring of property owner A.D. Palmer, one of his sons, or chose it upon his own. In
the unrecorded union of Adam and Charlotte, they had a son named Ben. As the years passed,
they continued to work on the plantation as the nation headed towards a war that would bring
about great trauma and disruption to the young family.
In the spring of 1862, the U.S. forces regained the city of New Orleans. The city flooded with
refugees escaping forced bondage to freedom behind federal lines. By the autumn of 1862,
General Butler began the enlistment of colored men into regiments. Contraband camps were
created for the colored refugees to reside. They were maintained by the War Department and
known for their unsanitary environment. Food, shelter, and clothing were provided for the “able-
bodied and their families.” Labor was recruited from the contraband camps for both the army and
for nearby plantations cultivating crops, in which the sales profits were utilized for the U.S. war
effort. When the Militia Act was revised and the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect,
the recruitment of colored men into the U.S. Forces began in earnest. Many men in the colored
regiments were recruited from the contraband camps. By the spring of 1863, General Banks, had
already advanced to Baton Rouge and made moves deeper into Louisiana capturing Brashear
City and up through the Bayou Teche. With movements into areas populated with numerous
slaves, greater numbers self-emancipated themselves and were directed to contraband camps.
Adam Palmer, his wife Charlotte and their young son Ben were among those who fled the
plantations to federal lines.
In May of 1863, Banks’ forces encircled the Confederate fortifications at Port Hudson and laid
siege. The ensuing maelstrom of the Federal army bombarding the Confederate earthworks were
heard for many distant miles. The bombardment, about twenty miles south west of where Adam
Palmer and his family resided, probably convinced Adam that it was the right moment to flee the
plantation. Adam, like hundreds of others, such as the famous Peter Gordon (see the page on this
website devoted to his story and the movie Emancipation), made their way to the Union Army to
escape bondage. As the refugees poured into U.S held territory, from the siege lines at Port
Hudson to the federal lines near Baton Rouge, they would have been funneled through the War
Department’s hastily designed infrastructure to deal with self-emancipated refugees. Procedures,
laid out in a series of General Orders and Special Orders, established the refugee (contraband)
camps near New Orleans and provided food and shelter to families of colored men who enlisted
into the army.
At Camp Parapet, Carrollton, Louisiana, 1 st Lieutenant Arthur McAllister, Mustering Officer of
the Department of the Gulf, New Orleans mustered Adam Palmer into Colonel Hodge’s 1 st
Regiment Engineers, Corps d’Afrique. He was recorded as being 30 years old, born in Louisiana,
with a height of five foot eight inches. The regiment had just returned to Carrollton after having
been in the trenches at the siege of Port Hudson. There, the regiment had been organized as the
First Louisiana Engineers from able-bodied men at Camp Parapet’s “engineer” camp. At Port
Hudson they had participated in the assaults in May and June and worked tirelessly erecting
earthworks and digging trenches and mines. Having lost men from combat, desertion, and
disease, the regiment had also replaced those losses with a steady stream of enlistments. At
almost a thousand men in the regiment, it was split in two in September of 1863 into the 1 st and
3 rd Regiment Engineers, Corps d’Afrique. The regiment returned to Camp Parapet after
demolishing many of the siege works that they, and the enemy, and previously labored to erect.
It was less than a month after the regiment was split in two that Adam mustered into Company E
of the 1 st Regiment Engineers. Corps d’Afrique. Only days after he joined the regiment, it
received orders to ship out aboard the steamer Northerner to Brazos Santiago, Texas. The island
was near the Texas-Mexico border near Confederate held Fort Brown (Brownsville) close by the
Rio Grande River. He left his wife and child behind at Carrollton and arrived off the Texas coast
on November 1, 1863. There, his regiment built earthworks as other U.S. forces captured Fort
Brown and other key locations in the area.
Sometime between his enlistment and his arrival off the coast of Texas, his wife, Charlotte,
passed away, likely from any number of the unhealthy conditions common with the refugees at
the contraband camps such as Camp Parapet; malnutrition, starvation, exposure, smallpox,
dysentery, and yellow fever being the most common. His son, Ben, was left motherless and
unaware if his father would ever return alive.
As a private, Adam Palmer would have remained with the rest the men in Company E, at Brazos
Santiago Island throughout the remainder of 1864. During that spring, the regiment’s designation
was changed to the 95 th U.S. Colored Infantry as part of a nation-wide designation alignment of
colored regiments throughout the army. Then, by the end of the year, the number of men lost due
to illness in the regiments stationed there had taken such a high toll that the 87 th U.S. Colored
Infantry was consolidated with the 95 th U.S. Colored Infantry to form the 81 st Regiment
Engineers, Corps d’Afrique. However, because it did not align with the designations with the rest
of the colored regiments, it was quickly re-designated as the 87 th U.S. Colored Infantry (new).
Regimental returns show that they continued to remain on continuous fatigue duty and drill.
When Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House and Mobile. Alabama was in Union hands in
April 1865, the regiment was recalled back to Camp Parapet, Carrolton, Louisiana. They arrived
on the 21 st of May. In mid-August, due to declining numbers in USCT regiments throughout the
Department of the Gulf, The 87 th U.S. Colored Infantry was consolidated into the 84 th U.S.
Colored Infantry to bring the regiment back to “fill up to the maximum” and private Adam
Palmer was one of the 44 privates from Company E that merged into the equivalent company
stationed at Trenton, Louisiana before marching to Monroe in September. Private Palmer, with
the rest of his company, left Monroe and marched to Harrisonburg where they were transported
by steamer to Port Hudson, arriving November 29, 1865. While at Port Hudson, the regiment
mustered out of service through Special Order 48, HQ, Department of Louisiana. Adam Palmer
was discharged February 28, 1866.
Adam Palmer made his way to Baton Rouge and became a spiritual leader within the newly freed
black community there. While in Baton Rouge he reconnected with Lydia Johnson, who had also
been enslaved at the same A.D. Palmer plantation Adam had been laboring before the war. Her
first husband, John Johnson, had fled toward the siege of Port Hudson in the late spring/early
summer of 1863 where he met his demise. Reconnected, the two wed in June 1874 (see image;
East Baton Rouge Parish Marriages).
In 1868, Adam Palmer was residing at or near Donaldsonville, south of Baton Rouge, which had
become the third largest black community in Louisiana after the war. Here he worked for wages
on a plantation owned by Andrew McCollum and Eleanor Slattery, who also owned several large
sugar plantations in nearby parishes where they had made a vast fortune before the war. That
year, a former mulatto slave, Pierre Caliste Landry, was elected the first colored mayor in the
United States. Adam would later change his last name to Donaldson.
Sources:
Marriage: https://laahgp.genealogyvillage.com/LaMarriages/ebrp2.html
Agriculture: https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/9ebb44cd-4c3a-411d-b711-a73d7265cebb
Map: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4014b.cw1007000/?r=0.218,0.865,0.33,0.128,0
Louisiana owned by the descendants of Archibald David Palmer. This could have been on a
property owned, or partially owned, by Micheal A. Dickson and his wife Hannah Elizabeth
Palmer (daughter of A.D. Palmer who had died in 1848). The Dickson and Palmer marriage
increased the land and slave holdings of the two landed families. Other children of A.D. Palmer
could also have owned properties in the parish.
Near the town of Clinton, East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, Adam was one of the more than ten
thousand enslaved in the region. The parish produced large quantities of corn, oats, cotton, sweet
potatoes, and livestock on its numerous plantations (1860 census). Sometime before the war
Adam wed a fellow slave named Charlotte. No record of the marriage has yet been found. When
Adam was given, or when he chose, his surname of Palmer is not known. He could have been a
mulatto offspring of property owner A.D. Palmer, one of his sons, or chose it upon his own. In
the unrecorded union of Adam and Charlotte, they had a son named Ben. As the years passed,
they continued to work on the plantation as the nation headed towards a war that would bring
about great trauma and disruption to the young family.
In the spring of 1862, the U.S. forces regained the city of New Orleans. The city flooded with
refugees escaping forced bondage to freedom behind federal lines. By the autumn of 1862,
General Butler began the enlistment of colored men into regiments. Contraband camps were
created for the colored refugees to reside. They were maintained by the War Department and
known for their unsanitary environment. Food, shelter, and clothing were provided for the “able-
bodied and their families.” Labor was recruited from the contraband camps for both the army and
for nearby plantations cultivating crops, in which the sales profits were utilized for the U.S. war
effort. When the Militia Act was revised and the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect,
the recruitment of colored men into the U.S. Forces began in earnest. Many men in the colored
regiments were recruited from the contraband camps. By the spring of 1863, General Banks, had
already advanced to Baton Rouge and made moves deeper into Louisiana capturing Brashear
City and up through the Bayou Teche. With movements into areas populated with numerous
slaves, greater numbers self-emancipated themselves and were directed to contraband camps.
Adam Palmer, his wife Charlotte and their young son Ben were among those who fled the
plantations to federal lines.
In May of 1863, Banks’ forces encircled the Confederate fortifications at Port Hudson and laid
siege. The ensuing maelstrom of the Federal army bombarding the Confederate earthworks were
heard for many distant miles. The bombardment, about twenty miles south west of where Adam
Palmer and his family resided, probably convinced Adam that it was the right moment to flee the
plantation. Adam, like hundreds of others, such as the famous Peter Gordon (see the page on this
website devoted to his story and the movie Emancipation), made their way to the Union Army to
escape bondage. As the refugees poured into U.S held territory, from the siege lines at Port
Hudson to the federal lines near Baton Rouge, they would have been funneled through the War
Department’s hastily designed infrastructure to deal with self-emancipated refugees. Procedures,
laid out in a series of General Orders and Special Orders, established the refugee (contraband)
camps near New Orleans and provided food and shelter to families of colored men who enlisted
into the army.
At Camp Parapet, Carrollton, Louisiana, 1 st Lieutenant Arthur McAllister, Mustering Officer of
the Department of the Gulf, New Orleans mustered Adam Palmer into Colonel Hodge’s 1 st
Regiment Engineers, Corps d’Afrique. He was recorded as being 30 years old, born in Louisiana,
with a height of five foot eight inches. The regiment had just returned to Carrollton after having
been in the trenches at the siege of Port Hudson. There, the regiment had been organized as the
First Louisiana Engineers from able-bodied men at Camp Parapet’s “engineer” camp. At Port
Hudson they had participated in the assaults in May and June and worked tirelessly erecting
earthworks and digging trenches and mines. Having lost men from combat, desertion, and
disease, the regiment had also replaced those losses with a steady stream of enlistments. At
almost a thousand men in the regiment, it was split in two in September of 1863 into the 1 st and
3 rd Regiment Engineers, Corps d’Afrique. The regiment returned to Camp Parapet after
demolishing many of the siege works that they, and the enemy, and previously labored to erect.
It was less than a month after the regiment was split in two that Adam mustered into Company E
of the 1 st Regiment Engineers. Corps d’Afrique. Only days after he joined the regiment, it
received orders to ship out aboard the steamer Northerner to Brazos Santiago, Texas. The island
was near the Texas-Mexico border near Confederate held Fort Brown (Brownsville) close by the
Rio Grande River. He left his wife and child behind at Carrollton and arrived off the Texas coast
on November 1, 1863. There, his regiment built earthworks as other U.S. forces captured Fort
Brown and other key locations in the area.
Sometime between his enlistment and his arrival off the coast of Texas, his wife, Charlotte,
passed away, likely from any number of the unhealthy conditions common with the refugees at
the contraband camps such as Camp Parapet; malnutrition, starvation, exposure, smallpox,
dysentery, and yellow fever being the most common. His son, Ben, was left motherless and
unaware if his father would ever return alive.
As a private, Adam Palmer would have remained with the rest the men in Company E, at Brazos
Santiago Island throughout the remainder of 1864. During that spring, the regiment’s designation
was changed to the 95 th U.S. Colored Infantry as part of a nation-wide designation alignment of
colored regiments throughout the army. Then, by the end of the year, the number of men lost due
to illness in the regiments stationed there had taken such a high toll that the 87 th U.S. Colored
Infantry was consolidated with the 95 th U.S. Colored Infantry to form the 81 st Regiment
Engineers, Corps d’Afrique. However, because it did not align with the designations with the rest
of the colored regiments, it was quickly re-designated as the 87 th U.S. Colored Infantry (new).
Regimental returns show that they continued to remain on continuous fatigue duty and drill.
When Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House and Mobile. Alabama was in Union hands in
April 1865, the regiment was recalled back to Camp Parapet, Carrolton, Louisiana. They arrived
on the 21 st of May. In mid-August, due to declining numbers in USCT regiments throughout the
Department of the Gulf, The 87 th U.S. Colored Infantry was consolidated into the 84 th U.S.
Colored Infantry to bring the regiment back to “fill up to the maximum” and private Adam
Palmer was one of the 44 privates from Company E that merged into the equivalent company
stationed at Trenton, Louisiana before marching to Monroe in September. Private Palmer, with
the rest of his company, left Monroe and marched to Harrisonburg where they were transported
by steamer to Port Hudson, arriving November 29, 1865. While at Port Hudson, the regiment
mustered out of service through Special Order 48, HQ, Department of Louisiana. Adam Palmer
was discharged February 28, 1866.
Adam Palmer made his way to Baton Rouge and became a spiritual leader within the newly freed
black community there. While in Baton Rouge he reconnected with Lydia Johnson, who had also
been enslaved at the same A.D. Palmer plantation Adam had been laboring before the war. Her
first husband, John Johnson, had fled toward the siege of Port Hudson in the late spring/early
summer of 1863 where he met his demise. Reconnected, the two wed in June 1874 (see image;
East Baton Rouge Parish Marriages).
In 1868, Adam Palmer was residing at or near Donaldsonville, south of Baton Rouge, which had
become the third largest black community in Louisiana after the war. Here he worked for wages
on a plantation owned by Andrew McCollum and Eleanor Slattery, who also owned several large
sugar plantations in nearby parishes where they had made a vast fortune before the war. That
year, a former mulatto slave, Pierre Caliste Landry, was elected the first colored mayor in the
United States. Adam would later change his last name to Donaldson.
Sources:
Marriage: https://laahgp.genealogyvillage.com/LaMarriages/ebrp2.html
Agriculture: https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/9ebb44cd-4c3a-411d-b711-a73d7265cebb
Map: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4014b.cw1007000/?r=0.218,0.865,0.33,0.128,0