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This web site includes material and information that
I have amassed over some two years of pain staking research, and as such I
reserve all rights to the information and material contained within this web
site under U.S. copyright laws, where applicable.
http://islandmound.tripod.com/index1.htm
| ©2000
Chris Tabor |
| All
rights reserved. |
| On
Wednesday, October 29, 1862, the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers fought and
repelled a superior force of rebel cavalry in Bates County, Missouri. The
action occurred before the enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation
(January 1, 1863) and long before the men of the 54th Massachusetts stormed
Fort Wagner. Although the primacy of this engagement in the chronology of
the African American fighting man's experience during the Civil War is
acknowledged by the National Park Service, the State of Missouri, the State
of Kansas, and scholars alike, no comprehensive study of the engagement has
occurred - until now! |
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Alas, there
is no memorial to the bravery and sacrifice of the African American troops
that day. Ironically, the names of those men killed in the engagement, the
first to be killed in action during the Civil War from an African American
regiment, (1 white officer, 6 African Americans, and 1 Cherokee Indian) do
not appear on the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The reason for the omission of their names is because the Skirmish at Island
Mound occurred before the troops involved had actually been mustered into
federal service, and the names upon that national memorial were taken from
the muster rolls and the Adjutant General's reports of the various states. |
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Harper's Weekly March 14, 1862 |
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Over the past two years I have thoroughly studied
the engagement using known accounts of the action as well as additional
contemporary accounts I discovered along the way. The uncovering of
additional accounts of the engagement better illuminate the action, and make
it possible to finally tell the story of the Skirmish at Island Mound. I
invite you to join with me in celebrating this blow struck for freedom - the
first struck by an African American regiment during the American
Civil War. Also, I ask your help and support in honoring the memory of the
men who fought in this engagement, and in my efforts to see the ground upon
which this historic engagement was fought properly preserved and protected. |
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