Page one of the U.S. Army’s Civil War enlistment paperwork for Bristor Gethers (mistakenly listed as “Presto Garris”), 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Company F, 5 October 1862 (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

Our realization, as researchers, that there were at least nine formerly enslaved Black men who enlisted with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War was sparked by a single index card for a soldier named “Presto Garris” that we found in the Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans’ Card File, which is maintained by the Pennsylvania State Archives.

Our ability to determine the true name of that soldier and correct the historical record about his life by researching and writing his biography was made possible by reading the dozens of pages contained in his U.S. Civil War Pension file and Compiled Military Service Records, which are maintained by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

It was worth every penny of the roughly one hundred and ten dollars that we spent to obtain copies of those records from the National Archives because one of those documents confirmed the precise location of where that soldier had been enslaved prior to the war while others told us that he had survived the war and had lived out his life as a farmer. Another document even provided clues to the location of his grave.

That knowledge was so much more than we could have ever have hoped to gain because so many of the millions of men, women and children who were sold into, born into and re-sold throughout the American system of chattel slavery were never identified by name on state and federal census records prior to the war or were listed under names that had been created for them by their enslavers.

So, it matters that we’re able to tell you, for certain, that the true name of the soldier listed on that aforementioned index card was Bristor Gethers, that he lived near Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina after the war and that he resided with his wife and son near Beaufort, South Carolina after that. Please take the time to learn more about him by reading his bio on our educational program’s special website, Freedmen of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Then, look through the records that document his life’s journey.

Mr. Gethers’ story teaches us all that it is possible to find a new way forward after surviving the darkest of times.

Sources:

1. “Garris, Presto,” in Civil War Muster Rolls (Company F, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
2. “Garris, Presto,” in Pennsylvania Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866 (Company F, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
3. “Geddis, Brista” and “Geddis, Rachel,” in U.S. Census (Beaufort Township, Beaufort County, South Carolina, 1880). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
4. “Geddis, Brister,” in “Agreement Between B. J. Whitesides and Fifteen Freedmen” (Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, 12 February 1868), in “Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
5. “Gethers, Bristor,” “Garris, Presto” and “Geddes, Bristor,” in U.S. Civil War Pension and U.S. Civil War Widows’ Pension Files (widow’s pension application no.: 598937, widow’s certificate no.: 447893, filed by the widow, Rachel Geddes, from South Carolina, 27 July 1894). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.