MARYLAND SLAVEOWNER SEEKS COMPENSATION FOR COLORED REGIMENT ENLISTMENT
A most scarce and unusual archive, a group of three partly-printed documents, two manuscript documents, and five manuscript letters, with other assorted articles of ephemera, all related to the attempts of A. Wilmer Anderson of Somerset County, on the pro-Confederate Eastern Shore of Maryland, to receive restitution for two of his slaves, Samuel Nelson and Charles Nelson, who enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War. The archive includes a partly printed "Proof of Ownership" form, 1p. 4to., for Samuel Nelson, stating that he enlisted in Company H of the 9th Regiment United States Colored Troops on or about Nov. 22, 1863, as well as a partly-printed "Proof of Title" form for Samuel Nelson, stating much the same information as above, and also for Charles Nelson, who enlisted in Company G of the 7th Regiment. All three forms are filled out with Anderson's and the soldiers' information, but are incomplete, lacking the required signatures of two witnesses, a justice of the peace, and a county clerk. All three are dated only "1865", and a blank receipt from the Office of the U.S. Board of Claims in Baltimore is tipped to the bottom of the Proof of Ownership form. Four of the five letters, dictated by Baltimore attorney William Daniel to his clerk, William S. Dix, and dated between May 6 and Sep. 25, 1865, forward the aforementioned forms to Anderson and then go on to cajole him, in an increasingly exasperated tone, to correctly fill them out and submit them. From a letter dated June 24, in part: "... On the 6th of last month I wrote to you, sending you blanks of the form now required for collecting State Bounty, you did not return those papers to me ... If those papers had been properly executed and returned to me, I am sure I should have obtained the money for you before this time, as I have collected a number just similar ... You will find that what I state to you is just the plain truth in each case; and that what I advise you to do is just what is needful to be done. I took special pains, and made repeated efforts to show the Board that you were a loyal person; and after much effort I succeeded. I regret that your hesitation to comply with the requirements hinders and delays your claim so much..." From a letter dated Sep. 12, in part: "... On the 24th of June, I wrote to you that it was necessary to make another evidence of title for one or the other of your men. That put in being both on the same paper would not do for both. It will do for one. One must be made for the other ... Please execute the paper properly and at once, and return it to me. You would be dealing very hard with me, to make me lose the commission on one of those claims, just by your neglect, after I have taken so much pains and had so much to do to establish your loyalty. For you know there were some considerable difficulties about this matter. I hope you will not neglect this at all..." Finally, in the Sep. 25 letter, Daniel informs Anderson that the Board has recieved his properly completed claims. The fifth letter, also from Daniel, dated Feb. 14, 1866, deals with another Colored Troops soldier, George Leatherby of the 6th Regiment U.S. Colored Troops, for whom Anderson would also like to submit a claim. The two manuscript documents consist of notes by Dix, one signed and the other unsigned, recording Anderson's initial submission of his claims to Daniel, and the percentage of the bounty Daniel's office will receive for helping Anderson with his claim. Also present is an 8" x 2" slip of paper, on which it appears that Anderson has listed the first names of his slaves and their nominal value. The names include Charles, Sam, and George, who are apparently the three individuals who enlisted with the Colored Troops as described above, as well as four additional named slaves. Amazingly, he calculates their total combined worth as being about $960. The balance of the archive consists of a second tally of the worth of Anderson's property, which includes some, but not all of the slaves listed above, as well as two additional cost tallies kept by Anderson, regarding other property. The letters and documents are in generally very good condition, with folds and minor splitting evident in some instances. Although a slave-holding state, Maryland never joined the Confederacy, with her government remaining nominally loyal to the Union. As such, Maryland slave owners were allowed the opportunity to claim restitution from the government for slaves freed by enlistment in the army, or who were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, an opportunity that citizens of the Confederacy certainly were never extended.