Drive begins to add names of blacks to Ohio memorial of blacks to war memorial

2 ceremonies planned Monday in Cleveland

By Dave Davis

Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND

The names of 140 local black soldiers who helped win the Civil War for the Union are not among those memorialized at the Soliders & Sailors Monument on Cleveland’s Public Square — a historical slight that a group of local volunteers aims to fix.

The monument, opened in 1894 to honor local residents who fought in the Civil War, is a familiar sight downtown, with its imposing 125-foot column topped with a statue of the Goddess of Freedom.

Beneath, in the Memorial Room, a large bronze relief depicts Abraham Lincoln breaking the shackles from a slave and handing him a rifle. The names of 9,000 local residents who served the Union in the Civil War are engraved in the marble tablets that line the walls.

But only 18 are black soldiers. That’s from among hundreds of black soldiers from the area who are thought to have enlisted.

“Abraham Lincoln said that without these men we could have very easily lost the war,” said Jerry Young, who, through research with other volunteers, has compiled a list of 140 black veterans who should be listed at the Soldiers & Sailors Monument but are not.

Young expects to add 40 more names before finishing his research, which is based on checking service, burial, pension, and grave records, among others.

‘These men fought at great peril to themselves because the Confederacy had a strict policy of no black prisoners,” Young added. “And they knew that when they raised their hands. That’s why this Memorial Day we want to honor them.”

Cleveland-area black Civil War veterans, part of an estimated 5,000 who fought in the Civil War from Ohio, will be honored at two events Monday.

At 10 a.m., Paul LaRue, a high school teacher from Southern Ohio and a national expert on Ohio’s black Civil War veterans, will speak at a ceremony honoring the 44 black Civil War veterans buried at Woodland Cemetery, 6901 Woodland Ave.

The event will include military veterans, the Boy Scouts, a rifle salute, trumpet and bagpipes.

At 12:30 p.m. at the Soldiers & Sailors Monument on Public Square, the soldiers who fought in the U.S. 5th Colored Troops will be honored.

The Sons of Union Veterans, Camp 142, will present a wreath in honor of their ancestors who served during the war. LaRue and state Sen. Nina Turner are expected to speak. A tour of the monument will follow.

The county commission that oversees the monument has pledged to add the names of the black soldiers, but Neil Evans, head of the group, says that effort is still in the early stages.

About 1,400 Civil War veterans are buried in Woodland, including 44 men known to have served in the U.S. Colored Troops or another state’s black regiment.

They were farmers, laborers, barbers — people such as Jeremiah Tucker, who was a teenager in March 1863 when he left Cleveland to join the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, just months before they led the second attack on Fort Wager in South Carolina.

The bloody battle on July 18, 1863, was the subject of the 1989 movie “Glory” with Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman.