Letter from the Wife of a Michigan Black Soldier to the Secretary of War, May 11, 1865.
Detroit May 11 1865
Dear sir I have taken the Liberty to write you afew lines which I am compelled to do I am colored it is true but I have feeling as well as white person and why is it the colored soldiers letters cant pass backward and fowards as well as the white ones Mr Stanton Dear sir I think it very hard We cant get any letters and I wish would please look in this matter and have things arranged so we can hear from our Husband if we cant see them I have not heard from my Husband in three months John Bailey is my husband he was Drum major of the 100th united States Colored Troops he went from Detroit he is the man Senator Howard wrote to you about last summer and tried to get afurlogh for him Then he was sick I have hurd through others he was very sick and since that I have heard he was dead if he is living I wish you would please grant him afurlogh to come home he was promised one when he went away and he has been gone over a year and I do wish you would be so kind as to let him come home if he is living I wish you would look oar your Books and see if he is alive I dont know who to write to only you President Lincoln is gone and he was our best friend and now we look to you and I hope God will wach over and protect you through this war
Please write me as soon as you get this Direct to Mrs. Lucy Bailey 190 Congress Street 190
Source: reprinted in Berlin, Ira, Barbara Fields, Steven Miller, Joseph P. Reidy and Leslie S. Rowland, ed. Free At Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom and the Civil War. New York: New Press, 1992. (Document 4.7.10)