Last updated: January 24, 2022
Person
James Peters
LOC
Quick Facts
Significance:
USCT Veteran who lived in Manassas post-war. Land he lived on is now part of the Battlefield.
Date of Birth:
1843
Date of Death:
1923
Among the postwar residents of the small community near Groveton was James Peters, who enlisted as a Private in Company E of the 1st U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment on June 17, 1863, at Mason’s Island, Virginia. At the time, according to his service record, he was a 20 year old unmarried man living with his mother in Prince William County and is described as a “mulatto” about 5’7 1/4” tall with a scar on his neck.
During his time in the 1st U.S. Colored Infantry Regiment, James Peters saw action around Richmond and Petersburg, where notably on July 30, 1864, his regiment participated in fighting at the Crater where many members of the USCT were massacred. Peters would later attribute his partial blindness to smoke from the fighting at Petersburg. His regiment was also present at the Battle of Fair Oaks in October 1864 and Ft. Fisher in January 1865 and ended the war serving under Gen. Sherman in the Carolinas. While James Peters survived the war, his service record tells us that he was wounded at the Battle of Fair Oaks.
One of the more interesting things found on Peters’ service record is also one that highlights the larger story of the USCT. Initially, black soldiers were paid $10 monthly, with $3 taken out for clothing allowance. In comparison, their white counterparts were paid $13 and given $3 to spend at their discretion. Thanks to the efforts of men like Frederick Douglass, this was corrected in June 1864 when Congress began to equalize pay, providing back pay retroactive to January 1, 1864. In addition, if a man could document that he had been free prior to April 19, 1861, he was eligible for back pay in 1862 and 1863. James Peters service record indicates that he was free at that time and was therefore able to receive back pay from June 1863 when he enlisted.
He was mustered out with his regiment in 1865 and returned to Prince William County. From there, he worked for the family of James and Martha Steele somewhere around the Gainesville area. Following the war, James Peters returned to Prince William County where he had been living when the war broke out. He then began to work for James and Martha Steele who lived near Gainesville.
While working for the Steeles, he met and fell in love with an orphan they had taken in but never adopted named Josephine. Sometime around the late 1860s, James and Josephine ran away together. At the time, their relationship was scandalous not merely because they ran away, but because Josephine was white, and in Virginia, interracial marriage was illegal. Curiously, on the 1870 census, James is listed as living in Loudoun County with his brother and sister-in-law while he worked as a laborer, with no mention of Josephine; even though this was the year that she gave birth to their first child (who also sadly died that year.) Josephine and James would have 10 children in total.
By the 1880s, the Peters family was living between Sudley Springs and Groveton on land purchased from the Cross family, for whom James worked. The relationship between the Peters and the Cross families must have been amicable because in 1919, they conveyed almost 10 acres of land on James; land that is part of the park today. Unfortunately, time was not kind to James, and as he aged, he struggled with blindness in one eye, lumbago, and heart problems, ultimately dying in 1923 at the age of 80.
After James Peter’s death, Josephine attempted to collect a widows’ pension, but because her marriage to James was not considered legal in Virginia, her claim was ultimately denied. She died at the age of 100 in 1949. 18 years after her death, the Supreme Court would find in Loving v. Virginia that prohibition of marriage between people of different races was unconstitutional.