Benjamin Gould, of Dedham, Massachusetts

[Matt McKeon]

In 1862, Benjamin Gould, with a group of other enslaved men, escaped to the US navy ships off the coast of Georgia. He joined the Navy and served till the end of the war, learning of Lee's surrender off Cadiz on the USS Niagara. He moved to Dedham, Mass., married, made a living as a plasterer and raised five sons.

For our purposes, the best part is he left a diary that he began during the war and that it has been passed down through the generations.

The Boston Sunday Globe had a feature story on Gould today about publishing the diary, creating a memorial to Gould, fascinating reading. There was a great picture of the elderly Gould seated with his sons, all in World War I uniforms standing around him.

 

[jgoodguy]

I wonder if it could be speculated that the Anglo Saxon South was defeated because the Anglo Saxon North invited all comers.

 

[Matt McKeon]

I skimmed the article and got some of the facts wrong.

One of his ancestors did the research on Gould's life. An member of the NLRB during the Clinton administration, he discovered the diary and published it in 2002, under the title of The Diary of a Contraband. He also did considerable research, going to Wilmington, NC(not Georgia) to view houses his ancestor had worked on. He also discovered a record from the ship that picked up Gould and his companions, listing his name and his erstwhile owner.