From Gowen Manuscript: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gowenrf/Gowenms142.htm
HAMPTON COUNTY, VIRGINIA
Pvt. John Goins, a black Union prison guard, shot a Confederate prisoner of war near Newport News, Virginia after the Civil War had been ended, according to an article written by Benjamin Tyree for the March 7, 1992 edition of “The Washington Post.”
“Confederate war prisons may have a worse reputation than those of the Union, owing partly to the horrific Andersonville in Georgia, where 13,000 Union soldiers died.
But despite the more ample provision available to the Union, its prisoners often found conditions anything but a picnic. There were many reports of inadequate and tainted food and water, unsanitary conditions and fatal epidemics of smallpox and other diseases. There were many deaths among prisoners poorly clothed and: sheltered (often outdoors) in the freezing northern winter.
Complicating. the treatment of prisoners, and the whole postwar occupation of the South, was the broader conflict between black Union troops and white Confederates. Southerners deeply resented the Union’s arming blacks and putting the defeated Confederacy under the heel of an army that included many former slaves. Black soldiers had the bitter memories not only of slavery but also of bloody pursuits of runaways seeking Union lines and of take no‑prisoners battlefield carnage concentrated against them at such places as Fort Pillow and the Petersburg Crater.
Perhaps issuing from this poisoned relationship was an episode investigated by the Newport News, Virginia Union Army post headquarters involving a Confederate prisoner of war and three black Union sentries.
The prisoner, a Pvt. Thomas Tyree (no known relation to this writer), was shot three times in an alleged escape attempt the night of April 20, 1865. This occurred a week and a half after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appommattox and the paroling of his army by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant but also less than a week after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln had further inflamed anti-Southern feeling.
The prisoner said: he was heading “to the sink when the sentinel hailed me several times and ordered me to halt. l did not know at first that he was hailing me. I halted when ordered. The sentinel told me to come up to him. I did so, and when within 15 paces of him, he ordered me to halt again. I halted. He then asked me what l wanted. I told him I had the diarrhea and was going to do a job. The sentinel said it was a damned die and that I didn’t want to . . . . He then shot me. I was also shot by the sentinel on each side of me.
The sentinel who first fired, John Goins, said, “Tyree didn’t halt when ordered to, but turned away from me . . . . I feel certain that the man I shot was trying to escape.” The sentinels said they had standing orders to shoot prisoners who did not halt on command. They said Tyree had rushed the post of the first sentry, and was followed by as many as 15 other prisoners. Union Capt. A.D. Clark said he heard the sentinel repeatedly order someone to halt. “In about 10 seconds, three shots fired in rapid succession.” The official account of the investigation was inconclusive. But war records at the National Archives show that the black sentries’ company sailed from Newport News that May, bound for new duty in Corpus Christi, Texas. Prisoner of war Thomas Tyree took the oath of allegiance to the United States and was released in July 1865.”
==O==
Phillip Gowen, negro won his freedom in court in June 1675, according to “Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro” by Helen Honor Tunnicliff Catterall. Court records reveal:
“Phillip Gowen, negro, Suing Mr. Jno. Lucas . . . for his freedome. It is Ordered that the said Phill. Gowen be free from the Said Mr. Lucas, his Service and that the Indenture Acknowledg’d in Warwick County be Invallid and that the said Mr. Lucas pay unto the sd. Gowen three Barrels of Corne att the Cropp [harvest time], According to the Will of Mrs. Amy Boazlye, deceased with costs.”
Warwick County, Virginia was merged into the city of Warwick, Virginia and then into the city of Newport News, according to the research of Virginia Easley De Marce of Arlington, Virginia. Surviving records in 1991 were being maintained by the City of Newport News.
Descendant Researchers:
Ethel Louise Goins Dunn, Rt. 1, Box 101D, Crandall, GA, 30711, 706/695-3679
From Gowen Manuscript: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gowenrf/Gowenms144.htm
HAMPTON COUNTY, VIRGINIA
Pvt. John Goins, a black Union prison guard, shot a Confederate prisoner of war near Newport News, Virginia after the Civil War had been ended, according to an article written by Benjamin Tyree for the March 7, 1992 edition of “The Washington Post.”
“Confederate war prisons may have a worse reputation than those of the Union, owing partly to the horrific Andersonville in Georgia, where 13,000 Union soldiers died.
But despite the more ample provision available to the Union, its prisoners often found conditions anything but a picnic. There were many reports of inadequate and tainted food and water, unsanitary conditions and fatal epidemics of smallpox and other diseases. There were many deaths among prisoners poorly clothed and: sheltered (often outdoors) in the freezing northern winter.
Complicating. the treatment of prisoners, and the whole postwar occupation of the South, was the broader conflict between black Union troops and white Confederates. Southerners deeply resented the Union’s arming blacks and putting the defeated Confederacy under the heel of an army that included many former slaves. Black soldiers had the bitter memories not only of slavery but also of bloody pursuits of runaways seeking Union lines and of take no‑prisoners battlefield carnage concentrated against them at such places as Fort Pillow and the Petersburg Crater.
Perhaps issuing from this poisoned relationship was an episode investigated by the Newport News, Virginia Union Army post headquarters involving a Confederate prisoner of war and three black Union sentries.
The prisoner, a Pvt. Thomas Tyree (no known relation to this writer), was shot three times in an alleged escape attempt the night of April 20, 1865. This occurred a week and a half after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appommattox and the paroling of his army by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant but also less than a week after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln had further inflamed anti-Southern feeling.
The prisoner said: he was heading “to the sink when the sentinel hailed me several times and ordered me to halt. I did not know at first that he was hailing me. I halted when ordered. The sentinel told me to come up to him. I did so, and when within 15 paces of him, he ordered me to halt again. I halted. He then asked me what I wanted. I told him I had the diarrhea and was going to do a job. The sentinel said it was a damned lie and that I didn’t want to . . . . He then shot me. I was also shot by the sentinel on each side of me.
The sentinel who first fired, John Goins, said, “Tyree didn’t halt when ordered to, but turned away from me . . . . I feel certain that the man I shot was trying to escape.” The sentinels said they had standing orders to shoot prisoners who did not halt on command. They said Tyree had rushed the post of the first sentry, and was followed by as many as 15 other prisoners. Union Capt. A.D. Clark said he heard the sentinel repeatedly order someone to halt. “In about 10 seconds, three shots fired in rapid succession.” The official account of the investigation was inconclusive. But war records at the National Archives show that the black sentries’ company sailed from Newport News that May, bound for new duty in Corpus Christi, Texas. Prisoner of war Thomas Tyree took the oath of allegiance to the United States and was released in July 1865.”
==O==
Phillip Gowen, negro won his freedom in court in June 1675, according to “Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro” by Helen Honor Tunnicliff Catterall. Court records reveal:
“Phillip Gowen, negro, Suing Mr. Jno. Lucas . . . for his freedome. It is Ordered that the said Phill. Gowen be free from the Said Mr. Lucas, his Service and that the Indenture Acknowledg’d in Warwick County be Invallid and that the said Mr. Lucas pay unto the sd. Gowen three Barrels of Corne att the Cropp [harvest time], According to the Will of Mrs. Amy Boazlye, deceased with costs.”
Warwick County, Virginia was merged into the city of Warwick, Virginia and then into the city of Newport News, according to the research of Virginia Easley De Marce of Arlington, Virginia. Surviving records in 1991 were being maintained by the City of Newport News.
From Gowen Manuscript: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gowenrf/Gowenms145.htm
HAMPTON COUNTY, VIRGINIA
Pvt. John Goins, a black Union prison guard, shot a Confederate prisoner of war near Newport News, Virginia after the Civil War had been ended, according to an article written by Benjamin Tyree for the March 7, 1992 edition of “The Washington Post.”
“Confederate war prisons may have a worse reputation than those of the Union, owing partly to the horrific Andersonville in Georgia, where 13,000 Union soldiers died.
But despite the more ample provision available to the Union, its prisoners often found conditions anything but a picnic. There were many reports of inadequate and tainted food and water, unsanitary conditions and fatal epidemics of smallpox and other diseases. There were many deaths among prisoners poorly clothed and: sheltered (often outdoors) in the freezing northern winter.
Complicating the treatment of prisoners, and the whole postwar occupation of the South, was the broader conflict between black Union troops and white Confederates. Southerners deeply resented the Union’s arming blacks and putting the defeated Confederacy under the heel of an army that included many former slaves. Black soldiers had the bitter memories not only of slavery but also of bloody pursuits of runaways seeking Union lines and of take no-prisoners battlefield carnage concentrated against them at such places as Fort Pillow and the Petersburg Crater.
Perhaps issuing from this poisoned relationship was an episode investigated by the Newport News, Virginia Union Army post headquarters involving a Confederate prisoner of war and three black Union sentries.
The prisoner, a Pvt. Thomas Tyree [no known relation to this writer], was shot three times in an alleged escape attempt the night of April 20, 1865. This occurred a week and a half after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appommattox and the paroling of his army by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant but also less than a week after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln had further inflamed anti-Southern feeling.
The prisoner said: he was heading “to the sink when the sentinel hailed me several times and ordered me to halt. I did not know at first that he was hailing me. I halted when ordered. The sentinel told me to come up to him. I did so, and when within 15 paces of him, he ordered me to halt again. I halted. He then asked me what I wanted. I told him I had the diarrhea and was going to do a job. The sentinel said it was a damned lie and that I didn’t want to . . . . He then shot me. I was also shot by the sentinel on each side of me.
The sentinel who first fired, John Goins, said, “Tyree didn’t halt when ordered to, but turned away from me . . . . I feel certain that the man I shot was trying to escape.” The sentinels said they had standing orders to shoot prisoners who did not halt on command. They said Tyree had rushed the post of the first sentry, and was followed by as many as 15 other prisoners. Union Capt. A.D. Clark said he heard the sentinel repeatedly order someone to halt. “In about 10 seconds, three shots fired in rapid succession.” The official account of the investigation was inconclusive. But war records at the National Archives show that the black sentries’ company sailed from Newport News that May, bound for new duty in Corpus Christi, Texas. Prisoner of war Thomas Tyree took the oath of allegiance to the United States and was released in July 1865.”
==O==
Phillip Gowen, negro won his freedom in court in June 1675, according to “Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro” by Helen Honor Tunnicliff Catterall. Court records reveal:
“Phillip Gowen, negro, Suing Mr. Jno. Lucas . . . for his freedome. It is Ordered that the said Phill. Gowen be free from the Said Mr. Lucas, his Service and that the Indenture Acknowledg’d in Warwick County be Invallid and that the said Mr. Lucas pay unto the sd. Gowen three Barrels of Corne att the Cropp [harvest time], according to the Will of Mrs. Amy Boazlye, deceased with costs.”
Warwick County, Virginia was merged into the city of Warwick, Virginia and then into the city of Newport News, according to the research of Virginia Easley De Marce of Arlington, Virginia. Surviving records in 1991 were being maintained by the City of Newport News.
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