Deed of Manumission and Release of Service,” 1865.
Former slave and Civil War Veteran Reddy Gray died on this day in 1922, when he was 79 years old. He was buried in Baltimore’s Loudon Park National Cemetery–the first VA burial site included in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.
Gray’s experience is representative of African Americans who risked travel through the Underground Railroad to find freedom, but his story is significant for the wealth of information gleaned from public records. His life is a reminder of the fight for civil rights that began in the colonial period, was galvanized in the 1860s, and continues today.
U.S. Army, Gray Muster-Out record, 1865.
Gray went by Reddy, short for Redmond, Redman or Reverdy. Born at Loch Raven, Maryland, to John and Lydia Talbott Gray, he was enslaved by the Thomas Cradock Risteau family in Baltimore County from birth to until the middle of the Civil War. Likely a field worker or carriage driver, he resisted servitude by escaping in March 1863. It is not clear what happened, but Gray’s “Deed of Manumission and Release of Service” retroactively corresponds with his enlistment. President Abraham Lincoln had already issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and the U.S. Army was recruiting black soldiers.
Gray enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops at Baltimore City on March 23, 1864. His Company B, 39th U.S. Colored Infantry, fought in Virginia at the Sieges of Petersburg and Richmond, and in the expeditions and capture of Fort Fisher and Wilmington in North Carolina. Reddy mustered out in Wilmington on Dec. 4, 1865, and that record remarks, “slave when enlisted.”
His life after the Civil War shows personal accomplishment and community involvement. He learned to read and write. He returned to Baltimore and had four children, including son Redmond, with second wife Susan Gray, who worked as a laundress. In the army he suffered from rheumatism, for which he received a disability pension in 1890; however, he worked as a manual laborer doing light work like trimming lawns or gathering rags and as a carriage driver.
Reddy Gray Burial Site Certificate of Acceptance, NPS 2018.
As “Redmond” Gray, he appears in the Baltimore Sun, Sep. 15, 1894, as judge for a running race at the “Colored People’s Fair” in Timonium, Maryland; and a few years later as a member of the Colored-Odd Fellows. Reddy (also Reverdy) Gray is honored with his name on the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C. Other black soldiers who found their freedom through the Underground Railroad are buried at Loudon Park National Cemetery along with Gray, but their stories are not so easily documented.
The Network to Freedom program is managed by the National Park Service, per the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act of 1998. Loudon Park National Cemetery was one of the 14 original national cemeteries established under the National Cemetery Act of July 17, 1862; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
Sara Amy Leach is a senior historian for the National Cemetery Administration
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This is major and extremely important to the nation, as well, as HUMANITARIAN FUTURES. Much appreciation to th U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: as our beloved nation and those on and from the Continent of AFRICA, begin to COMMEMORATE the 400 YEARS of African American History Commission, continues the efforts to authenticate and educate both African Americans and those through the USA, across the Atlantic Ocean, documents, efforts, authentifications just like this one; raises the bar with the OPTIMUM of EXCELLENCE that parallels so many of the speeches and presentations from the 23 – 25 August 2019 activities at Fort Monroe Natinal Historic Monument and through-out various locations in Hampton, Virginia. EDUCATION, about our Race’s contributions to our beloved country’.
Marvoin S. Robinson II
QUINDARO RUINS / Underground Railroad- Exercise 2020
Now that history is something that should be taught in our schools.
As an 8th generation American who’s family unfortunately were mostly Confederate. A few abdicating their family positions became Union soldiers, smart enough to see the ideal of all men created equal. I luckily grew up a NY/NJ “Yankee” before settling in the northern mid-west. Sadly the less diversity in any given population the less that population understands why the current generation of previously abused is so un-trusting.
I absolutely agree this is something that everyone should be taught. There were many others like Reddy Gray and other Southerners too, who fought in the Union army and their stories should be told with pride.
I appreciate the service to our Nation of those who chose to serve our before me, those served with me and for those who volunteer to serve after me.
Thanks for publishing this article .I myself am an African American Marine veteran. Vietnam Nam era.