Letter from 1st Sergeant Stephen Swails to the Adjutant General
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Swails, Stephen Atkins, 1832-1900
http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60t0f48 (person)
Swails was a free black who was so light in coloring that he was often mistaken as white. He was single and employed mostly as a waiter in Cooperstown, New York at the start of the Civil War, and although he fathered several children by Sarah Thompson, they never married. His enlistment papers state he was employed as a boatman in Elmira, New York when he joined the army. In 1863, he answered Frederick Douglass' call to arms and joined the 54th Massachusetts when it began forming, and served in ...
