George Gould – Southern Claims Commission
Southern Claims Commission Petition By George Gould “I used to have all the privileges a slave could have, but I would not give one of my free days for all my life in slavery.” –Joshua Cassell, Liberty County, Georgia When the U.S. Army arrived in Liberty County in December 1864, the soldiers and their horses […]
John Lambert – Southern Claims Commission
Southern Claims Commission Petition By John Lambert John Lambert was only about 10 years old — an enslaved child — when the U.S. Army swept through Liberty County foraging during Sherman’s March to the Sea. He filed this claim on behalf of his mother after the war. Phillis Lambert was blind by then, and had […]
Joel Hodges – Southern Claims Commission
During the Civil War, Joel Hodges of Liberty County slept with a gun beside his bed…not out of fear of the U.S. Army but because he had been so outspoken against the war, he thought his neighbors might attack him. Hodges was white, poor and owned little property, but his pro-Union sentiments did not save […]
William (“Billy”) Gilmore – Southern Claims Commission
William (“Billy”) Gilmore was about 43 at the end of 1864 when the soldiers of Sherman’s Army arrived in Liberty County, Georgia, where he was enslaved on Raymond Cay, Sr’s plantation. Gilmore testified before the Southern Claims Commission in 1873 that the soldiers came first to his home and took all that he had, then […]
Boston Polite – Southern Claims Commission
Boston Polite’s Southern Claims Commission case file was relatively short, because his claim was disallowed on the grounds that he was able to call no witnesses to the actual taking of his property by U.S. soldiers in the Sherman’s Army raid on Liberty County during December 1864. His only witness was a white man, Gideon […]
Aberdeen LeCounte – Southern Claims Commission
“At the beginning of the rebellion I sympathized with the Yankee side I felt glad and long[ed] to see the day come and when they did come I shouted for joy I told my friends I was glad God hath put it into the hearts of some loyal men to strike of[f] the chain binding […]
Toney Axson – Southern Claims Commission
“I was rejoiced when I first heard of the war and I said thank God so that my wife and daughter could have the same privilege as I had.” The 1873 Southern Claims Commission application of Toney Axson gives unusual insight into the life of a free African American man in Liberty County, Georgia. Axson […]
Augustus Williams – Southern Claims Commission
Augustus Williams presented his claim to the Southern Claims Commission in 1877 for $185 worth of property taken from him by U.S. troops when Sherman’s Army came to Liberty County, Georgia, in December 1864. At the time, Williams said, he was enslaved on the Goshen Plantation, that he was 43 years old, and had lived […]
William Wilson – Southern Claims Commission
William Wilson filed his Southern Claims Commission petition in 1877, claiming $59 for two hogs, corn, rice, and 40 head of poultry taken from him by Federal troops from his wife’s home on the Mrs. Lydia Quarterman Goshen plantation, where she was enslaved, in December 1864. Wilson said he was 61 years old when he […]
Paul LeConte – Southern Claims Commission
In 1878, Paul LeConte, a formerly enslaved man, submitted a Southern Claims Commission petition for $160.75 in compensation for rice, honey, hogs, corn, potatoes, fowl, and crockery that he claimed was stolen from his home on Halifax farm in Liberty County, Georgia, by U.S. troops in December 1864. The Commissioners of Claims allowed only $47 […]