Steve Chicoine began doing extensive research on Henry Mack and the 57th USCT after seeing Mack's gravestone at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery. He scoured old newspapers and interviewed north Minneapolis residents who recalled him as the "Old Soldier."
According to Chicoine, Henry Mack was known only as Henry picking cotton at an Alabama plantation. When the overseer threatened to whip his mother, Phoebe, for falling behind, Henry stepped in and took the beating himself. That prompted their escape, a harrowing 300-mile trek across Mississippi to a Union camp in Helena, Arkansas.
No one gave Mack his freedom. He seized it himself, despite dire consequences had he been captured.
He took the last name Mack and enlisted in the Union Army in early 1864. When he boarded a ship on the Arkansas River, he waved goodbye to his mother, whom he'd never see again.
He and his regiment, the 57th USCT saw action in Arkansas and clashed with bushwhackers. Gen. C.C. Andrews, a former Minnesota legislator, said later that they served with "a cheery appearance and willing spirit" and "proved good soldiers."
--Old Secesh
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