"As General [Sterling] Price 's column retreated south from Westport along the state line, the black militia unit organized by First Lieutenant William D. Matthews at Fort Scott fully expected to fight the Confederate invaders. Born in Maryland in 1827, Matthews had worked as a seaman from Baltimore before moving to Leavenworth in 1856 and opening the Waverly House, a boarding house that was reportedly a station on the Underground Railroad. In 1862, he had recruited a company in the First Kansas Colored and commanded it for nine months. When the regiment was finally mustered into federal service in 1863, however, Matthews and his two lieutenants--Henry Copeland and Patrick Minor--were denied commissions in the Union Army because of their color.
"In July 1864, along with Minor, Matthews had been appointed as a recruiting officer for the Independent Battery, and in September, after finding insufficient recruits in Leavenworth, he journeyed a hundred miles south to enlist men at Fort Scott, where many escaped Missouri slaves had sought refuge in the town named for the adjacent army post. As the threat of General Price 's invasion loomed, the local commander , Colonel Charles W. Blair, diverted Matthews from his recruiting mission and put him in charge of enrolling 'all able bodied colored men in Bourbon County ' and assembling them at the fort. As Matthews began organizing and training the black militia men to defend the Union military complex and town, Colonel Blair headed north to command a brigade in the fighting around Kansas City. Lieutenant Matthews accomplished his mission, but because the Confederate column veered eastward into Missouri and did not attack Fort Scott, he and his militia company did not have to fight.
"When Colonel Blair returned to Fort Scott, he was quite impressed with the work Matthews had accomplished 'in preparing the post for a vigorous defense against the probable attack of the enemy.' Before the Lieutenant returned to Fort Leavenworth with a score of new recruits for the Independent Battery, Colonel Blair composed a letter thanking him for the 'patient industry and skill ' with which he had discharged his duties and said that he had been 'a model of proper discipline and subordination, strictly attentive to duty, promptly obedient to orders, and acting with wise discretion in all matters requiring the exercise of your individual judgement .'
"As Price's Confederates continued to retreat south, General Curtis rescinded his declaration of martial law, and by the end of October [1864], six of the fourteen black companies had disbanded ."
P. 20-22, "African American Militia Units during the Civil War," THE BLACK CITIZEN-SOLDIERS OF KANSAS, 1864-1901 by Roger D. Cunningham (2008)
