I wasn't adopted, but my grandmother was, so it took a good while for me to trace our roots by the time I was aware I needed to do that.
The whole story is interesting. My great-grandfather, John Pellham, had fought honorably in the Civil War as one of the 180,000 United States Colored Troops, 66,000 of which were killed in battle. President Lincoln and General Grant both had said that those 180,000 men in total were the margin of victory in the war, so I felt glad to know I descended from one of the men who made the ultimate sacrifice to secure not only the future of the nation, but also the freedom of all his descendants.
Yet what had happened was a tragedy all its own; old man Pellham, the hateful Virginian who dared to say he owned my family, retaliated against my family after great-grandfather John escaped to join the Union Army by planning to sell the rest of the family off, deeper South in every direction. In order to not have her children be in slavery a moment longer, great-grandmother Martha defied old man Pellham and gave her children, one and all, to the Quakers who helped with the Underground Railroad roundabout. She, too, died in 1863 for this act of heroism. That is how the family was scattered, and my grandmother, the baby, adopted by a free Black family in Delaware.
They must have been something, John and Martha, full of love and courage.
Beside the record I have given above, there is just one other clue. There is a sparrow, carved in stone, perched on the rough headstone my great-grandfather has in Pennsylvania, near Gettysburg. His friends and even his white commanders cared so much about him that they made sure he had not only a proper burial, but something extra.
The story goes like this: some time on the second day of the battle of Gettysburg, a tree branch was knocked down, and there was a bird nest on it. The nest and the chicks in it landed intact, but of course, they were all doomed, being in the middle of the field in the Battle of Gettysburg. The mother bird was frantic when she returned, but she was helpless.
Along came my great-grandfather's regiment, hustling into position. Yet and still, great-grandfather took the moment to put that whole nest safely back up in the tree. By reputation he was really tall, so I guess it was easy for him to do that. He then marched double-time and caught up to his regiment, on his way to make his ultimate sacrifice for this nation, and, the freedom I and more than 40 million African Americans enjoy today.
It is said that after the battle, there were so many dead that it was hard for burial details to even know where to begin... but a sparrow kept flying in front of the faces of my great-grandfather's friends until they followed, and found his body. Then they saw the sparrow fly back to her tree ... a tree with a broken branch, and a nest securely wedged where it was unlikely to be knocked down again.
They found a rough rock that day to make John Pellham's grave. They came back and carved a sparrow from the rock, and wrote half a Bible verse: "The righteous man is kind even to his beast." Fitting, for a man who secured freedom for his descendants from those who used men as beasts of burden, and also ensured one sparrow her descendants. I guess that makes my great-grandfather a hero to two entire species. Makes good sense to me.
Have a thoughtful Memorial Day.
Photo Credit: Dominik Felföldi on Unsplash