Black soldiers’ 1862 valor finally recognized at Missouri site

[Sherman A1]

BUTLER, MO. -- Earlier this week, the golden prairie-grass pasture here 70 miles south of Kansas City was quiet except for whistling wind and the distant growl of a tractor.

On Saturday, though, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources expects 200 people to gather on this spot about a mile up a gravel-covered Bates County road off Missouri 52 at 11 a.m. A band will play patriotic music, dignitaries will speak and a flag will rise as the state dedicates this farmland as a historic site.

A bronze plaque will be unveiled on a stone monument at the edge of this field, which in the past year has been transformed into a state park.

Here — on the Old Toothman farm — the First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry set up headquarters 150 years ago, calling it Fort Africa.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/25/3885869/black-soldiers-1862-valor-finally.html#storylink=cpy

[Skittles]

1. wow

“This was a full nine months before the Massachusetts 54th (the black regiment in the movie “Glory”) stormed Fort Wagner.”

I did not know

[Sherman A1]

2. Indeed

But, there are those who would argue (and I think correctly) that the Civil War was ongoing in Missouri & Kansas long before the shots were fired at Fort Sumter.

[Skittles]

3. K&R

deserves a kick!