Rose Russell

Pension File: 1139608, 868306
P.O.: 819 West Main Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi
Service: Vicksburg Field Hospital and Ward A, McPherson Hospital
Applied: 1892
Status: Accepted

I was originally going to save this for July, but then, after what happened in Charleston, I felt I couldn't wait.
So who was Rose Russell?  Well, for those of you who saw my previous post on her, you know she was a former slave at Glasser Plantation in Mississippi.  Her parents were George Gibson, born in Kentucky, and Hannah, born in Virginia.  Shortly before the siege of Vicksburg Grant's men came to the plantation asking for volunteers to work for the army.  Rose volunteered.  She worked the wards at McPherson Hospital, and helped lift men out of ambulances, where they were "stacked like corded wood," and the blood covered the ground.  She served the entirety of the war, then settled down in Vicksburg, where she married Alexander Russell on March 20, 1870 (she sent in her marriage certificate).  They had ten children, five boys and five girls.
Russell lived a very long life.  She applied for a pension in 1892--the Bureau did actually have her name on record, which is astounding--and sent in a pass, several testimonials from nurses who worked alongside her (Phoebe Davis, Eliza Winston, and Jesse Johnson).  She also managed to get paid for the last two months of her service--apparently they hadn't paid her.  Now that is not something I've seen before.  And, of course, over half the money went to her lawyer.
And then we come to the 75th Gettysburg Anniversary that Russell's son mentions in her file.  My theory is this celebration was held locally, since Russell was nearly 95 years old at this point, but I don't have any evidence to back it up.
In a letter to the Bureau written after his mother's death, Howard Russell described the event, remembering that over the course of the day his mother met a number of ladies who asked after her, including one who turned out to be the granddaughter of the mistress of Glasser Plantation (her former owner).  The plantation, she said, had burned to the ground, as had the family bible with the names and birth dates of all the (now former) slaves.
To find this woman, a former slave, attending the 75th Anniversary of Gettysburg is somehow fitting.  Throughout my own research and my readings for graduate school I've found a great deal about how whites remembered and commemorated the war, but very little about how blacks did.  This single letter, however, is loaded with meaning.
1) Rose chose to attend this celebration, commemorating a symbolic turning point of the war which is typically portrayed as a very white narrative. When, after all, was the last time someone mentioned to you that Pickett's Charge was fought on property owned by a black man? Or that Gettysburg had a substantial black population?  Simply by being there, she is undermining that white narrative, inserting herself into the symbolic interpretation of the war.  She's also perhaps choosing (though we don't know for sure) to not commemorate the fall of Vicksburg, an event which she witnessed--though, given it's Vicksburg, the locals may have chosen not to commemorate it...still the choice of Gettysburg is intriguing.
2) This woman is 95 years old.  She's suffering from feminine problems and dysentery.  She did not make the choice to come to this celebration lightly.  This event meant something to her.
3) It's 75 years after Gettysburg.  If Russell is 95, there aren't that many people left who remember the battle.  So why is Vicksburg (of all places) choosing to celebrate this event, especially when it has nearly passed out of living memory?
4) Look at who she's mixing with!  She's speaking with blacks and whites alike--in Jim Crow Mississippi!  What is going on here that there is not only interracial mixing, but that whites are celebrating Gettysburg?!
I wish I knew more about the celebration as a whole, if there were others like it, the local significance of this event (a lead up to July 4th, or a distinct celebration in and of itself).  This is definitely something I want to explore more--a chapter in my dissertation perhaps?  But that's a rabbit hole for another day.  For now, given what's happened in Charleston, in Baltimore, in Ferguson, I just wanted to share that image with you: an old woman, a former slave, speaking with the descendant of the people who owned her seventy five years ago, commemorating, together, the downfall of that institution and way of life, and the battle and sacrifice that helped to bring that about, in one of the most unlikely places imaginable.  If they can do that in Jim Crow South...maybe there's hope for us yet.