Fallen, but not Forgotten: 1st Sergeant William Henry Hazzard, Co. K, 6th USCI

On August 4, 1864, Capt. Henry F. Young, 7^th Wisconsin Infantry, wrote home to his wife sharing his sentiments about Black troops in the wake of the Battle of the Crater. “My opinion is that negro troops with white officers will not do . . . ,” he wrote. In his view—one shared by many White Federal soldiers, as well as their Confederate foes—it was only necessary for the enemy to shoot the White officers to throw the Black enlisted men and non-commissioned officers into a panic.

At the Battle of the Crater, according to Capt. Young, “the enemy shot nearly all their white officers knowing that the negroes would be worth nothing without their officers and so it proved as soon as their officers were not there to lead them the negroes were no better than a lot of scared sheep.” Two days later, Young wrote to his father-in-law restating what he informed his wife, and pinning blame for the loss on the performance of the United States Colored Troops in the battle. There were many reasons for failure in the July 30, 1864, battle at Petersburg, but the Black troops was not one of them. Prejudice clouded the thinking of many White soldiers on both sides.

Despite earlier evidence to the contrary at Milliken’s Bend, Battery Wagner, and Port Hudson in 1863, and additional proof in 1864 at Olustee, Wilson’s Wharf, and Petersburg, White soldiers continued to express skepticism about the ability of Black men in combat. It took additional examples, like the Battle of New Market Heights, to start to change some minds. Sadly, some never changed. At the Battle of New Market Heights, Black non-commissioned officers, and even enlisted men, stepped into leadership roles and gained victory, in many cases after numerous White officers fell killed and wounded. Fourteen Black men received the Medal of Honor at New Market Heights as proof. Many other men, like 1^st Sgt. William Henry Hazzard, Co. K, 6^th United States Colored Infantry fell while fulfilling their duty.

According to information in his compiled military service record, Hazard was born in New Castle County, Delaware, however, other sources indicate he was born in Pennsylvania. Information from several sources show Hazzard was born about 1840. Census records note that Hazzard’s father, Solomon, moved to Thornbury Township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania by 1840. It is highly probably that William Henry Hazard was born soon after his parents’ arrival. The 1840 census only indicates two adult individuals in Solomon Hazzard’s household. Regardless, by the 1850 census, the Solomon Hazzard family of four, consisting of wife Mary and sons William, and Solomon, lived in Thornbury Township, Pennsylvania. Solomon Hazzard’s occupation is listed as laborer, and he owned $650 in real estate. The census shows that parents Solomon and Mary were born in Delaware, and sons, William and Solomon, Jr., were born in Pennsylvania.

Ten years later the family was still together, except for Solomon Sr., who was 74 years old in 1850. He had apparently died within the last decade. Mary, 70-years-old, is listed as a widow with only $20 in personal property. William’s age is 20 and Solomon, Jr. is 17. William and Solomon were both laborers.

Pension file records for William Henry Hazzard state that he married Louisa Gooden on December 8, 1859, in the Methodist Episcopal Church in West Chester, Pennsylvania, by Pastor J. M. McCarter. One wonders why Louisa is not included in the 1860 Hazzard family household in Pennsylvania since she and William married about nine months before the census taker made his count. The pension records also state that William Henry and Louisa’s union produced a son named Isaac, who was born on September 20, 1860, in New Castle County, Delaware. Louisa appears in the 1860 census in her parents’, Isaac and Margaret Gooden’s, household in New Castle County, as a 19-year-old. Louisa would have been pregnant with baby Isaac at the time of the census and may have wished to have the child in her parents’ presence.

On March 9, 1863, William Henry Hazzard’s younger brother, Solomon, enlisted as a private in Company B of the 54^th Massachusetts in Readville, Massachusetts. His service records state that he received a wound during that regiment’s July 18, 1863, assault at Battery Wagner, South Carolina, the battle depicted in the motion picture Glory.

About the same time Solomon was fighting in South Carolina, William Henry Hazzard was drafted. William enlisted in Company K, 6^th USCI on August 12, 1863, in Smyrna, Delaware. Perhaps William had moved to Delaware to be with Louisa and baby Isaac before or early in the war. William’s enlistment records describe him as 25-years-old, five-feet ten-inches tall, and having a “Black” complexion. He officially mustered into service on September 12 and received the rank of first sergeant four days later.

First Sergeant Hazzard endured the heavy marching that the regiment experienced on the York River/James River peninsula in the spring of 1864 while his fellow comrades sharpened their soldier skills. However, the unit transferred to the Petersburg front in early June. It appears he survived the regiment’s initial combat at Baylor’s Farm and along the Dimmock Line on June 15, 1864, without injury. It is unclear if he was among the soldiers who labored on the Dutch Gap Canal that summer of 1864, but it is likely he did while stationed there.

Ordered to travel the short distance by boat to Deep Bottom Landing, Hazzard and the 6^th USCI arrived at their destination on the night of September 28, 1864. Given little time to rest and eat their rations, the regiment was up and moving to get into position well before daybreak. Instructed to carry only their blanket roll, three days of rations, and 60 cartridges per man, they lined up near the Buffin House, just north of Kingsland Road. With their brigade mates, the 4^th USCI, in position in their front and offset a little to the right, two companies of the 6^th USCI, Company A, and Hazard’s Company K, received detail as skirmishers.

In skirmish formation, Hazzard’s non-commissioned officer rank was of great importance due to the dispersed style of fighting and the challenge of commanding and controlling the enlisted men while under fire. During the skirmish fighting, Capt. Robert Beath of Company A received a leg wound severe enough to require him to leave the field and undergo an amputation. Also wounded in Company A were Privates James Cooper, David H. Irons, and John Wright. Hazzard’s Company K fared much worse. William Lewis and Albert Waters were killed. Wounded were Charles Berry, David Coston, Isaac Gales, Joseph Gales, Sgt. Charles Garner, Corp. Alexander Henry, Isaac Hubbardton, Isaac Lee, James Manlon, Edward Mills, Isaac Purnell, Corp. Edward Raner, Isaac Robinson, John Short, William Snowden, and Corp. William Williams. Those fatally wounded were Perry Hamilton, and 1^st Sgt. William Henry Hazzard. Hazzard received a gunshot wound to his left leg.

Removed from the field, Hazzard underwent an amputation and then traveled by a hospital transport ship to the Point of Rocks hospital at Bermuda Hundred near Petersburg. Among the papers in Hazzard’s minor son’s pension file is an affidavit made in June 1867 by Hazzard’s company commander, Capt. Girard P. Riley, who was then living in Clermont County, Ohio. In it Riley states that Hazzard was wounded in the leg while on the skirmish line at New Market Heights and that he was “carried back to the rear, and his leg amputated, from thence removed to Base Hospital at the Point of Rocks.” Details do not exist about the complications that developed from Hazzard’s amputation and sadly resulted in his death on December 30, 1864, but it was probably due to an infection.

Unfortunately, Louisa Gooden Hazzard died on January 8, 1865, only surviving her soldier husband by about a week. Little information in the records reveal the facts of her death, but an affidavit from Louisa’s parents, Isaac and Margaret Gooden, state that she died at Mill Creek Hundred in New Castle County, Delaware, and “that they knew of her last sickness and attended her in the same, That her death occurred in their house and they attended her funeral.” One wonders if she had received the news of her husband’s death before her own.

William and Louisa’s son, Isaac T. Hazzard, received the guardianship of Eber Sharp, a White farmer living in Chester County, Pennsylvania. The records do not detail why Isaac and Margaret Gooden did not become the legal guardian of their grandson. However, a review of the Eber Sharp household in the 1870 census shows his next door neighbor as being Lucy Hazzard, a 70-year-old housekeeper and perhaps Isaac’s great aunt. Also in her house are Joseph Hazzard (26), and Isaac (12), who is the only person in the house with personal property, and it valued at $200. These possessions may be from his pension-funded savings.

Perhaps Isaac Hazzard used some of his money to pay for an education, as he appears as a student in the “Preparatory Department” of the Lincoln University (a historically Black school near Oxford, Pennsylvania) catalog for 1878. Another record appears indicating that Isaac married a Sarah Hillyard in 1888, and an 1890 Philadelphia city directory lists Isaac as a clerk. The following year’s city directory lists Sarah Hazzard “wid[ow] Isaac” as living at 1342 Rodman Street. Additional research did not locate the cause of Isaac Hazzard’s death.

First Sgt. Hazzard originally received burial in the Point of Rocks hospital cemetery. After the Civil War, the soldiers buried at Point of Rocks received reinterment in the City Point National Cemetery at present-day Hopewell, Virginia. Unfortunately, Hazzard is not among those with identified graves. He probably rests in peace in one of the cemetery’s 1,400 unknown graves.

We salute First Sgt. William Henry Hazzard and his willingness to serve the United States in its time of need. During his life he was an agent of liberty for the enslaved and a beacon of future citizenship for his son and millions of others seeking equality and a more perfect Union. We remember!

Sources:

1840 U.S. Census, accessed via Ancestry.com

1850 U.S. Census, accessed via Ancestry.com

1860 U.S. Census, accessed via Ancestry.com

1870 U.S. Census, accessed via Ancestry.com

Civil War “Widows” Pensions, accessed via Fold3.com

Complied Military Service Record for 1^st Sgt. William Henry Hazzard, Co. K, 6^th USCI, accessed via Fold3.com

Larson, Michael J., and John David Smith, eds. Dear Delia: The Civil War Letters of Captain Henry F. Young, Seventh Wisconsin Infantry. The University of Wisconsin Press, 2019.

Manarin, Louis H. Henrico County, Field of Honor, Vol. II. Henrico County, 2004.

Paradis, James M. Strike the Blow for Freedom: The 6^th United States Colored Infantry in the Civil War. White Mane, 1998.

U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995, accessed via Ancestry.com

U.S. Marriage Index, 1885-1951, accesses via Ancestry.com

U.S. School Catalogs, 1765-1935, accessed via Ancestry.com

Tim Talbott is the Chief Administrative Officer for the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust. He is the former Director of Education, Interpretation, Visitor Services, and Collections at Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier in Petersburg, Virginia. Tim is also the founding member and President of the Battle of New Market Heights Memorial and Education Association. He maintains the “Random Thoughts on History” blog and has published articles in both book and scholarly journal formats. Tim’s current project is researching soldiers captured during the Petersburg Campaign.

 The mission of the Battle of New Market Heights Memorial and Education Association is to commemorate and educate. We seek to erect a monument at the site of the Battle of New Market Heights honoring the United States Colored Troops who served in the Third Division of the XVIII Corps (Army of the James). Among these men were fourteen African American soldiers and two white officers who received the Medal of Honor for acts of heroism on September 29, 1864. We also seek to educate the public about this significant military victory by the United States Colored Troops. More information is available at https://battleofnewmarketheights.org. As part of a collaboration between ECW and BNMHMEA, this piece is cross-posted at their website.