Samuel Truehart

Samuel Truehart

Samuel Truehart was reportedly born to Peter and Maria Truehart of Jefferson, Indiana in 1843. According to family oral history, Peter Truehart, a Cooper (barrelmaker) and a Freeman, bought his wife out of slavery.

According to the muster roles of the 5th United States Colored Cavalry (USCC), Samuel Truehart was a slave in Frankfort, Kentucky before volunteering to serve the Union cause. It is believed that he married Mary Elliot, also of Frankfort, just prior to enlisting in the service in the late summer of 1864. At the time, Mary, a slave born in Baltimore, was a cook at a boarding house in Frankfort. Supposedly, she ran away from her owner to marry Samuel.

Samuel Truehart enrolled in the Union army on September 11, 1864 at age twenty-one and was mustered into Company E of the 5th Regiment Cavalry of the United Stated Colored Troops on September 12, 1864 at Camp Nelson, Kentucky. Based on the date of his enlistment, it is assumed that he participated in both Burbridge' s (9/64-10/64) and Stoneman's (12/64) raids on Saltville. According to his compiled service record, Samuel Truehart was hospitalized at the Convalescent Camp, U.S.A. Hospital at Camp Nelson for an unknown reason from October 14, 1864 until he returned to active duty in December 1864. Truehart was mustered out on March 16, l866 in Helena, Arkansas.

After the war, Samuel and Mary Truehart had four children in Frankfort: Emma Deen Truehart, born Feb. 20, 1867; Ann May Bell (Annabelle) Truehart, born Dec. 25, 1869; William Henry Truehart, born April 3, 1872; and Samuel Thomas Truehart born, April 12, 1874.

About ten years after the end of the Civil War, Samuel Truehart moved his family to Kansas to take possession and farm a forty-acre plot of land granted to him by the United States Government. Their move was most likely part of a July, 1877 migration of Black "exodusters" from Kentucky, who established a settlement in Graham County, Kansas, which they named Nicodemus (now a National Historic Site). Once in Kansas, Truehart purchased an additional 120 acres in Graham County, but settled his family in Atchison, Kansas, as Mary refused to live on the remote farm in western Kansas (the farm, located seven miles from Nicodemus, is still intact and owned by their descendants). Together Sam and Mary raised their four children to adulthood.

Samuel Truehart died in Atchison on August 12, 1897, leaving his wife and four adult children. He had only one grandchild, Audra Truehart, born to Samuel Thomas Truehart on July 16, 1904. Audra also had only one child, Phyllis McCullough (Brown), who has four sons (Steven, David, Richard, and Gary Brown) and seven grandchildren (Anya, Marcus, Nicole, Christopher, Jason, Sasha, and Taylor Brown).

Photographs and Bio Submitted by David Brown.

Other photos of the family can be found at http://mywebpages.comcast.net/5thuscc/truehar.htm

The web site for the 5th United States Colored Cavalry can be found at www.5thuscc.net

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Samuel Truehart