Daniel Walker Williams, my great-great grandfather, was born in 1826 (based on other records, the date on the tombstone appears to be incorrect) in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. According to information provided on a Freedman's Bank application, he was however raised in Marshall County, Mississippi. He was obviously held in bondage there, having been brought to Mississippi from Virginia at an early age.
Grandfather Daniel's history is a long and interesting one. Although I do not yet know of his Marshall County owners or of the Virginia family that he was with before being brought to Mississippi, I do know that he left Marshall County, probably with his young children in tow in late 1862 or early 1863, and headed to Memphis, which was by then occupied by Union troops.
In Memphis, during the war, Grandfather served as a teamster, delivering food and clothing to blacks in the city's various contraband camps. He himself may have lived at Camp Dixie (President's Island) for a few months before being stationed at Fort Pickering, north of the island. His children, however, likely remained at the camp, possibly watched over by black women and white missionaries. In December of 1863, he was mustered into the 63rd Regiment, Company K, of the United States Colored Troops. (See 63rd Regiment posting.) The regiment remained in Memphis providing garrison duty for the fort, as well as safegarding blacks at the camps. This assignment appears to have allowed Grandfather to take advantage of farming opportunities on the island.
Grandfather would remain in service through the beginning of 1866, and there is reason to believe that he gained the favor of officials, perhaps even of John Eaton and of the local commander, for in 1865, just after the war, he was detailed by General Cadwallader Washburn. Though the nature of the detail is not yet known, my guess is that it involved transitioning blacks. After the war, officers stationed at Memphis were assigned the task of patrolling the streets and were to arrest "vagrant" blacks and to "negotiate" for them labor contracts. Under this "relocation program," black soldiers were charged with driving fellow blacks to depots in order that they might leave the city. Black troops however told their fellows to disregard such orders and in many cases the troops themselves refused to carry out the task (See Barrington Walker:
http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/lh/article/viewfile/5336.)
In the meantime, Grandfather was undoubtedly about the business of farming, and the fact that when he was mustered out of service in 1866 he chose to make the island his home suggests that he experienced success in this venture. According to his bank record, he married in 1866 Ellen Woods, and in 1870 he lived with her and his children--Samuel, Robert, Walker, Molly, and Joe--on the island. According to the census, he was then renting.
Around 1875, Grandfather's oldest sons, then young men, had left Memphis for DeSoto County, Mississippi, where they would by 1888 acquire fourteen hundred acres of land. This achievement is tied both to the twelve or more years that they spent with their father in Memphis and to whatever inroads they had in DeSoto County. During their time in Memphis, they must have raised $12,000 for this was the price of three parcels of land for which they paid cash! This gives some credence to Superintendent John Eaton's claim that some blacks made thousands of dollars during the war.
Even as his sons settled in Mississippi, their father remained in Memphis for another ten years, a fact that suggests that he was the "original" source of their money stream. I tend to believe that it was a network of business support that kept him in the city even when race relations there were volatile.
By 1885 or 1886, Grandfather Daniel retired to DeSoto County and passed on the baton to his sons, who would achieve much on their own. By 1890, he began the process of applying for a soldier's pension, and after several attempts the pension was approved. He lived for his remaining years off of the pension and possibly from proceeds from other doings. Following the death of his wife Ellen, he remarried in 1898. Unfortunately, his new wife, Violet Graham, died just two months after he did. Grandfather himself died in May of 1909. He obviously advised and instructed his new wife before his death to apply for the pension. She did; however, her application was denied due to the timing of the marriage and due as well to the fact that she died in June before she had a chance to appeal the decision.
Grandfather's children left for their father a stone memorial, a tombstone that sits front and center in the family cemetery plot in DeSoto County. (See picture.) An inscription reads: "Christ is my hope.")
Though the gravesite was forgotten in the recent past, I have begun visiting it, placing a flag upon it.
