Uncovering an historic treasure in Brownsville, PA
February 2023
By Ross Hetrick
On January 7, a group of volunteers cut through a thicket of prickly bushes and vines in Brownsville, PA near Chambersburg to reveal a great historic treasure. A treasure that links Thaddeus Stevens to the Underground Railroad and the service of Black soldiers in the struggle against slavery.
The treasure was a long neglected graveyard that contained several tombstones of members of the United States Colored Troops who fought in the Civil War. One of the most prominent of these markers was for Alexander Raimer, who died in 1898 at age 82 and served in Company C 25th U.S. Colored Troops. The headstone is very handsome with a floral engraving at the top. Delving more into his background, it was discovered that the place of his burial is the Raimer Family Cemetery.
Black soldiers had joined the military despite the Confederacy announcing they would not treat them like white soldiers. Instead, if they were captured, they would be enslaved or executed.
The soldiers probably lived in the surrounding area, which was a Black community known as Africa in the mid-nineteenth century and one of the chief occupations was strip mining iron ore for Thaddeus Stevens's Caledonia iron mill a few miles to the east. With their large Black populations, Africa and Caledonia were refuges for freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad.
Besides his participation in the Underground Railroad, Stevens was one of the earliest advocates of freeing the slaves in the South and using them in the military. "I am for sending the Army through the whole slave population of the South, and asking them to come from their masters, to take the weapons which we furnish, and to join us in this war of freedom against traitors and rebels," Stevens said in July 1862. "I view it as a means, and the only means, of putting down this rebellion; and if in doing that we extinguish the cause of the rebellion, I shall not mourn for it -- which is slavery."
Because of Stevens's efforts, congress did pass a law to use Black soldiers and recruitment started later in 1863. But in a cruel twist, the Black soldiers were paid half that of white soldiers even though they faced graver dangers. This was abhorrent to Stevens, who was successful in equalizing Black soldiers' pay in 1864.
"Why should they [soldiers] not all be paid alike?" Stevens said in April 1864. "Why should they not all be clothed alike? Why should they not be armed alike? Why should they not all charge the rebels alike, and die alike in defense of the Union? . . . Indeed, sir, if any were to have a preference over others in pay and in inducements to join the service, it ought to be that class of men whose perils are greatest when they go into the army. The black man knows when he goes there that his dangers are greater than the white man's. He runs not only the risk of being killed in battle, but the certainty, if taken prisoner, of being slaughtered instead of being treated as a prisoner of war."
Stevens would be so pleased to know that the tombstones of Reamer's and other brave USCT soldiers buried in the small plot are now visible for all to see and admire.
Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/
