Left photograph: Carte de visite portrait of Sojourner Truth seated with photograph of her grandson, James E. Caldwell of Co. H, 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, on her lap.
Date Created/Published: [Battle Creek, Michigan] : [Publisher not identified], [1863].
Sourced from: LOC- Library Of Congress

Left photograph shows portrait of abolitionist Sojourner Truth wearing polka dotted dress and holding a cased photograph of her grandson, Pvt. James E. Caldwell who was a prisoner in the Civil war at James Island, South Carolina between 1863 and 1865.

Right photograph: Portrait of Pvt. James E. Caldwell. He was born in New York around 1844 and enlisted in the USCT regiment in April 1863 while living in Battle Creek, Michigan. Caldwell was captured on James Island July 1863, held for almost 2 years at the Florence Stockade and was released in Goldsboro, North Carolina on March 4, 1865. James Caldwell was sent on to Annapolis, Maryland (Camp Parole) for recovery. There he received his discharge on May 12, 1865, he later died in Boston Died 22 Jun 1865.

Image source: LOC- Library of Congress
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USCT Pvt. James E. Caldwell (1844 - 1865), 54th Massachusetts POW

Caldwell appears in the 1860 census in Battle Creek, Calhoun County, Michigan as a sixteen year old, who was born in New York state. He is listed as "B" for black and appears in the household of Luther Slater, a fifty-seven year old white man, who was a blacksmith. This fits with his Civil War service records, which lists Caldwell's occupation as blacksmith. The young man was likely apprenticing with Slater before the war. Caldwell is the only non-white in the household.

Caldwell's mother it appears to have been Elizabeth. James may be one of those individuals who was counted twice in the 1860 census. In Sojourner Truth's household in Calhoun County, Michigan was Elizabeth Banks, who was thirty-three, and a James Colvin, which may have been a census takers mishearing of Caldwell, who is listed as fourteen years old, and born in New York state.

When he found out that the Union army was accepting black men, Caldwell apparently told to his famous relative, "Now is our time Grandmother to prove that we are men." Caldwell enlisted in Company H, 54th Massachusetts Infantry on April 17, 1863, and was mustered in on May 13 at Readville, Massachusetts, where the 54th trained. His records state he was nineteen when he enlisted and was five feet nine inches tall, with a "dark" complexion.

Source: Random Thoughts On History - Tim Talbott
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James E. Caldwell was born about 1844 in Battle Creek. He was the son of Elizabeth Boyd formerly [?] aka Caldwell, Williams, Banks, 1825 ceased and an Unknown father[1], Michigan or New York. He was the grandson of abolitionist Sojourner Truth.[2]

During the Civil War, James E. Caldwell served as a private in Company H of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the second[3] regiment in the United States made up entirely of enlisted men of color.[4][5]

Also serving in the 54th regiment were two sons of the Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass (Lewis and Charles) and a son of the Black abolitionist Martin Robison Delany (Touissant L'Overture Delaney).[6]

James is described on his military Company Descriptive Book as: age 19, height 5 feet 9 inches, complexion Dark, eyes Brown, hair Blk, born Battle Creek, Mich., occupation Blacksmith, enlisted 17 April 1863, mustered in 13 May 1863, where Readville [Massachusetts], by whom C J Russell; term 3 yrs.

Remarks: "Missing since action on |James Island, SC July 16th 1863, he was captured and imprisoned. He survived the prisoner of war camps and was exchanged on 4 March 1865 in Goldsboro, North Carolina. He was discharged 8 May 1865 from Boston in Massachusetts.[7]

Discharged June 7, 1865; by order from State Dept. May 12, 1865. Descriptive list sent to ? May 9/65. Discharged at Boston, Mass by K C Moroney 1st Lieut. U.S.A Mustering Officer."[8][5] The Company Muster Roll for Sept & Oct, 1864 states: "Prisoner of war. This Prisoner was missing immediately after the action on James Island, SC, July 16/63 and at Fort Wagoner Morris Island, SC July 18/63.

He was ascertained to be prisoner of war in the hands of the enemy Oct 3/64 from a list taken by the steward of the steamer Cosmopolitan Aug 64."[9][5]James Caldwell, Pvt., was listed on the Muster Roll of 3 Battalion, Paroled Prisoners stationed at Camp Parole, Annapolis, Maryland during January and February 1865.[10]

The Battle of Fort Wagner left 30 men of the 54th dead on the field—including Colonel Shaw—and hurt 24 more so badly they would later die from their wounds. Fifteen were captured; 52 were missing and presumed dead. Another 149 were wounded. Confederates intended to dishonor Colonel Shaw when they buried him in a mass grave with his men; instead, his family found it fitting.

James was mustered-out on 4 March 1865 at Goldsboro, North Carolina. His Muster-out Roll states he was due U.S. Bty $100, clothing $17.02, and 3 months extra pay "for hardships endured at Rebel Prisons". His military records state that he was taken prisoner during action on James Island, South Carolina on 16 July 1863 and was confined in the Rebel prison pen at Florence, South Carolina.[5]

James' Grandmother:
Isabella (Baumfree) Truth, later named Sojourner Truth was born enslaved c.1797 probably Swartekill, Ulster County, New York. While the property of John Dumont of West Park, New York, Isabella had a son, James, who died in childbirth.
She also had a daughter, Dinah Dumont, after being raped by her owner John Dumont.
Her owner forced her to marry an older enslaved man named Thomas who fathered her son, Peter, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Sophia (all carried the surname Dumont).
Isabella escaped to freedom with her daughter Sophia in 1826 (one year before the State of New York emancipated all enslaved people) and found refuge with Isaac and Maria Van Wagenen of New Paltz, New York.

In 1829, she moved to New York City. She changed her name to Sojourner Truth in 1843 and in 1843 she moved to Massachusetts. In 1851, she attended the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, and subsequently travelled the country advocating for African American and women's rights. In 1857, she moved to Harmonia, Michigan where her daughter Elizabeth lived and from there she moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, where she died in 1883.

Truth put her growing reputation as an abolitionist to work during the Civil War, helping to recruit Black troops for the Union Army. She encouraged her grandson, James Caldwell, to enlist in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment.[11]

Source: WikiTree / James Caldwell is a part of US Black history. US Black Heritage Project
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SOJOURNER TRUTH
Sojourner Truth (Circa~1797 - November 26, 1883) formerly enslaved, abolitionist, preacher and advocate of women's rights.

Born Isabella Baumfree, self-named Sojourner Truth escaped from slavery in the 1820s. She was the first Black woman to win a case against a white man to get back her son. This abolitionist was a traveling preacher, wrote about racial inequality and helped Black troops in the Civil War.

Sojourner Truth was born in 1797 on the Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh estate in Swartekill, in Ulster County, a Dutch settlement in upstate New York. Her given name was Isabella Baumfree (also spelled Bomefree). She was one of 13 children born to Elizabeth and James Baumfree, also enslaved on the Hardenbergh plantation.

She spoke only Dutch until she was sold from her family around the age of nine. Because of the cruel treatment she suffered at the hands of a later master, she learned to speak English quickly, but had a Dutch accent for the rest of her life.

She was first sold around age 9 when her second master (Charles Hardenbergh) died in 1808. She was sold to John Neely, along with a herd of sheep, for $100. Neely's wife and family only spoke English and beat Isabella fiercely for the frequent miscommunications.

She later said that Neely once whipped her with "a bundle of rods, prepared in the embers, and bound together with cords." It was during this time that she began to find refuge in religion -- beginning the habit of praying aloud when scared or hurt. When her father once came to visit, she pleaded with him to help her. Soon after, Martinus Schryver purchased her for $105. He owned a tavern and, although the atmosphere was crude and morally questionable, it was a safer haven for Isabella.

But a year and a half later, in 1810, she was sold again to John Dumont of New Paltz, New York. Isabella suffered many hardships at the hands of Mrs. Dumont, whom Isabella later described as cruel and harsh. Although she did not explain the reasons for this treatment in her later biography narrative, historians have surmised that the unspeakable things might have been sexual abuse or harassment (see the biography on Harriet Jacobs, the only former slave to write about such), or simply the daily humiliations that slaves endured.

Sometime around 1815, she fell in love with a fellow slave named Robert, who was owned by a man named Catlin or Catton. Robert's owner forbade the relationship because he did not want his slave having children with a slave he did not own (and therefore would not own the new 'property'). One night Robert visited Isabella, but was followed by his owner and son, who beat him savagely ("bruising and mangling his head and face"), bound him and dragged him away. Robert never returned. Isabella had a daughter shortly thereafter, named Diana. In 1817, forced to submit to the will of her owner Dumont, Isabella married an older slave named Thomas. They had four children: Peter (1822), James (who died young), Elizabeth (1825), and Sophia (1826).

The state of New York began in 1799 to legislate the gradual abolition of slaves, which was to happen July 4, 1827. Dumont had promised Isabella freedom a year before the state emancipation, "if she would do well and be faithful."
However, he reneged on his promise, claiming a hand injury had made her less productive. She was infuriated, having understood fairness and duty as a hallmark of the master-slave relationship. She continued working until she felt she had done enough to satisfy her sense of obligation to him -- spinning 100 pounds of wool -- then escaped before dawn with her infant daughter, Sophia.
She later said:
"I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right."

Isabella wandered, not sure where she was going, and prayed for direction. She arrived at the home of Isaac and Maria Van Wagenen (Wagener?). Soon after, Dumont arrived, insisting she come back and threatening to take her baby when she refused. Isaac offered to buy her services for the remainder of the year (until the state's emancipation took effect), which Dumont accepted for $20. Isaac and Maria insisted Isabella not call them "master" and "mistress," but rather by their given names.

Isabella immediately set to work retrieving her young son Peter. He had recently been leased by Dumont to another slaveholder, who then illegally sold Peter to an owner in Alabama. Peter was five years old. First she appealed to the Dumonts, then the other slaveholder, to no avail. A friend directed her to activist Quakers, who helped her make an official complaint in court. After months of legal proceedings, she won the custody of her child. Peter returned to her, scarred and abused.

During her time with the Van Wagenens, Isabella had a life-changing religious experience -- becoming "overwhelmed with the greatness of the Divine presence" and inspired to preach. She began devotedly attending the local Methodist church and, in 1829, left Ulster County with a white evangelical teacher named Miss Gear.

She quickly became known as a remarkable preacher whose influence "was miraculous." She soon met Elijah Pierson, a religious reformer who advocated strict adherence to Old Testament laws for salvation. His house was sometimes called the "Kingdom," where he led a small group of followers. Isabella became the group's housekeeper. Elijah treated her as a spiritual equal and encouraged her to preach also. Soon after, Robert Matthias arrived, who apparently took over as the group's leader, with the activities becoming increasingly bizarre.

In 1834, Pierson died with only the group's members attending. His family called the coroner and the group disbanded. The Folger family, whose house the group had moved into, accused Robert and Isabella of stealing their money and poisoning Elijah. They were eventually acquitted and Robert traveled west.

Isabella settled in New York City, but she had lost what savings and possessions she had had. She resolved to leave and make her way as a traveling preacher. On June 1, 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth and told friends, "The Spirit calls me [East], and I must go."

She wandered in relative obscurity, depending on the kindness of strangers. In 1844, still liking the utopian cooperative ideal, she joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Massachusetts. This group of 210 members lived on 500 acres of farmland, raising livestock, running grist and saw mills, and operating a silk factory. Unlike the Kingdom, the Association was founded by abolitionists to promote cooperative and productive labor.

They were strongly anti-slavery, religiously tolerant, women's rights supporters, and pacifist in principles. While there, she met and worked with abolitionists such as WilliaSm Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles. Unfortunately, the community's silk-making was not profitable enough to support itself and it disbanded in 1846 amid debt.

Sojourner went to live with one of the Association's founders, George Benson, who had established a cotton mill. Shortly thereafter, she began dictating her memoirs to Olive Gilbert, another Association member

. The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave was published privately by William Lloyd Garrison in 1850. It gave her an income and increased her speaking engagements, where she sold copies of the book. She spoke about anti-slavery and women's rights, often giving personal testimony about her experiences as an enslaved person. That same year, 1850, Benson's cotton mill failed and he left Northampton. Sojourner bought a home there for $300.

In 1854, at the Ohio Woman's Rights Covention in Akron, Ohio, she gave her most famous speech -- with the legendary phrase, "Ain't I a Woman?":

"That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me any best place, and ain't I a woman? ... I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me -- and ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man (when I could get it), and bear the lash as well -- and ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children and seen most all sold off to slavery and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me -- and ain't I woman?"

Sojourner later became involved with the popular Spiritualism religious movement of the time, through a group called the Progressive Friends, an offshoot of the Quakers. The group believed in abolition, women's rights, non-violence, and communicating with spirits. In 1857, she sold her home in Northampton and bought one in Harmonia, Michigan (just west of Battle Creek), to live with this community. In 1858, at a meeting in Silver Lake, Indiana, someone in the audience accused her of being a man (she was very tall, towering around six feet) so she opened her blouse to reveal her breasts.

During the Civil War, she spoke on the Union's behalf, as well as for enlisting black troops for the cause and freeing slaves. Her grandson James Caldwell enlisted in the 54th Regiment, Massachusetts. In 1864, she worked among freed slaves at a government refugee camp on an island in Virginia and was employed by the National Freedman's Relief Association in Washington, D.C.

She also met President Abraham Lincoln in October. (A famous painting, and subsequent photographs of it, depict President Lincoln showing Sojourner the 'Lincoln Bible,' given to him by the black people of Baltimore, Maryland.) In 1863, Harriet Beecher Stowe's article "The Libyan Sibyl" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly; a romanticized description of Sojourner.

(The previous year, William Story's statue of the same title, inspired by the article, won an award at the London World Exhibition.) After the Civil War ended, she continued working to help the newly freed slaves through the Freedman's Relief Association, then the Freedman's Hospital in Washington. In 1867, she moved from Harmonia to Battle Creek, converting William Merritt's "barn" into a house, for which he gave her the deed four years later.

In 1870, she began campaigning for the federal government to provide former slaves with land in the "new West." She pursued this for seven years, with little success. In 1874, after touring with her grandson Sammy Banks, he fell ill and she developed ulcers on her leg.

Sammy died after an operation. She was successfully treated by Dr. Orville Guiteau, veterinarian, and headed off on speaking tours again, but had to return home due to illness once more. She did continue touring as much as she could, still campaigning for free land for formerly enslaved Black people.

In 1879, Sojourner was delighted as many freed slaves began migrating west and north on their own, many settling in Kansas. She spent a year there helping refugees and speaking in white and Black churches trying to gain support for the "Exodusters" as they tried to build new lives for themselves. This was to be her last mission.

Sojourner made a few appearances around Michigan, speaking about temperance and against capital punishment. In July of 1883, with ulcers on her legs, she sought treatment through Dr. John Harvey Kellogg at his famous Battle Creek Sanitarium. It is said he grafted some of his own skin onto her leg.

Sojourner returned home with her daughters Diana and Elizabeth, their husbands and children and was cared for by two of her daughters in the last years of her life. Several days before Sojourner Truth died, a reporter came from the Grand Rapids Eagle to interview her. "Her face was drawn and emaciated and she was apparently suffering great pain. Her eyes were very bright and mind alert although it was difficult for her to talk."

Truth died early in the morning on November 26, 1883, at her Battle Creek home. On November 28, 1883, her funeral was held at the Congregational-Presbyterian Church officiated by its pastor, the Reverend Reed Stuart. Some of the prominent citizens of Battle Creek acted as pall-bearers; nearly one thousand people attended the service. Truth was buried in the city's Oak Hill Cemetery.

Frederick Douglass offered a eulogy for her in Washington, D.C. "Venerable for age, distinguished for insight into human nature, remarkable for independence and courageous self-assertion, devoted to the welfare of her race, she has been for the last forty years an object of respect and admiration to social reformers everywhere."

Frances Titus, who published the third edition of Sojourner's Narrative in 1875 and became Sojourner's traveling companion after Sammy died, collected money and erected a monument on the gravesite, inadvertently inscribing "aged about 105 years."

She then commissioned artist Frank Courter to paint the meeting of Sojourner and President Lincoln.
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Sources: Wikipedia; Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol (Norton, 1996); National Women's History Museum