Civil War Photos: William Carasaw

William Carasaw (New York State Military Museum)

Why did William Carasaw volunteer to fight in the Civil War? In his forties at the start of the war, he was too old to be drafted, and living as he did in New York, he could have easily avoided the conflict altogether. My investigation into this question revealed a fascinating story that ties Carasaw to famous abolitionists Gerrit Smith and John Brown. Yes, that John Brown.

Carasaw was born in Watervliet, New York, in 1820. In 1849, he and his wife Eliza Reid Carasaw moved to North Elba to be part of what would be known as "The North Elba Black Colony." The colony consisted of forty acre lots granted by abolitionist Gerrit Smith to "free blacks of New York State who measured up to his standards of good moral character, industriousness, and temperance" (1). Shortly after Smith set up his colony, John Brown, who would later help to spark the Civil War through his raid on Harper's Ferry, moved to the area in order to teach the colonists how to farm, as many had never farmed before. Perhaps due to their lack of experience or Smith's poor planning (or both), few of the colonists stayed in North Elba for very long.

Carasaw was given forty acres in the southwest quarter, Subdivision 1, of Lot 23, Township 12, in Smith's colony, an area that historian Mary MacKenzie describes as "deep wilderness land" that is "still wilderness today" (1). She believes that due to the inaccessibility of this area, it's "highly unlikely that Carasaw made any attempt to clear his lot and settle on it." Instead, he lived elsewhere in North Elba, where he owned a log cabin, and produced potatoes, butter, and maple sugar.

On September 1, 1864, Carasaw enlisted in the 26th New York Colored Infantry Regiment at Plattsburgh, New York. At some point - not recorded in his muster roll abstract, below - he was promoted to sergeant.


The 26th was one of three black regiments organized in New York State. They were organized on Riker's Island on February 27, 1864. According to the National Park Service's Civil War website, the 26th lost 30 men in battle and 112 to disease.

(Source)

The men who fought in the black New York regiments might have enlisted sooner had it been legal for them to do so. Before the Emancipation Proclamation, the Lincoln administration feared that allowing black men to enlist would enrage the border states enough to make them secede (at this point, Lincoln was still eager to keep these states happy by letting them retain their slaves). After the Emancipation Proclamation, all bets were off, and black men joined the United States army in large numbers, particularly after Frederick Douglass promoted military service as a means for slaves to gain their freedom.

Though William Carasaw was born free in a free state, as a black man he was not technically an American citizen, according to the ruling in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), and wouldn't be until the passing of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. What reason did he have to fight for a country that denied him the most basic rights? Perhaps it was that he felt the cause was worth fighting for. Given his confirmed association with Gerrit Smith and probable association with John Brown, it seems plausible that Carasaw was a fervent abolitionist. Was his belief in the abolitionist cause one of the reasons why Smith chose to give him a lot in his colony, or did Carasaw become an abolitionist through his associations with Smith and Brown? We may take it for granted that all black people supported abolition, but even if they did, not all of them took the steps to actively fight for it.

There were plenty of reasons why Carasaw shouldn't have fought in the Civil War. He had a family to support, consisting of his wife Eliza and three young sons, John (born 1853), James (born 1857), and Frederick (born 1860). But perhaps they were the reason that Carasaw did fight. He wanted them to live in a country where all people were free. Perhaps it's a flight of fancy on my part to imagine that the Carasaws might have named their youngest son after Frederick Douglass.

There were also the financial rewards to consider. Carasaw received $500 as a bounty payment from the Town of North Elba and $100 from the U.S. government (3). This would have been a significant sum, and would have helped Carasaw to provide for his family after he mustered out on August 28, 1865.

Things would have turned out quite differently had Carasaw not survived the war. Forty thousand black soldiers did not - and thirty thousand of them died of disease. Black people who served as soldiers or in other ways aided the war effort and did survive sometimes fought to receive recognition for their service from the federal government, most notably Harriet Tubman, who worked as a nurse in the Civil War but never received any compensation for it. Those who did receive compensation could expect it to be substantially less than the compensation given to their white counterparts. During the war, black soldiers received a salary of $7 per month, while whites received $13 (3).

After the war, the Carasaw family left New York, ultimately settling in Vergennes, Vermont. In 1880, William and Eliza lived there with their three sons, who worked as laborers.

1880 US Federal Census

Sergeant Carasaw died in 1886 and is buried in Prospect Cemetery in Vergennes. That is a G.A.R. medal beside his grave.

Grave of Sgt. Carasaw (source)

This was Carasaw's death notice in the Plattsburgh (NY) Sentinel, October 1, 1886 (source):

William Carasaw, for many years a resident of Vergennes, Vt., died on the 17th ult., suddenly, of heart disease, aged 66 years. He served through the war in Co. A, 26th NY Vols. [US Colored Troops] He was formerly a resident of North Elba, N.Y., and it is said, was one of those placed upon the John Brown tract by Gerrit Smith. 

Eliza Carasaw died in 1899 at the age of 73 and is also buried in Prospect Cemetery, as is their son John, who married Eliza Alice Day in 1895, worked as a firefighter, and died in Burlington, VT, in 1923. William and Eliza's son James lived in Troy, NY, for many years before moving to Manhattan, where he was also working as a firefighter in 1930.

Youngest son Frederick married twice; first to a woman whose name I don't know, and second to Electra Peter. Frederick and Electra were living in Worcester, MA, with Frederick's son by his first wife, William. William married Lurena Ward in 1916 in Rockingham, VT. In 1940, William and Lurena were living in Worcester with their daughter Juanita, and William was working as a chauffeur.

1. William Carasaw (1820-1886) m. Eliza Reid (1826-1899)
1. John B. Carasaw (1853-1923) m. Eva Alice Day (1868-1911) in 1895
2. James Carasaw (1857-after 1930)
3. Frederick Carasaw (1860-after 1915) m. (1) Unknown; (2) Electra (1865-) in 1901
1. William P. Carasaw (1894-) m. Lurena Ward (1897-) in 1916
1. Juanita Carasaw (1913-)

On a final note, I've been unable to find anything about the origin of the name Carasaw. It seems somewhat an unusual and rare name, if I may judge by Google search. In fact, the only Carasaws I've found on Google or Ancestry.com have been the Carasaws in the family tree above. I wonder if it was once Carson. There is definitely much more to investigate.

Works Cited
(1) MacKenzie, Mary. The Plains of Abraham: A History of North Elba and Lake Placid: The Collected Historical Writings of Mary MacKenzie. Lake Placid Public Library, 2010.

(2) Freeman, Elsie, Wynell Burroughs Schamel, and Jean West. "The Fight for Equal Rights: A Recruiting Poster for Black Soldiers in the Civil War." Social Education Vol. 56, No. 2 (February 1992): 118-120. 

(3) The Union Preserved: A Guide to Civil War Records in the New York State Archives. New York: The New York State Archives Partnership Trust, 1999.