More: Oldham County WWII vet remembers Normandy invasionĬamp Nelson is now preserved as a national Civil War Heritage Park and located in Central Kentucky, Jessamine County, close to Nicholasville.
More: WWII veteran, Oldham County resident, celebrates his 100th birthday Beaumont’s inspiration to join the Union may have come from a fellow slave, Elijah Marrs, in Shelbyville. As Marrs ran to join, he recruited neighboring slaves as well to accompany him to Camp Nelson.
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More: New sculpture in Oldham County to honor WWII veteransĬensus records for Oldham County in 1840 indicate that out of 7,380 people accounted for, 2,377 were enslaved and these numbers changed very little leading up to the Civil War. These numbers reflect similar percentages statewide where the 1860 Kentucky Census listed 919,484 whites, 225,483 slaves, and 10,684 Free Negroes. More: Oldham County WWII gunner recalls training for the B-29 The Conscription Act was the first chance for enslaved laborers in Kentucky to earn their freedom. Kentucky had been exempted from Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation that freed slaves in the South. The Proclamation did not apply to slaveholding states along the Mason-Dixon Line. Lincoln needed the support of these border states to win the war they held the key to advancement into the heart of the Confederacy. This Act promised freedom for any African-American who enlisted. The Conscription Act of 1864 passed by Congress, allowed for the recruitment of slaves and free blacks into Union troops. Originally slaves were not allowed to fight for the Union, but as the war continued, troops were needed to replace and fortify Union armies. Colored Troops, African-American soldiers who fought for the Union.īeaumont mustered in sometime between June 6 to July 12, 1864, at Camp Nelson, Kentucky. Camp Nelson became a recruitment center for U S. A couple of blocks from the Oldham County History Center is an African-American cemetery that dates back prior to the Civil War. Alex Beaumont is buried there with a Union Shield embedded in his gravestone listing CO E 116 USC. Those letters and numbers stand for the 116th Regiment of the U.S.
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