Even beyond slavery, fighting for the Union in the American Civil War, and sharecropping on the plantation where he was formerly enslaved, one of Matthew Gardner’s greatest struggles was fighting against post-war oppression to receive his federal pension.
Image Credit: Library of Congress - Quarters of the 64th USCT regiment at Palmyra Bend, Mississippi
Matthew Gardner was born into slavery on July 25, 1847, in Albemarle County, Virginia. Though originally named John Gardner in honor of his father, his name was later changed. Gardner spent the first twelve years of his life as the property of the Hudson Fretwell family, a prominent Virginia family that owned numerous tobacco and corn plantations.
By 1859, the Fretwells were deep in debt and the family’s matriarch had died. Consequently, the Fretwells began selling their property including slaves like the young Gardner. Gardner was sold South to Dr. John Berry, a prominent businessman and cotton plantation owner in Noble Lake, Arkansas, a few miles southeast of Pine Bluff.
Following the prompting of the Berry family, Gardner temporarily took the surname Berry. At Berry Place plantation, Berry formed bonds with other enslaved African Americans who had been sold South much like himself.
In the early years of the Civil War, when Union troops arrived in Arkansas, Berry fled to federal lines. On November 19, 1864, Berry enlisted in the 69th United States Colored Troops (USCT) under the alias Matthew Berry, which would later complicate his effort to receive a post-war pension. He was reassigned to Company B the 64th USCT where he engaged in garrison duty, guarding Union troop locations throughout Arkansas and Mississippi. On September 27, 1865, Berry was transferred to Company E of the 69th USCT Infantry Regiment. On March 13, 1866, he was released from service in Vicksburg, Mississippi. During the Civil War, he served alongside other Berry Place escapees, including Thomas Washington, Harrison Tucker, Daniel McHenry, and Isaac Gray.
After the Civil War, Berry returned to Noble Lake, now using his former surname. Gardner became a sharecropper for Solomon Franklin, a white farm owner who had rented Berry Place after the Civil War. With the help of the Reconstruction Era Freedmen’s Bureau, Franklin urged many of the formerly enslaved to return to Berry Place as tenant farmers and sharecroppers.
On April 29, 1869, He married Margarette Matthews/Matthis in Jefferson County, Arkansas. Together, they had eleven children. Gardner struggled to raise such a large family during the post-war decades because of the minuscule wages that sharecropping incurred and because he was struck by lightning in 1883. Gardner, nonetheless, persevered. By the 1890s, he had become a cash tenant reporting directly to the Berry family, improving his economic standing. During this time, he also became a local community leader. In the early 1900s, he even served as a Jefferson County justice of the peace.
Even beyond slavery, fighting in the Civil War, and sharecropping on the plantation where he was formerly enslaved, one of Gardner’s greatest trials was fighting against post-war oppression to receive his federal pension. As noted by historians, for African American Civil War veterans fighting for their pensions was about more than money. Receiving a pension provided proof of their sacrifice, patriotism, and rights as free and equal citizens.
In 1890, the federal government expanded its original pension policy beyond war-time disabled veterans. The new policy included all disabled soldiers, regardless of when they incurred their disability. However, wartime-disabled veterans received a much larger pension than their otherwise-disabled counterparts. Consequently, in 1890, Gardner, who suffered from heart disease, applied for a larger pension, arguing that he had incurred his illness during the war.
Over the next decade, Gardner fought against prejudicial government policies that subjected the applications of African American veterans to higher scrutiny than their white counterparts. Gardner’s application drew even more scrutiny because he had enlisted as Matthew Berry instead of Matthew Gardner.
Determined to prove his claim, Gardner collected large amounts of evidence about his life experience and his disabilities. To secure the larger pension, Gardner explained that in 1866 he returned home from the war with heart disease. Since the medical examiner's reports contradicted his claim, Gardner, unwilling to give up, provided testimonial support from his friends in the local Jefferson County community.
Fellow veterans and neighbors, including Tucker, McHenry, and Washington, submitted testimonials on his behalf. All of them stressed his longtime disability. In his testimonial, Washington explained that Gardner was a “continuous sufferer from heart disease.” As a result, after seven long years, he secured a limited pension as an otherwise disabled veteran. In 1897, Gardner received a $6-a-month pension for "disease of the heart."
Unsatisfied with this designation, Gardner continued fighting. Though he never received government recognition of his wartime disability, in 1908 Gardner gained a larger pension after Congress amended the pension law to recognize old age as a qualifying disability. By July 25, 1913, he was receiving $16 a month for rheumatism and piles.
On December 30, 1915, Gardner died of unknown causes in Noble Lake, Arkansas. On January 7, 1916, with the help of Washington and the other African American veterans and friends who attended his funeral, Margarette began receiving a $24-a-month widow’s pension.
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Written by: Ninfa O. Barnard
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