The longor you keep my Child from me the longor you will have to burn in hell

A father vows to rescue his enslaved family

Spotswood Rice to Kittey Diggs, [3 Sept. 1864], enclosed in F. W. Diggs to Genl. Rosecrans, 10 Sept. 1864, D-296 1864, Letters Received, series 2593, Department of the Missouri, U.S. Army Continental Commands, Record Group 393 Pt. 1, National Archives.

On this day in 1864, as the American Civil War approached its conclusion, a slave-turned-soldier named …