Mar 20 at 10:30 AM - Sale 2697 -

Sale 2697 - Lot 290

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) Jake Hays[?] Testimony of his service as his servant to a Confederate general and a Union captain. Manuscript in the hand of Wilmon Blackmar (see previous lot), signed with a mark. One page, 8 x 4¾ inches, plus integral blank docketed "Colored servant's receipt"; folds, ink stain on docket leaf. Wheeling, WV, 16 July 1865
Request Condition Report Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

"I was captured by Capt. Blackmar Aug. 7th 1864 at the Battle of Morefield. I was then serving Gen. Bradley T. Johnston, C.S.A. Since that time I have served Capt. Blackmar. He has always fed and clothed me as well as he could, considering the constant and long marches & raids we have been on. I have always been clothed and fed as comfortably as he was himself. He has paid me in full for the time I have served him and gives me a parting present of $60."

The man who signed this testimony had presumably been enslaved by Brigadier General Bradley Tyler Johnson of Frederick, MD, a Confederate cavalry commander who suffered a defeat at the battle of Moorefield in West Virginia in 1864. He was then a free servant to Captain Wilmon Whilldin Blackmar of the 1st West Virginia Cavalry in the Union Army. Blackmar won a Medal of Honor at the Battle of Five Forks in April 1865, and went on to a long political career in Massachusetts. The fate of Jake is unknown.

Also in This Catalogue