Civil War
CDV of African American Boys in Civil War Uniforms by N. A. Mills, Dubuque, Iowa.
Lt. D. Stewart Hessey of Seaford, who served in the Confederate Engineer Corps, with the binoculars given him by General Robert E. Lee.
Colonel Delavan Bates waited 27 years to receive his Medal of Honor. He was awarded the prestigious accolade in 1891 for “gallantry in action where he fell, shot through the face, at the head of his regiment” on Cemetery Hill during the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg, VA in July 1864.
Colonel Bates was the commander of one the aforementioned troops of black soldiers trained to go into the crater. He was the very first person to enter the crater after the “turkey shoot”. It had been some time ...
