Moses Hunter: Montana’s Last Civil War Veteran

Editor’s note: This is the 42nd installment of a monthly series commemorating Union and Confederate veterans of the Civil War who came to Montana after the war. This is the story of Moses Hunter, who volunteered to serve in the Union Army just before the end of the Civil War and remained in the Indian Wars Army for 20 years. Descendants of Montana Civil War veterans are encouraged to send their stories to mtcivilwar@yahoo.com. To see recent installments from this series, visit greatfallstribune.com/civilwar.

Moses Hunter enlisted in the Union Army on April 26, 1865, and that raises the question, “When did the Civil War end?”

The date often cited is April 9, when Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Va. But was that the end? Well, no, not really. The 4th Michigan Cavalry captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis on May 10. The last battle was at Palmito Ranch, Texas, on May 12-13, while the last significant Confederate force to surrender was Cherokee Brigadier Gen. Stand Waite with his Indian soldiers on June 23. Technically, the Civil War continued until President Andrew Johnson formally declared the end of the war Aug. 20, 1866.

Returning to Moses Hunter, he was born into slavery October 1842 on the Hunter plantation near Norfolk, Va. Hunter recalls, “Those were troublous days. ... Everybody was talking about slavery. My father’s ancestors were brought to the United States in slave ships and sold to white plantation owners in Virginia. ... I felt that it wasn’t right for my people to be looked upon as property.”

Hunter continued his reminiscence, “I remember when the Civil War broke out. I was getting pretty well along in years then; a young man who thought there should be no slavery. ... I ran away when Marse Lincoln made his last call (for troops) in the winter of 1865-66.”

Young Hunter went to east Tennessee and enlisted April 26, 1865, in Company H, 40th Infantry Regiment United States Colored Troops (USCT). Private Hunter went off to war as his company was assigned to perform guard duty in defense of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad.

Hunter was honorably discharged at Chattanooga on April 25, 1866, although he was given credit for two years’ service in the Army. He returned to Virginia in the spring of 1866, where he worked on a railroad for a year. Hearing about Indian warfare then going on in the West, he headed to Knoxville, Tenn., where he enlisted in the post-war Army.

On April 3, 1867, at Nashville, Hunter was sworn in as a corporal in Company I, 38th Infantry Regiment USCT. While most of the 38th Infantry was sent to Texas, Moses Hunter with Company I remained at Leavenworth, Kan., to perform guard duty for construction of the Union Pacific Railroad as it built westward as the first transcontinental railroad.

In mid-1869, Company I was ordered to rejoin the 38th Infantry in Texas, and marched down through the Indian Territory. Once the 38th was reunited, it was consolidated with the 41st Infantry to form the 24th Infantry Regiment (Colored) stationed in Texas. For the next 16 years, Moses Hunter, by then a sergeant, served in the 24th Infantry, initially along the southern edge of the Great Staked Plains (aka The Llano Estacado) in northwest Texas and later along the Rio Grande, the land of chaparral, the ebony tree and the senorita. Later, the 24th was sent for duty along the Red River in Indian Territory. On Dec. 28, 1885, Moses Hunter was discharged at Fort Supply, Indian Territory, after 20 years of service.

For more than five decades after leaving the Army, Sgt. Moses Hunter moved from place to place, often living in soldiers’ homes from Springfield, W.Va., to Danville, Ill., Minneapolis, Minn., to Leavenworth, Kan. By 1930, he had arrived in Miles City to live with his daughter, Susie Thomas, Mrs. William B. Thomas.

Through Susie Thomas we learn that her father had married Mary E. Stoon of Virginia about 1872. Daughter Susie was born at Ringgold (or Ringo) Barracks, Texas in 1878. In 1907 Susie married William Broviaur Thomas, the son of a white cavalryman and his African American wife Sadie Butler—and that is another story.

In February 1939, the Montana News Association profiled Moses Hunter, “Today at either 94 or 95 years of age ... Hunter is slightly bent under the weight of his years. His eyesight is becoming dim. His physical vigor, however, despite his years is still good. His memory is unfailing.”

Concluding the 1939 profile, the newspaper wrote, “Hunter so far as is known is the only Civil War veteran living in eastern Montana.” For three more years, Sgt. Moses Hunter remained in Miles City until he passed away on Aug. 28, 1942, at the remarkable age of 99. This last known Montanan to serve in the Civil War became the last Civil War veteran to die in Montana.

Ken Robison is a local historian and author of Confederates in Montana Territory: In the Shadow of Price’s Army and Montana Territory and the Civil War: A Frontier Forged on the Battlefield.