Three 1865 Documents Certifying the Death of Private William Cottman of the 9th U.S. Colored Troops.
Annapolis, Baltimore, and Somerset County, Maryland: August 1865. Three documents. Two folded with normal wear, else Near Fine; one very delicate, torn into two pieces (formerly mended with archival tape), with some damage intersecting with text, good. Overall very good. Item #List3406
Three documents certifying the death of William Cottman, a private with the 9th Regiment of the US Colored Troops (USCT) during the Civil War. The 9th was organized at Camp Stanton in Benedict, Maryland, in November of 1863, shortly following the establishment of USCT divisions; Cottman’s documents state that he enlisted on November 22. Coming from Maryland, William Cottman was likely formerly enslaved; the Cottmans were a prominent Maryland family holding many enslaved people.
According to the National Parks Service record, during the 9th’s service, forty-seven men (one an officer) were killed in combat and 266 enlisted men died from disease; the latter includes Cottman, whose paperwork states that he “Died at Base Hospital Jones Landing of fever”. In fact, not only did the USCT mortality rate exceed other that of other troops by thirty-five per cent, the majority of the deaths were from disease.[1] Living and sanitary conditions for these troops were subpar, and there was significant difficulty in convincing qualified surgeons to work in African American regiments.
These forms are possibly related to a pension claim by Cottman’s widow, Susan Cottman; one of the documents certifies with two witnesses that the couple were married for fourteen years. Pension applications for Black Civil War veterans and their dependents were complicated—many were formerly enslaved and thus might be illiterate, without documents such as a birth certificate, or with marriages that were not legally recognized.
Of interest to researchers of the USCT and the postbellum lives of their families.
[1] Herbert Aptheker, “Negro Casualties in the Civil War,” The Journal of Negro History 32, no. 1 (Jan. 1947): 10–80.
Price: $1,500.00