Aerial View of President's Island today via Google Satellite
Image When my gr. gr. grandmother Amanda Young Barr applied for
a Civil War widow's pension, she told many parts of her life to
prove that she was the widow of Berry Young her first husband,
who left to join the Union Army. Other witnesses spoke on her
behalf, including a sister Mary Paralee, whom she had not seen
for 50 years. It was from this gr. gr. aunt's testimony that I
learned how she and others lived in a contraband camp, called
President's Island. At the time of the Civil War, President's
island was truly an island sitting in the Mississippi River,
just outside of Memphis. With the shifting soil and the passage
of over 150 years, it is now a peninsula outside of Memphis and
only a few minutes away from downtown. It is from that gr. gr.
aunt's testimony that I learned about the enlistment of black
men as soldiers from Tippah County Mississippi. Berry Young, my
gr. gr. grandfather, his son John and how she and many other
slaves fled for freed