Black Confederates, Silas Chandler of Mississippi, Dick Poplar from Virginia, Bill Yopp a native Georgian, and Henry "Dad" Brown of South Carolina, all are known to have “seen the elephant”.  Louis Napoleon Winbush of Tennessee was among the 43 Black Confederates known to have ridden with Nathan Bedford Forrest.  These men came from all across the Confederacy, served voluntarily, and participated in United Confederate Veteran reunions for many years after the war was ended.

Silas Chandler served with Blythe's 44th Mississippi Regiment initially as the body servant to his boyhood friend, Andrew Chandler.  When Andrew was wounded in the upper thigh at the battle of Chickamauga, Silas carried Andrew on his back for three miles.  Getting onto a train, Silas ensured that Andrew was returned to his home in Mississippi.

For saving their son’s leg and life, the Chandler family gave Silas land after the war.  This, however, was not his only thanks.  Silas Chandler is the only African-American to receive (posthumously) the Confederate Order of the Iron Cross, which was bestowed on him by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Dick Poplar

Richard “Dick” Poplar rode with the 13th Virginia cavalry.  He was captured during the Confederate retreat from Gettysburg.  Poplar then served 5 months at Fort Delaware and 14 months in Point Lookout Prison and refused to sign the Oath of Loyalty that would have freed him in the first month of his captivity.  He survived this hellish prison by practicing his trade as a baker.

Following his release from Point Lookout, he returned to his home in Petersburg, Virginia that had been devastated during the siege in 1865.  Poplar worked to help re-build the city and was honored for his efforts.  When he died, the Petersburg Index Appeal listed his pallbearers as:

His eulogy, as reported in the newspaper, was:

"Dick Poplar had been a caterer at the Bollingbrook Hotel in Petersburg, Virginia where his cornmeal creations were said to be unequaled.  He took his culinary genius to war with some Confederate fighting units and was captured at Gettysburg.  Sent to Point Lookout Prisoner of War Camp, he was put under special pressure to desert the Southern Cause and take the oath of allegiance to the United States, but he treated oppressors with cold contempt.  He declared himself "a Jeff Davis man" and said he didn't care who heard him say so.  He endured almost twenty months of life in one of the three very worst prisoner of war camps of the war, selling his famous pones to the other prisoners.  He returned to Petersburg after the war, and became a celebrated local figure and prospered. Upon his death he was buried with full Confederate honors as befitting a loyal Son of the South."

Bill Yopp

Bill Yopp, who enlisted in the Blackshear Guards of the 14th Georgia Volunteer Infantry as the company drummer, often said: "I had no inclination to go to the Union side, as I did not know the Union soldiers and the Confederate soldiers I did now, and I believed then as now, tried and true friends are better than friends you do not know." Marching in front of company as a drummer going into battle was not the best place to be. Before the war was over, Yopp was wounded three times.

Bill was a slave owned by Jeremiah Yopp who assigned him to his son, Thomas. Bill later said that he followed Thomas like "Mary's little lamb." The two instantly became friends. They fished, hunted, and played together. Bill's childhood, while stifled by slavery, was molded by education and religion within the plantation, which included regular church services.

Bill worked as a train porter in Albany, NY after the war, but returned home and found his friend Captain Yopp in poverty. Captain Yopp was about to enter the Confederate Soldier's Home in Atlanta. Bill took a job on the Central of Georgia Railroad. During World War I, Bill was given a place to live at Camp Wheeler near Macon. He made regular visits to the Soldier's Home providing Captain Yopp with some of his money along with fruits and other treats. Bill won the admiration of the officers at Camp Wheeler, who presented him with a gold watch.

Bill's generosity toward Capt. Yopp soon spread to all of the soldiers in the home. He enlisted the help of the editor of "The Macon Telegraph” for aid in a fund raising campaign. Bill and his friends were able to raise funds for each veteran at Christmas time. The campaign became more successful every year. "The Dublin Courier Herald" contributed to the campaign in 1919 when the amount given to each veteran was three dollars. Bill took time at each Christmas to speak to the veterans in the chapel of the home. The veterans were so impressed they presented him a medal in March of 1920.

Bill died after the 1933 reunion. He was buried with his fellow soldiers at the Confederate Cemetery in Marietta, Georgia. After the body of Amos Rucker was disinterred to be laid next to the body of his wife, Bill became the lone African-American soldier of the Confederate Army to lie in the cemetery. His gravestone provided by the State of Georgia reads: DRUMMER BILL YOPP, CO. H, 14TH GA. INF., C.S.A.

Loius Napoleon Winbush

Louis Napoleon Winbush was recruited as a slave by Nathan Bedford Forrest, but fought as a Free Man of Color during the last 18 months of the war.  He was a Private in the 7th Tennessee Cavalry and fought at Shiloh, Lookout Mountain, Brice's Crossing, and Vicksburg. Louis survived the war.

At Shiloh, he served as a chaplain even though he couldn't read or write, which was a position never held by any Afro-Yankee.  He loyally and consistently attended  39 United Confederate Veterans reunions; the final one he attended was in 1934. A Sons of Confederate Veterans Chapter in Tennessee is named after him.

When he died, his casket was draped with the Confederate flag.  His grandson, Nelson Winbush, still actively and proudly speaks about his ancestor’s service during the war and the lessons he learned sitting on his grandfather’s knee.

Charles Hicks

Charles Hicks was born in 1838 and was a slave in the household of James H. Hicks, Sr., of Wrightsville when the Civil War began.  He went with Lt. James H. Hicks, Jr., into the 14th Georgia Infantry Regiment and was sent home in 1864 just in time to face the forces of Union General William T. Sherman in their march through Georgia.

In December, 1864, Hicks joined the 110th Colored Volunteer Infantry of the Union Army, fighting for the Union under the alias of Charles Page and was discharged from the Union Army in 1866.  Charles then returned to Georgia and began farming under his real name. 

Hicks applied for and received a pension as a Union veteran, BUT when he attended the seventy-fifth reunion of veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1938 he registered as a Confederate.

Amos Rucker

Amos was born a slave in Elbert County, Georgia. He was a servant in the Joseph Rucker household around the Athens, Georgia area. Joseph Rucker was the first millionaire in Georgia. He assigned Amos to his son Alexander Rucker, known as “Sandy.”  When the South was invaded Sandy was commissioned as an officer in a Georgia infantry unit.

Amos never questioned going to war and cared for Sandy as his cook and body servant. At one of the early battles Amos was standing next to Sandy near the enemy line. A shot was fired from the Yankees that struck one of the Confederate soldiers speaking to Sandy. The soldier fell to his death. Amos picked up the dead soldier’s gun and started firing back at the Yankees.  From that moment on he fought shoulder to shoulder with Alexander.  The respect he earned while doing a soldier's duty would last more than his life time.

Being a man of character and a good Confederate soldier he joined the Confederate Veterans in Atlanta. Amos had a special place at each veterans meeting. He called roll from memory including every member by name and qualified each person with the word "here" or "dead". He kept track of every member in his camp and was known for his wonderful memory.

Amos in his later years was interview by a Yankee journalist who questioned him about being a slave in his younger days and about the Rucker family who owned him. He responded in his usual pleasant manner, "The Rucker family is my family. My grandchildren play with their grandchildren. The Ruckers will give me anything I ask for." Clearly it was not the answer and story the journalist was looking to tell.

Amos Rucker never missed a Confederate Veterans meeting. He felt duty bound to attend, call roll and fellowship. Amos felt ill one meeting night and sent his son to the meeting with these words, "Send my love to the boys". Amos died that night.....but not before he sent those affectionate words to his fellow compatriots with whom he fought shoulder to shoulder during the War.

Amos Rucker is not forgotten by his Confederate compatriots and is  buried in Atlanta's Southview Cemetery;  the same cemetery where members of the Martin Luther King family are buried, with his wife Martha.

His funeral and his pallbearers read like the Who's Who list in Atlanta.  Funeral services were conducted by Clement A. Evans of Atlanta, Confederate General. Amos’ pallbearers were:

• Gov. Allen D. Chandler 

• Gen A.J.West

• Judge William Lowndes Calhoun Jr.

• Ex –Postmaster. Amos Fox

• Frank A. Hilburn, Commander of Camp Walker

• J. Holland

• R.S. Ozburne

Amos Rucker's estate was administered by Confederate veteran, John M. Slaton the future governor of Georgia who was known for commuting the death sentence of Leo Frank.

George Lamb

"Uncle George" Lamb was the body servant of Capt. William H. Dulany, Co. D, 17th Va. Infantry. He was born in Fairfax County in 1834 and was a Free Man of Color who served throughout the war. His postwar occupation was as Blacksmith in the wagon shop of Joseph Cooper at Fairfax Court House. George Lamb died on March 19, 1926 at the home of Winfield Runner and is buried in the Jermantowm Cemetery. 

His obituary appeared in the Fairfax Herald (3/26/1926, p. 3). George Lamb is  one of six known Black Confederates who served with the Confederacy from Fairfax County. The others are Edward Chiles, Elijah Cole, Lindsay Ford, Robert M. Gofney, and William Lee.

Given recent research on Black Confederate pensioners in Virginia, the obituaries erroneous assumption that he was the only such African-American on the Virginia pension roles in 1926 is interesting and indicative of white sentiments at that time. 

William Gant & Henry Wyatt

At the Blue - Gray Reunion at Vicksburg in 1890, two black Confederate veterans, William Gant of Indianola and Henry Wyatt of Greenville, registered with their respective units:

• Gant with the Rodney Guards and Wyatt with company E, 21st Mississippi. Gant had fought with General Albert Sidney Johnson in Utah before the war began and later saw service at Shiloh; at Gettysburg he was wounded in the left ankle. It was July 5, 1865 - three months after Lee surrendered - that Gant decided to call it quits. He was never paroled - he simply left North Carolina and walked home.

• Wyatt was best remembered for his attempt to rescue the body of a friend, Orderly Sgt. Beech of Company E of the 21st Mississippi, when Beech was killed at Cedar Creek. Wyatt had hoped to bury his young friend; with bullets whizzing around, he bore the body on his shoulders as the Confederates retreated in a rout, and he relinquished his sad task only to avoid capture.

The Vicksburg Post in 1890 commented that:  Wyatt and Gant will perhaps be a strange sight to the Northern veterans, but that they typified 'many colored people who were faithful to the people who raised them.