from the series Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery…
Number 235 in a Series
By SUE HUNTER WEIR
Charles Broden was one of an unknown number of Black men who served in the Union Army but who never qualified for military benefits because they lacked the necessary documentation. In 1890, he filed for a military pension in which he described the duties that he performed for Union soldiers during the War. According to Mr. Broden, he was attached to Company A of the 38th Iowa Infantry, on December 15, 1862, at New Madrid, Missouri. For two months he worked as a cook and did odd jobs. Then, he was assigned to look after the officers’ horses. He received paychecks, wore a private’s uniform, and ate military rations. He was discharged on September 15, 1863, and was given “quite a lot of money.” He could not read or write and assumed that the papers that he was given were official discharge papers. By the time that he applied for a pension in 1890, he had lost those papers. On September 21, 1891, it was noted in his file that those investigating his claim had “failed to find his name” in military records. He was notified that his application had been rejected a few months later.
Acknowledgement of Broden’s Service Along With Hester Patterson, William Goodridge, and Woodford Anderson is Saturday, June 7, 2025, at 1pm, along with the Dedication Ceremony for the Cemetery into the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom of the National Park Service.
Mr. Broden was born on March 3, 1835. Cemetery records, and other records, indicate that he was born in Tennessee. but his birthplace was recorded as Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi on various census records. There is little question that wherever he was born, he was born into slavery.
After the War, he appears to have lived in Iowa for a brief time. His daughter, Jeanette, was born there in 1870, and his oldest son, Albert, was born there in 1873. By the time that his son Theodore was born in 1875, the family was living in Minneapolis.
Mr. Broden was first listed in the Minneapolis City Directory in 1876, when he was working as a whitewasher (a “calciminer”). He held a variety of jobs over the next thirty or so years—as a paperhanger, laborer in a planing mill and sometimes his occupation was simply given as “laborer.” When the 1910 federal census was taken, he and his wife, Cottish, had been married 40 years. She had given birth to five children, three of whom were still living. It is not clear what happened to the two other children.
In his pension application, Mr. Broden detailed a number of ailments that prevented him from finding steady work. He said that he suffered from rheumatism, eye disease, heart and lung problems, and stiffness in his right wrist. Just as they rejected his claim that he had served in the military, medical examiners dismissed his physical complaints even though two of his employers vouched for him.
The government’s failure to recognize Mr. Broden’s military service means that he is ineligible to receive a military marker. He has been buried in an unmarked grave since his death in City Hospital on January 24, 1915, from lobar pneumonia at the age of 79.
Although he does not have a military marker, his service during the Civil War and his place on the National Park Service’s Underground Railroad Network to Freedom will be acknowledged at a Dedication Ceremony on Saturday, June 7, 2025, at 1p.m. County Commissioner Angela Conley will be the keynote speaker. Elyse Hill, who specializes in African-American genealogy and who nominated the Cemetery for the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, will be visiting from Atlanta for this very special occasion. There will be other speakers, and representatives from the alley newspaper will be on hand to answer questions.
One of our volunteers has created a self-guided audio tour (it will be available on Echoes, xyz, a free app) of the Soldiers’ graves and Underground Railroad nominees. If you need help getting started with that, we can help. If you’ve ever wanted to tour the inside of the Caretaker’s Cottage, this will be your chance. If you believe that you have family buried in the Cemetery, we can help you with that, too. And cookies. There will be cookies. Join us on June 7th.
