Born 1840-1865

Cornelia Hancock, born February 8, 1840

Cornelia Hancock was born in 1840 at Hancock's Bridge, Salem County, New Jersey to Thomas Yorke and Rachel (Nicholson) Hancock, she was the fourth child and third daughter in this Quaker abolitionist family. Hancock was 21 years old when the Civil War began; she became a nurse two years later.












William Harvey Carney, born February 29, 1840

He was born simply as "William," a slave in Norfolk, Virginia. He was 21 years old when the Civil War began.

Myles Walter Keogh, born March 25, 1840
Myles Keogh was born in Orchard House, County Carlow, Ireland on March 25, 1840. He was 21 years old when the Civil War began.

Alexander Kelly, born April 7, 1840

Alexander Kelly was born in Saltsburg, Pennsylvania in 1840. He was 21 years old when the Civil War began.

Martha Ready Morgan, born June 21, 1840
Martha Ready was born near Murfreesboro, Tennessee on June 21, 1840. She was the sixth of eight children born to Colonel Charles Ready, Jr. and Martha Strong Ready. She was 21 years old when the Civil War began.

Henry Mosler, born June 6, 1841
Henry Mosler was born in Tropplowitz, Prussian Silesia (now in Poland), the first son of Gustavus and Sophia Weiner Mosler.  The family would eventually grow to eight children: five sons and three daughters. Henry Mosler was 20 years old when the Civil War began in 1861. 

George Elstner, born March 14, 1842
George Elstner was born in Cincinnati, Ohio where he lived until the Civil War began.  He was 19 years old at the beginning of the war. He was killed while leading his regiment at the Battle of Utoy Creek on August 8, 1864 near Atlanta, Georgia when he was 22 years old. 

Allen Allensworth, born April 7, 1842

Born into slavery in Louisville, Kentucky in 1842, Allen was the youngest of thirteen children of Phyllis Starbird and Levi Allensworth. Allen was 19 years old when the Civil War 

James Edward Hanger, born February 25, 1843

James Edward Hanger was born at Mount Hope, his father's plantation near Churchville, Virginia. He was 18 years old when the Civil War began.

Henry Adams, born March 16, 1843
Born a slave in Newton County, Georgia on March 16, 1843, Henry Adams was originally named Henry Houston but his name was changed at the age of seven when he and his family became the property of the teen-aged Nancy Emily Adams. He was 18 years old when the Civil War began.

Belle Boyd, born May 9, 1843
Isabella Marie Boyd was born in Berkeley County, Virginia, the eldest child of Benjamin Reed and Mary Rebecca (Glenn) Boyd. The Boyds and the Glenns were well-known families of the area. Belle's grandfather, James Glenn, served in the Revolutionary War and was presented several awards by General George Washington for outstanding service. Members of the Boyd family were merchants and owned several general stores in the area. She was 18 years old when the Civil War began.

Andrew Jackson Smith, 
born September 3, 1843

Andrew Jackson Smith was born into slavery in Lyon County, Kentucky, the son of Susan, a slave, and Elijah Smith, who owned her.  As a boy, he was called "Andy." When he was ten years old, Elijah assigned him to run a ferry transporting people and supplies across the Cumberland River. Andy continued this work for the next eight years. He was 18 years old when the Civil War began.

Lewis Thornton Powell (aka Lewis Paine or Payne), 
born April 22, 1844
Lewis Powell was born in Randolph County, Alabama, on April 22, 1844 to a Baptist minister, schoolmaster, farmer, blacksmith and slaveowner, George Cader Powell, and his wife Patience Caroline Powell.  He was 17 when the Civil War began.  He died  four years later at the end of the war, at the age of 21, hanged for conspiracy in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.





Milton Holland, born August 1st, 1844

Milton Murray Holland was born August 1, 1844 in Texas, as the son of slaves on Holland Plantation. Although the record shows his parents as being John and Matilda Holland, slaves on the plantation, his light complexion has led historians to speculate that his real father was Bird Holland, the brother of Spearman Holland, their owner. Bird Holland was believed to be the father of three sons by Matilda: William, born in 1841, Milton and James. Milton had three known brothers, William, James, and Toby, all part of the third generation of African-Americans born as slaves on the Holland Family Plantation. Milton Holland was 17 years old when the Civil War began; he was still attending school in Athens County, Ohio.

Mary "Queen" Mellen Palmer, born March 26, 1850

Mary Lincoln Mellen was born in Prestonburg, Kentucky on March 26, 1850. She was 11 years old when the Civil War began.

Thomas Nelson Page, born April 23, 1853
Thomas Nelson Page was born at Oakland, one of the Nelson family plantations, in Hanover County, Virginia.





Henry Flipper, born March 21, 1856

Henry Ossian Flipper was born into slavery in 1856 in Thomasville, Georgia. He was 6 years old when the Civil War began in April 1861.  

Joseph Evan Davis, born April 18, 1859

"Joe" Davis was born on April 18,1859, in Washington, D.C., the son of Senator Jefferson Davis and his wife, Varina Howell Davis.  He was 2 years old when the Civil War began; he died 3 years later on April 30, 1864, in a fall at the Confederate White House in Richmond, Virginia, two weeks after his fifth birthday.

Mary White Ovington, born April 11, 1865
Mary White Ovington was born in Brooklyn, New York a few days before the a