BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY - AFRICAN AMERICAN " THOMAS MORRIS CHESTER " WAS AN AFRICAN AMERICAN WAR CORRESPONDENT, LAWYER AND SOLDIER WHO TOOK PART IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR - GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK HEROES "

                          BLACK  SOCIAL  HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Thomas Morris Chester
Thomas Morris Chester
Thomas Morris Chester.jpg
Chester in c.1870 at the age of 36
Born May 11, 1834
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died September 30, 1892 (aged 58)
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Resting place Lincoln Cemetery, Penbrook, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Nationality American
Occupation Journalist, lawyer and soldier
Thomas Morris Chester (May 11, 1834 – September 30, 1892) was an African-American war correspondent, lawyer and soldier who took part in the American Civil War.
Contents 
1 Early life and education
2 Civil War
3 London
4 Later life
Early life and education
Chester was born at the corner of Third and Market Street in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on May 11, 1834, the fourth child of George and Jane Marie Chester.[1][2]:4 At the age of 16 Chester attended Akron College, an African-American academy in Pittsburgh.[3] As a student there, his classmates included Jeremiah A. Brown, Benjamin Tucker Tanner, and James T. Bradford.[4]
Civil War
During the upcoming of the civil war Chester served as a recruiter of black troops and raised the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. Later, he led two Black regiments into battle for the famous Gettysburg Campaign in June–July 1863, the first time that Pennsylvania had issued weapons to African Americans. From August 1864 to the end of the Civil War in May 1865, Chester worked as a war correspondent for the Philadelphia Press, which was a major daily newspaper at that time.
London
When the civil war ended he moved to London, England, to study law at Middle Temple in 1867 and became England's first African-American barrister when he was called to the bar on April 30, 1870.[2]:54[5]
Later life
He returned to the U.S. in the 1870s and settled in Louisiana, where he was the brigadier-general of the militia and the superintendent of schools in 1875. He returned to his home town of Harrisburg due to illness where he died at the home of his mother at 305 Chestnut Street on September 30, 1892. Chester is buried in Lincoln Cemetery, Penbrook, Pennsylvania.[1][6]