How one researcher used a Civil War pension application to uncover family history

We are happy to bring you the story of Jesse Lee, a veteran of the 1st Virginia Cavalry and the 2nd great-grandfather of LeRoy G. Potts. LeRoy wrote about his ancestor in the April-June 2023 quarterly issue of AAHGS News, the newsletter of the Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society, Inc. You can find the entire article here.

LeRoy Potts, Jr.

LeRoy Potts is Chief of the Research Division in the Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations (RAIO) Directorate in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Before joining DHS, he served over 15 years as a foreign affairs officer in the U.S. Department of State. He was an advisor at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York, and a U.S. delegate on the U.N.’s Fifth Committee. He served as deputy office director for the Office of Multilateral and Global Affairs, deputy office director of the Country Reports and Asylum Affairs office, and the managing editor of the Department’s annual human rights report. You can read some of Potts’ insights into the parallels between displaced African Americans after the Civil War with international refugees here.

Potts uncovered the story of his ancestor Jesse Lee, born in Mathews County, Virginia in 1840, in Lee’s veteran’s pension application recorded in 1901. His transcription of the entire application, found in the National Archives, can be read here.

African American Civil War Memorial, Washington, D.C.

Jesse Lee‘s name is listed on the Wall of Honor of the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, DC. He was one of the 200,000 Black men serving in the U.S. military during the Civil War. The memorial stands outside the African American Civil War Museum in Southeast Washington.

Potts writes, “Befitting his role as a bugler during the war, Jessie Lee boldly told the recording clerk he was born enslaved in 1840 on a Mathews County, Virginia, plantation near the Chesapeake. Although he knew his father’s name, he could never meet his father, who was enslaved on a nearby property. Jesse’s brother John Wesley was ‘sold away during slavery and [he] never saw him again,’ and his brother Daniel died during the Civil War. The document’s beautifully handwritten script belies the pain that permeates Jesse Lee’s story. While reading the deposition, I realized this might have been the only time in Jesse Lee’s life when he felt ‘heard,’ though not in the way we understand the concept today. Nonetheless, I sat with the weight of knowing that Jesse Lee and many others could live a life that included years of enslavement, followed by military service to secure freedom and preserve the Union, and still never be acknowledged as full citizens.”

Potts closes his essay by reminding us, “Let’s meet their bold response and honor their legacy by telling the stories they couldn’t speak and too many wouldn’t hear…. Whether we work in a government office, inside a refugee camp, on street corners, or in a detention facility near the southern border, we can push back on attempts to serve up an anodyne version of Black history and honor the legacy of our ancestors by listening to stories that others find difficult to hear.”

You can view a recent program at the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Virginia on the United States Colored Troops & their Legacy, featuring historians Emmanuel Dabney and Dr. Holly Pinheiro. The museum is currently featuring an exhibit on the USCT titled Beyond Valor.

More information can be found in Leslie Anderson’s  “1st U.S. Colored Cavalry” blog featuring pension records and other information she has transcribed, although Jesse Lee is not included.

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