CHESAPEAKE, Va - A Chesapeake cemetery on Memorial Day honored the lives and legacy of Afro-Union Civil War soldiers. The enslaved men put their lives on the line to serve in the Civil War.
A few descendants are commemorating the soldiers.
It is the only memorial of its kind in Virginia, honoring Black soldiers who fought in the Civil War.
"The over 209,145 Afro-Union soldiers who volunteered to fight...to save the United States of America and defeat slavery. Without the colored troops, this war could not have been won," said Dr. E. Curtis Alexander, a descendant of a Union Civil War soldier said.
Alexander’s great-grandfather, March Corprew, fought in the civil war in 1864. He fought at the Battle of Suffolk where Union soldiers defeated the Confederate soldiers.
More than 200,000 Black soldiers fought for the Union, and more than 50,000 Black soldiers died while fighting the war.
Alexander’s family owns the land where the memorial sits after his great-grandfather bought it in 1872.
One descendant says this commemoration is a tradition.
"My great grandmother would wake them up [to my aunt's] on Memorial Day morning and everybody had to follow her to the cemetery," said Robert Johnson Jr., a descendant of a civil war.
