Kentucky Ancestors, Volume 46, Number 3 - Kentucky Historical ...

all shocks to the body should be transcended and
ignored as in slave punishments. So he said nothing,
hoped for the best, and carried the painful burden
with him to Fort Anderson, where he could not
shake it. The regimental hospital records for the 8 th
USCHA reveal that Edmund suffered with cramp
colic (appendicitis), internal fever, convulsions, and
vertigo from the first day he entered the military
until October 1864. According to one regimental
record from the company muster roll for November
and December 1864, Edmund was on daily duty
in the bakery. As the days and months wore on, the
injured tissue in Pvt. Fauntleroy’s chest produced
inflammation and fever, and eventually formed a
lipomatous tumor the size of a goose egg. 33 I do
not think my ancestor expected unequal pay, lean
government rations, or the blatant discrimination
he encountered in the army. He soon learned
that soldiering was an ambiguous and complex
proposition. The personal sacrifice and hardship of
throwing off the yoke of slavery meant the rules he
lived by had changed. I suspect Edmund wanted to
die a free man rather than live as a slave.
Pvt. Fauntleroy’s deployment took him east to
Virginia and the District of Columbia as one of
the 23,703 black Kentucky troops 34 representing
56.5 percent of the 41,935 eligible slaves and
freeman between the ages of eighteen and fortyfive.
Kentucky provided thirteen per cent of the
178,895 black Union troops. 35 In February 1865
the 8 th USCHA left Fort Anderson and headed out
into the countryside. Exposure to cold temperatures,
hard marching, and fatigue perturbed the soldiers
and hindered some. They encountered all kinds
of weather conditions, camped in open fields, and
occupied abandoned buildings. Carded medical
records (CMR) relate to personnel admitted to
hospitals for treatment 36 and Fontroy’s CMR
documents his admission to the field hospital at
Camp Lincoln in City Point, Virginia, on 20 May
1865. The company muster roll for May-June 1865
counted him absent and hospitalized at Fortress
Monroe, Virginia. Fontroy was diagnosed with
chronic rheumatism (an ailment which compromises
the immune system) and honorably discharged
from the Army, 17 June 1865, by order of the War
Department while a patient in the general hospital
at Fort Monroe. The ailing private was discharged
in error as Edward Fontroy. In a letter to the
124 | Kentucky Ancestors
Second Auditor of the U. S. Treasury, Washington,
D.C., dated 16 August 1889, 37 from Hopkinsville,
Kentucky (as part of the claims evaluation process to
retain pension benefits), veteran Edmund Fauntleroy
attested:
Regiment moved from Paducah to
Mayfield, Kentucky then back to
Paducah, thence to Washington, D.C.
[His unit arrived in Washington, D. C.,
April 1865], from there to City Point,
Virginia; from there the regiment starting
to Texas.
Having previously contracted the
rheumatism and being unable to be with
his regiment was left at Fortress Monroe,
Virginia where he remained under
treatment of doctors for more than two
months.
He was first attacked with [rheumatism]
in Washington, D.C. when he was taken
with the disease. His knees and ankles, in
fact all part of his legs was swollen up to
two or three times their size accompanied
by the most severe pain. 38
Had great-granddad been healthy at the end of
the war he would have transferred to Texas with a
large contingent of black regiments to discourage
French operations in Mexico. Some soldiers were
sick when they arrived in Texas; others got sick
after landing and many died from scurvy. On
20 September 1889, veteran Fauntleroy filed a
Declaration of Invalid Pension under the Pension
Act of 17 June 1890, although eight years passed
before he received monthly monetary benefits, which
commenced on 2 April 1897. When Edmund
applied for his pension he had to provide information
on his wife, when and where he married her, as
well as the names and birthdates of all his children.
Eventually the Pension Bureau rated the rib injury
as debilitating and awarded him benefits for both
ailments. Edmund remained a Civil War pensioner
until August 1924, but not without struggle.