As history would show, in 1862, the army started to enlist black men into military service. After the Jan. 1863 Emancipation Proclamation freed all those enslaved in Confederate territory, recruitment was extended,from July to September 1864. William Thomas Freeman enlisted into the 44th US Colored Infantry. In 1865, he was taken as a prisoner.
John R. Freeman arranged for William Thomas Freeman to be transported to his home in Meriwether County to receive medical care when he was ill. Once William Thomas was well enough to travel, both John R. Freeman, his family, and William Thomas return to Floyd County, where they lived out their lives.
Pictured: The campground of the 44th US Colored Infantry at Chattanooga, Tennessee (1865)
William Thomas Freeman died in 1893 and the pressure began on his family to sell the 500 acres that were acquired by the family.
The first sale of the property occurred in 1916 by Essex's widow Hannah Montgomery and was sold Lot20 for $1,450.00. In 1923, Henrietta Freeman sold 25 acres. It continued until the spring of 1926 when Sanford Freeman's wife Susie Cathey Freeman and her children sold the remaining lots.