Mildy Finnick, Corporal, Company K

From Slavery to Camp Stanton

Twenty-year-old Mildy Finnick, also known as Miley Fenwick, was born enslaved in Charles County, Maryland. He was one of eighteen enslaved people owned by Washington A. Posey, a tobacco farmer at Allen's Fresh. Finnick later testified that he ran away from Posey when he was about twenty-one and made his way to Benedict, Maryland, where Black men were being recruited for the Union Army.

Finnick enlisted in Company K of the 19th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops, on January 11, 1864, and was mustered into service at Benedict on January 16 for a three-year term. His Army descriptive record listed him as a farmer, five feet five and one-half inches tall, with a dark complexion, black eyes, and black hair. In a pension deposition many years later, he stressed that he had enlisted voluntarily: he had not been drafted.

Washington Posey subsequently applied to the Federal government for $300 compensation for the loss of Finnick's labor. Posey's claim papers described Finnick as his slave for life. Posey executed a deed of manumission in March 1864 making Finnick's freedom effective from the date of his enlistment, but the government's compensation claim was denied after Posey was found to be disloyal.

Into Virginia

Finnick's later recollections provide an unusually personal account of the 19th Regiment's movement from Maryland into the war. He remembered being examined when he enlisted and camping at Benedict until the regiment was ready to leave. The soldiers went first to Baltimore, then to Washington, crossed into Virginia, and moved toward the fighting.

The 19th U.S. Colored Troops became part of the Army of the Potomac's IX Corps and served in the campaign that brought Ulysses S. Grant's army to Petersburg. Finnick remembered a small action along the Plank Road before Petersburg. By the summer of 1864, he and the other men of the 19th were in the trenches outside the city.

The Battle of the Crater

On July 30, 1864, Union troops exploded a mine beneath the Confederate defenses at Petersburg, opening the Battle of the Crater. The Black division of the IX Corps, which included the 19th U.S. Colored Troops, entered the battle after the attack had already fallen into confusion. The Black regiments suffered devastating losses.

Finnick was wounded and captured. His Company K records initially reported him killed in action near Petersburg. Later muster rolls corrected the record, identifying him as a prisoner who had been dropped from the rolls as missing. The mistake would produce one of the most memorable moments in Finnick's later account: when he eventually returned to his regiment, he discovered that the Army had placed him on its "dead roll."

A United States Soldier Sold into Slavery

Capture was particularly dangerous for Black Union soldiers. Finnick's experience was extraordinary even by the brutal standards of the Crater. After his capture, he was sold back into slavery to a Dr. Vaughn in Powhatan County, Virginia, about thirty miles west of Richmond. In his pension testimony Finnick stated simply that Dr. Vaughn "bought me."

Thus, only months after escaping slavery in Maryland and entering the United States Army, Finnick was again treated as property. Research into the fate of Black prisoners captured at the Crater confirms that Finnick and another Company K soldier, Alfred Carter, were among USCT prisoners subsequently sold into slavery.

Escape and Return from the "Dead Roll"

Finnick remained in bondage for approximately nine months. As the Confederacy collapsed in the spring of 1865, he escaped again. His military record states that he escaped on April 8, 1865, and rejoined the 19th Regiment at Manchester, Virginia. In his own recollection, he made his way to Richmond and found his regiment there after Union forces had entered the former Confederate capital.

The Bureau of Pensions later investigated his remarkable account. A special examiner reported in 1900 that Finnick's description of his capture at Petersburg, his sale to Dr. Vaughn, his escape, and his return to the regiment agreed so closely with the military records that there could be no doubt that the pensioner was the same soldier who had performed the recorded service.

Corporal Finnick and the Rio Grande

Finnick remained with the 19th after returning from captivity. He was promoted to corporal on October 1, 1865. The Army also recognized that he had gone unpaid during the months in which he had been carried as dead or missing.

The end of the Civil War did not end the regiment's service. In June 1865 the 19th was sent to Texas, where it served at Brownsville and along the Rio Grande. Corporal Finnick remained with the regiment until January 15, 1867, when the 19th U.S. Colored Troops was mustered out at Brownsville. He had served for three years, including months in captivity after being captured in Federal uniform.

Miley Fenwick Comes Home

After leaving the Army, Finnick returned to Allen's Fresh and resumed using his original name, Miley Fenwick. On January 23, 1869, he married Alendia Ann Queenan at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Newport, Maryland, less than a mile from Allen's Fresh. The ceremony was performed by the Jesuit priest Father Vicinanza.

Fenwick later moved to Washington, D.C. In his 1900 pension deposition he gave his address as 320 D Street, N.E. He eventually received a Federal pension for his Civil War service. A Bureau of Pensions record shows that he was receiving $24 per month when he died on October 10, 1919.

Arlington National Cemetery

Miley Fenwick was buried at Arlington National Cemetery under the military identity by which the Army had known him: Mildy Finnick. His grave occupies a place of unusual honor near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The government headstone, however, misspells his surname as "FINNIOK."

The grave provides a striking final chapter to a life that began in slavery in Charles County. Finnick escaped his enslaver to become a United States soldier, survived one of the Civil War's most brutal battles, was wounded and captured, was sold back into slavery, escaped a second time, returned to a regiment that believed him dead, served on the Rio Grande, and lived for more than half a century after the war.

Remembering Mildy Finnick

Finnick's story is remarkable not only for what happened to him but because his own voice survives in the historical record. His pension deposition connects the terse entries in his Army service record with the experience of the man behind them. The Army could record "killed," "prisoner," "escaped," and "promoted," but Finnick could explain what those words meant: he ran away from slavery to enlist; he rushed into the fighting at Petersburg; a man named Vaughn bought him; he escaped; and when he finally found the 19th again, he learned that he had been counted among the dead.

His two names also preserve different parts of his life. The Army knew him as Mildy Finnick. After the war he lived as Miley Fenwick. Together, the military and civilian records tell the story of one of the most extraordinary soldiers of Maryland's United States Colored Troops.

Sources

This profile is based principally on the Mildy Finnick entry in Robert K. Summers, Maryland's Black Civil War Soldiers, together with Finnick's compiled military service record, slave-owner compensation papers, and pension-file documents in the National Archives. Additional contextual research was used for the 19th U.S. Colored Troops and the Battle of the Crater, including National Park Service material and scholarship concerning Black Union prisoners captured at the Crater.