Colleen McCann

Pvt. Alexander Williams

84th Regiment, Civil War, Rosedown, USCT

Company F, 84th Regiment, USCT (U.S. Colored Troops) – previously 12th Regiment Corps D’Afrique – Civil War

Great Great Granddaughter Desiree McCann pointing at Private Alexander Williams name on the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, DC

Alexander Williams was born in October 1842, to Joe Williams and mother Sarah Norflis, all enslaved by Daniel Turnbull at the Rosedown Plantation, St. Francisville, West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana. At 22 years of age, “I was a fugitive slave when I enlisted at Port Hudson” on January 9, 1864. He was honorably discharged in New Orleans, on February 28, 1866. Alexander returned to become a farmer at Rosedown Plantation after the war. He married Margaret Hodrick on January 10, 1867; they had 12 children, 8 living according to his 1915 pension questionnaire. He developed injuries “when I was camped at Trinity Louisiana during the Civil War and was caused by long marching to Mansfield and back to Morganza” for which he received a disability pension. Alexander was a widower when he died, at age 82, on September 12, 1924.

April 2, 1895 -Aleck Williams’ statement of facts contained in his Pension File. –
National Archives
Flag of 84th Regiment at Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of American History