A few months before release date, and my Graceland Cemetery book is already out of date – in the best way! Several of the stories in the book are about people whose plots have never been marked (invariably because no one ever bought a marker for the plot – there’s no conspiracy or anything here), and two of them have now had markers added. Through the efforts of biographer Nancy Schumm, there’s now a marker for Seth Paine, an abolitionist, spiritualist, vegetarian, and feminist (his obituary noted that isms clung to him like burrs on wool). Nearby in section P (pictured above), we’ll be unveiling a new marker for William Randall, one of a handful of Black Civil War vets interred at Graceland, whose story I ran across while working on the book.
Born in Quincy, IL, William Randall was over forty when the war broke out, raising a family and working a series of jobs in Chicago. By the time Black soldiers were able to join, he was about 44 years old. But he chose to join in the fight. Though he worked mainly as a cook, being a lot older than most of the soldiers, he wasn’t spared the brutal marches, and at one point nearly drowned in the Rappahannock River. His unit, the 29th United States Colored Troops, served most famously at the Battle of the Crater, where his commanding officer (Graceland resident Captain Hector Aiken) was killed. They were also present at Appomattox in April, 1865, so it’s likely that Randall was nearby when Lee surrendered.
However, his health was badly damaged by the war. He was too stubborn to get a disability pension, and continued working at jobs that broke his body down even further. He was an invalid for several years – cared for by his wife, who was a nurse, and his friends. He died of kidney disease in 1879. In the plot with him are his wife and a few of his children.
We have no photograph of Randall, and little of his life is documented. Much of what I found myself was in his army records, though a great deal more was uncovered by Professor Christopher Robert Reed, author of Black Chicago’s First Century. A copy of Randall’s wife’s widow’s pension paperwork was in his papers at Roosevelt University.
Since Randall was a veteran, the government provided a headstone for him (and with a much faster turnaround time than I would have guessed), and Graceland graciously waived the various fees for having it set. The monument will be unveiled on Saturday, May 21, at 10am in Graceland Cemetery, up in section P (see the map above – it’s the northern edge of the cemetery, a bit west of the pond) – and we’ll probably walk over to see Seth Paine’s while we’re there. It’s free to attend, of course, though I’ll also be running a ticketed 11am walking tour that’ll focus on the cemetery’s connections to the Underground Railroad).