By David Heighway, Hamilton County Historian
Junius B Roberts – taken sometime in the 1880s, reprinted in the Toronto Star, March 6, 1930
We have now spent a couple of years working on the possible situation of Hamilton County men being at the first Juneteenth event in 1865. However, sometimes research goes in a different direction than you expect. New information can be found in letters from one of the men who was with the 28th USCT. This was Junius B. Roberts (1840-1894), a member of the Roberts Settlement families, who enlisted December 31, 1863 in Company C of the 28th. He was brother to Stephen Roberts whom I have discussed elsewhere.
Transcripts of these letters are preserved in the Roberts Settlement collection. They were organized by Coy Robbins in 1992 for an article in Ebony Lines, the newsletter of the Indiana African American Historical and Genealogical Society. In addition, Roberts’ service record can be found available on the Fold3.com website, which is available at the Crossroads Discovery Center at HEPL.
Most of his service record is about his dealing with chronic illnesses, which is illustrated further by the letters. He fell sick in April before even leaving Indiana. He recovered enough in May to join his regiment and described his situation in a letter home on May 8, 1864. He talks about reaching Washington D. C., marching out to Camp Casey in Virginia, and being assigned to a nice barracks. He mentions that Camp Casey was on farmland that formerly belonged to Robert E. Lee.
He did not stay there long. He complains in his letters of having chills and high fever. He was sent to the hospital on June 17, where he was diagnosed with “intermittent fever in the line of duty” and chronic rheumatism. He was treated with cathartics, “iodide of potash” (potassium iodide), and opiates. He remained in the hospital for the next six months.
He wrote home in September talking about his stay and then received a 30-day furlough in December to return to Indiana and visit his family. He rejoined his regiment in January 1865. He first worked in the hospitals, then was with the regiment as it did did labor for the Quartermaster Department in February – both of which he discussed in letters. In March, the regiment became part of the military operations around Richmond. Roberts may have been with the regiment when it marched into Richmond on April 2. He was promoted to corporal on April 27. The fall of Richmond and his promotion are not mentioned in any existing letters.
In June, the regiment was assigned to Texas as a part of the 24th Corps. Roberts wrote a letter when he was shipped out, which said:
Fortress Monroe, Va, June 18, 1865
Dear Father,
I avail myself to this opportunity to write you a few lines to let you know that I am well, truly desiring for these lines to glide safely to hand and find you well and doing well.
We left City Point on the Sixteenth. We are anchored out in the river and have been ever since yesterday morning. We will sail from here next Wednesday morning for Texas. We will be on the boat ten or twelve days yet if we don’t go to New Orleans. There is talk of us going there first, then on to Texas. I was in hopes that we would not go there but we have to go.
The rest of the boys are all well and hearty. The weather is most miserably hot here at this time. I am afraid that we will get sick on water so long and have such bad water to drink. Several of the boys in the regiment have taken the diarrhoea very bad already.
We are on a very large ship. We have plenty of room and good bunks to sleep in.
I will write again as soon as we stop if I live and nothing happens to me. I have no way of getting my letters mailed unless l get someone to take it to show and mail for me. I would write more but I don’t know whether you will get this or not. If you do you must write to me. Direct your letters to Fortress Monroe and they will follow on to me.
Give my love to all inquiring friends. Nothing more at this time. I remain your dear son until death do us part.
Junius B Roberts
P.S. Thomas Lawrence sends his love to you all and says that he is on it and the world can’t get him off of it and that he is going to stem the sea in a few days.
Thomas Lawrence was a corporal in “C” Company from Hamilton County who had been wounded in action at the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864. He survived the war and married Emeline Roberts, the daughter of one of the founders of Roberts Settlement. Thomas died in 1918 and is buried in Crownland Cemetery.
Two souvenirs of the war kept by Junius B Roberts, now in the Roberts Settlement Collection at the Library of Congress
Roberts Settlement Collection at the Library of Congress
If Junius Roberts was stuck on a ship in the James River on June 18, there was no way that he could have been at Galveston on June 19. So, this unfortunately proves that at least part of the 28th did not see the first Juneteenth Day.
Junius was discharged in November 1865. After the war, he became a teacher and a minister and lived in Guelph, Canada for a while. Eventually, he returned to Indiana and spent his last years at the Soldier’s Home in Marion, Indiana. He was buried in the cemetery there when he died.
So, we are continuing to find new information about Hamilton County African American participation in the Civil War. It is a worthy subject of study, and it is certain that more interesting stories will be found.