BURSON, CA – October 22, 2009 - The soldier believed to be the only African-American Civil War veteran buried in the Mother Lode will be honored in Calaveras County at a special ceremony at his gravesite for the first time.  At 10 a.m., Saturday, November 7, the weekend before Veterans Day, the Society for the Preservation of West Calaveras History (SPWCH) will commemorate the service and heroism of Sgt. John W. Dawson, Co. C, 22nd U.S. Colored Troops, as well as all of the county’s long-forgotten Union Civil War veterans.

The event, which will include a “tolling of the bell” and a bugler’s playing of “Taps,” will take place at the Jenny Lind Cemetery (Baldwin St. off Jenny Lind Rd.).  Also participating will be Sylvia Roberts, executive director of the Sonora-based Mother Lode Black Heritage Foundation and author of Mining For Freedom: Black History Meets The California Gold Rush.  The public is invited.

Along with Sgt. Dawson, honored at the ceremony will be the 27 Calaverasites who died in uniform fighting for the Union during the war (none of them buried in the county).  Those never-before-revealed names, compiled by Sal Manna, president and founder of the SPWCH, will be released for the first time in the November 4 issue of the Valley Springs News.  In addition, an exhaustive roster of 553 residents who served the Union--the result of a four-year research effort by Manna--will be made available to the public for the first time on the Web site of the Calaveras Heritage Council (calaverashistory.org) prior to Veterans Day, November 11.

“Few people realize that soldiers from the Mother Lode gave their lives during that war,” explained Manna, who noted that there is no monument to them anywhere in Calaveras County and that the veterans’ memorial in San Andreas fails to honor them.  “One Calaveras soldier died in the notorious Confederate prison at Andersonville, three others at battles in Virginia, another two were scalped fighting Apaches in Arizona, and still another was a major who had been a newspaper publisher in Calaveras and ended up being murdered in Maryland by a soldier in his own regiment.”

As for Sgt. Dawson, a freed slave from Virginia, he reportedly received a commendation for bravery from President Abraham Lincoln for his actions at the Battle of Petersburg.  He was a charter member of the Rawlins Post of the Grand Army of the Republic in Stockton (the G.A.R. was the organization for Union Civil War veterans) and then a member of the Chickamauga Post in Burson in Calaveras County.  Today, his name can be seen among those of more than 200,000 other African-Americans inscribed on the Wall of Honor at the African-American Civil War Memorial in Washington, DC.

Historian and author Manna added that there are certainly more than 553 Calaveras Union veterans and perhaps more than 27 who died in the war and that his research continues.  A project covering the Confederate veterans of Calaveras has also begun.