Montgomery County Stories from the U.S. Colored Troops
by Julianne Mangin
Among the approximately 180,000 soldiers who served in the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT) during the Civil War were men who had a connection to Montgomery County, Maryland. Their stories shed light on their lives as enslaved people, as soldiers, and (if they survived) as veterans building new lives as emancipated people. The extent of the sacrifices these men made to free themselves and their families is both remarkable and heartbreaking. After emancipation, these veterans had to find a way to start over as free people, and some of them played key roles in the formation of the African American kinship communities of Montgomery County. Using pension records containing direct testimony from veterans and their widows, author Julianne Mangin provides a glimpse into the lives of these heroes, from the outbreak of the Civil War to emancipation, and into the early twentieth century.