Every so often I like to browse a couple of Facebook pages devoted to the myth of the black Confederate soldier. People post all kinds of interesting things related to history and memory and once in a while an archival source appears.
This one caught my eye, though interestingly enough, it appeared without any commentary. At this point I still do not know the source. In 1920 F.R. Hoard of Churchill, Tennessee applied for a soldiers’ pension. As you can see he was denied. “It seems from your application that you were not a soldier, but the servant of a soldier, and therefore you are not pensionable.” In 1921 Tennessee offered former servants pensions. It is unknown at this point whether Churchill applied.
You may remember a similar document related to a North Carolina servant by the name of Wary Clyburn, which I posted back in 2009.