Confederate Pensioners of Color:  Union County, North Carolina

Last Name

First

Where born

State served

Regiment

Death Date & Burial site if known

Date of Pension

Obit? Y/N

Ashcraft*

Wilson

Union County, NC

NC

53rd, Co I

12/3/1937, Union Co., NC

7/4/1932

Y

Byrd

Ned [1]

Chesterfield Co., SC

SC

22nd?

2/6/1942, Watts Grove (Union Co., NC)

8/13/1929

Y

Clyburn

Weary/Wary [2]

Lancaster Co., SC

SC

12th, Co E

3/30/1930, Hillcrest (orig. grounds)

2/1/1926

Y

Cunningham

Wyatt

Liberty Hill, SC

SC

Waggoner

11/10/1933, Ebenezer (Waxhaw, NC)

7/23/1931

N**

Cureton

George

Liberty Hill, SC

SC

4th & 7th CAV

9/5/1934, Bethel (Gospel Way in Waxhaw, NC)

2/4/1929

Y

Cuthbertson

Hamp

Union County, NC

NC

Fort Fisher

C/F in Union Co. but died b/t Jun - Dec 1932 per pension list

7/11/1927

Fraser/Frasier

Mose

Lancaster Co., SC

SC

12th, Co E

12/19/1934***, Rose Hill (SC)

7/19/1933

Y

McGill

Lewis

Lancaster Co., SC

SC

22nd

12/14/1933, Clarksville (Union Co., NC)

7/23/1931

N**

Perry

Aaron [3]

Union County, NC

NC

37th, Co D

3/14/1930, Philadelphia Baptist, (Union Co., NC)

2/4/1929

Y

Sanders

Jeff

Lynch's River, SC

SC

26th, Co B, Free negro

11/4/1932, Nicey Grove, (Wingate, NC)

9/23/1931

N

 

C/F = Can't find; Y=Yes there was a death notice in newspaper; N=No published death notice

 

*Wilson's name does not appear on the list published 12-15-1932 (Monroe Enquirer), Wilson's name is included in "North Carolina Troops:  1861-1865, Vol. XIII, page 150;

**deaths mentioned in Dec. 14, 1933 Pension list in Monroe Enquirer.  Copies of all above pensions are in the library files as well as more information on each pensioner.

***Mose Fraser's name appears as receiving a pension check on the 6-17-1935 list in the Monroe Enquirer; both Fraser and Ashcraft's names appear as having died in the past year on the 12-16-1935 list.   

Revised June 2010

 

Submitted by: Patricia Poland

Union County Public Library, 316 E. Windsor St., Monroe, NC 28112  704-283-8184 ext 224     www.union.lib.nc.us

 

MORE UNION CO., NC GENEALOGY

 

This page created June 18, 2010 by Julie Hampton Ganis

 

 



[1] - Monroe Journal April 1, 1930 (Tuesday)

 

“Old Colored Man Is Buried In The Uniform Of Gray”

 

After Notable Career Uncle Weary Clyburn Follows Aaron Perry to the Long Home; Stalwart Old Boys Who Reached Ninety

 

Uncle Weary Clyburn, long a figure here and at Confederate reunions, was buried yesterday wrapped in the Confederate uniform of gray.  But he was entitled to the honor by reason both of having been in the Confederate ranks and as life-time faithfulness to the men and their descendants who made up the Confederate armies.

 

For several years Uncle Weary has been a conspicuous figure around reunions.  He was a fiddle player and by reason of his picturesque appearance and his fiddling around the hotels he always brought back some cash from the reunions.  He was a member of Camp Walkup.  He was around ninety years of age and died Sunday.

 

Had Uncle Weary been a white man he would have been a Confederate hotspur.  Being dark of skin and born a slave, he could approach his ideal by being as near like the fighting(?) white folks that he grew up among as his skin and lack of education would allow.  All his life he was a white man’s darkey, and his principle did not change when he came back from the war.  He went with his white folks after the war and became a Democrat.

 

Uncle Aaron Perry, who died on March 14th, was another landmark in these parts.  He too had a distinguished record and was also around ninety. Both these old men had been men of powerful physique, or strong muscle and high courage. Both of these old men had been men of powerful physique, or strong muscle and high courage.  Weary came from Lancaster county.  He went to war to cook for his master, Col. Frank Clyburn, of the 12th South Carolina regiment.  One day while tending his command, Col. Clyburn was shot down.  Weary, who always managed to follow him in battle with a musket in his hand, seeing him fall, jabbed his bayonet in the ground, slung his master across his shoulder and carried him to safety.  This was in the hell of Cold Harbor.

 

Aaron was reared in Lanes Creek.  He was sent to Ft. Fisher with Maj. J. B. Ashcraft’s battalion.  He had already become a man of standing and trustworthiness in his community, though a slave.  The able bodied white men all being at the front, the women and children were left without protection and a petition went to the command at Ft. Fisher asking that Aaron be allowed to come back home and take care of the women and children.  This he did.  He was faithful in his trust.  He died at the home of his son, J. W. Perry, a substantial farmer who lives on the Charlotte Road.

 

Uncle Aaron had been on the Confederate pension roll for two years.  Weary had been a pensioner since the bill was gotten through the legislature by Maj. Heath.  Weary was the second colored man in the State [,] other colored men now left on the rolls [.]  Aaron did not get on as soon because records were lacking.  There are three other colored men now left on the rolls in this county.  These are George Cureton, Hamp Cuthbertson and Ned Bird.  Uncle Aaron was an honorable and truthful man.  He was solid, sober, and would have made a good New England Puritan had time and circumstance fitted.  Weary was the opposite.  He played the fiddle, tended bar, cussed some, and took the prodigal view of life, just like the real white folks of his slavery days.

 

Uncle Weary’s funeral was held at a colored church in North Monroe and he was buried in the colored cemetery of Monroe.  Including the service held by the minister, Maj. Heath, who had known Weary for many years, made a talk and told how Weary had led a faithful and worthy life.

 

Transcribed by Patricia Poland 6/12/10

Union County Public Library, 316 E Windsor St, Monroe, NC 28112

http://history.union.lib.nc.us  704-283-8184 x224

 

 

Notes:

 

Transcriptions that focus solely on each man have also been done for benefit of Clyburn and Perry researchers.

 

The library does not own any Monroe Journals for 1929-1939 at this time.  The Monroe Enquirer has been double-checked for a similar article without success. Dates checked:  3/31, 4/3, 4/7, 4/10.

 

Clyburn’s grave is on what we now call the “original grounds” of Hillcrest City Cemetery.  This graveyard went by many names including:  Methodist Cemetery, New Town Cemetery, Monroe Colored Cemetery, People’s Cemetery and simply Monroe Cemetery.  There are many unmarked graves on the original grounds.  Clyburn’s grave was marked in the summer of 2008 by a local SCV group, The James Miller Camp.  Clyburn’s last surviving child, Mattie Rice, lives in North Carolina.

 

Cold Harbor Reference (4th paragraph):  Thomas F. Clyburn’s military service record indicates that Thomas was wounded just after the Battle of the Wilderness, injury date was May 23, 1864 and was noted as a gunshot wound in left thigh when he was at the Jackson Hospital in Richmond, VA on May 25, 1864.

 

Maj. Heath is William Crow Heath, born November 24, 1866 in Lancaster, S.C., was the son of Allen W. (Watson) and Nannie J. Crow Heath.  He was a champion of Confederate veterans, heading up the local veterans’ group, Camp Walkup, for many years.  He and his daughter, Lura, arranged many of the trips for the veterans to the national reunions.  Heath, a politician of enthusiastic zest and a great storyteller, married Alice Armfield in 1887.  He died February 7, 1937 and was laid to rest two days later in Monroe (Suncrest) City Cemetery.

 

Aaron Perry:  Lt. Col. J. B. Ashcraft’s service record indicates differently as to where he and Aaron would have been during the war.   Most likely Aaron was sent to Ft. Fisher after Lt. Col. Ashcraft resigned on May 29, 1863.  Probably the petition for him to come home was sent sometime in the latter part of 1863.  Perry’s grave is at Philadelphia Baptist Church (African-American) on Canal Road.  There are still many of Perry’s descendants living in the Union County area today. (The “Camp Fisher” mentioned in Ashcraft’s record was probably the result of the confusion – this was a camp near High Point, NC where the 37th, Co. D was first mustered in)

 

Ned Bird:  Byrd, probably born in Chesterfield, SC, is the usual spelling we find for him.  He was the last man to die in Union County with first hand knowledge of a Civil War battlefield.  He died February 6, 1942.  His grave is unmarked at Watts Grove Baptist Church in Union County, NC. 

 

More information can be found on these and the other men (Cureton, Cuthbertson, and more) in the library’s files.

 

Monroe Journal article (digital image) sent from the N. C. State Archives 6/12/10

 

[2] -See above death notice.

 

[3] -See above death notice.