Thank you Doyle.

The reason I asked is this--I live in Southern IL and am trying to record all of the veterans' buried here in our county. However in doing so, I've found that ALL of the men buried here who served in the U.S.C.T. were either slaves of Confederates, or free men of color when enlisting. NONE were slaves belonging to Union men.

Western KY was highly "southern" at the time. There were both white Union and Confederate regiments raised, but more so of the latter. There are several cases in which Union slaves were sent to camps (such as Paducah) expecting at least food, but left to die on the riverbank. The reason for this is that their owner either joined the service (Union side) and his farm was taken by the Federal government (this was Graves Co., KY), or (in 2 cases) the owners left for Illinois and weren't allowed to bring them into the state.

One family of slaves whose owner came to IL almost all perished from sickness--the mother, and 7 children. The father survived, and 3 older children, but the father was bedridden after living on the riverbank for almost a year with no food or shelter, except what some of the churches gave them.

On the Illinois side of the river, many men were arrested for trying to help some of these abandoned slave families. (who were immediately taken back across the river into KY). Some of these slaves had tried to swim the river to leave KY. No telling how many drowned, and there is no record for them.

All of the court cases ended in July 1865.

But if we have over 100 men buried here who served in the Colored Troops, and none had been a slave of a "Union" man, it does give you something to think about!!

Thanks for your reply.
Ann