Monday 26 January 2015

BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " ORINDATUS SIMON BOLIVAR WALL " BECAME THE FIRST BLACK MAN TO BE COMMISSIONED AS CAPTAIN IN THE REGULAR ARMY DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK HEROES "

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Orindatus Simon Bolivar Wall



Orindatus Simon Bolivar Wall
BornAugust 12, 1825
Richmond CountyNorth Carolina
DiedApril 26, 1891 (aged 65)
Place of burialArlington National Cemetery
AllegianceUnited States United States of America
Service/branchUnited States Army
Years of service1861–1866
RankCaptain
Orindatus Simon Bolivar Wall, known as O.S.B. Wall, was the son of a white North Carolina planter, Colonel Stephen Wall, and his slave, Pricilla, who, during the American Civil War, became the first black man to be commissioned as captain in the Regular U.S. Army.[1]
Stephen Wall and Priscilla had four children: O.S.B., Napoleon, Caroline Matilda, and Benjamin Franklin Wall. Priscilla's sister Jane had one child with Stephen Wall as well, Sara (Sarah in some records) Kelly Wall. Stephen Wall also had two sons, John and Albert Wall, with another enslaved woman, Rody.[2] In 1838, Stephen Wall freed O.S.B., Napoleon, Caroline, Benjamin, and Sara, and sent them to live in the Quaker settlement of Harveysburg, Ohio, trusting $1,000 for each child to their guardian, Nathan Dix. Their younger half-brothers, John and Albert, would join them in 1845 after Stephen Wall's death.[3]
Wall attended Oberlin College, established a successful footwear business in the town of Oberlin, Ohio and then read law under John M. Langston, who had married Wall's sister Caroline in 1854.[4] Wall was arrested and prosecuted for his part in the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue.[5] After the Civil War, he played an active role in Reconstruction, practiced law in Washington, D.C., and served as a magistrate.[6]
He and his wife Amanda Ann Thomas had five children who survived to adulthood. However, within a few years of their father’s death, they began to cut their ties to the black community and identify as white.[7]
The following excerpt from a letter sent by Wall to General Rufus Saxton while both were stationed in Charleston, S.C., gives a flavor of the cruel treatment that former slaves sometimes FACED from their 'liberators' in the Union military:
(Spelling etc. as in original document).

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