Slave died a free woman because of Appomattox

| APPOMATTOX, Va. — A Civil War cannonball that ripped through Hannah Reynolds’ master’s cabin made her a footnote of misfortune, the lone civilian death at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. She died a slave hours before the war to end slavery unofficially came to a close.

A century and a half later, Reynolds’ story is being rewritten: Newly discovered records show that she lingered long enough to have died a free woman.

This new historical narrative has made Reynolds one of the central figures in events marking Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender 150 years ago this week in Virginia. On Friday, a eulogy will be delivered over a plain wooden coffin and 4,600 candles will represent the slaves in Appomattox County who were emancipated by Lee’s surrender to Gen. Ulysses Grant.

The Rev. Alfred Jones, a genealogist who brought the Reynolds story to life, has worked with others to make the legacy of the Civil War relevant.

Reynolds was left by her masters, Dr. Samuel Coleman and his wife, in their home as Union and Confederate armies headed to the fateful Battle of Appomattox Court House. It would be the final battle before Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia surrendered April 9, 1865. During the fighting, a Union cannonball blasted through the Coleman house, striking Reynolds. Two white men, a Union doctor and a chaplain, tended to her.