[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 11 (Tuesday, February 3, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E97-E98]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 HONORING WILLIAM B. GOULD AND THE BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN WHO ESCAPED THE 
                HORRORS OF SLAVERY ON SEPTEMBER 21, 1862

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. ANNA G. ESHOO

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 3, 2004

  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to place in our Nation's Record 
the remarks made by William B. Gould IV, Charles A. Beardsley Professor 
of Law, Emeritus, Stanford Law School, and Chairman of the National 
Labor Relations Board from 1994 to 1998, at the Wilmington Riverwalk 
Watermen Sign Dedication.

       Thank you for your invitation to speak at this Riverwalk 
     Waterman Sign Dedication here in Wilmington, North Carolina, 
     the City of William Benjamin Gould's birth in 1837 and his 
     escape from slavery 25 years later. Let me also give special 
     thanks to Beverly Tetterton of the New Hanover Public Library 
     for providing research and resource in my writing of Diary of 
     a Contraband, and who has been a key organizer of this event. 
     Also, I wish to acknowledge the members of my family present 
     here today: my wife, Hilda Elizabeth Gould, and my sister, 
     Dorothy Gerber and her husband, Hermann. They and my three 
     sons, William Benjamin V, Timothy Samuel, and Edward Blair 
     join in the honor and tribute to the brave men of September 
     21, 1862, particularly my great-grandfather, William Benjamin 
     Gould.
       Throughout the South, there is scarcely a word noted about 
     the great struggle for freedom and liberation undertaken 
     nearly a century and a half ago in the War of the Rebellion. 
     And there is little or no mention or acknowledgment of the 
     black military involvement in this effort, the ``holiest of 
     all causes'' as William B. Gould called it, to obtain the New 
     World's central political and legal achievement.
       As I have traveled through the states of the former ``would 
     be Confederacy'', as William B. Gould called it, I have been 
     struck by the abiding omnipresence of Confederate statues and 
     commemorative markers. Just this past weekend, we passed 
     through Richmond's Monument Avenue to see again the memorials 
     to Jefferson Davis, ``would be King Jeff' as William B. Gould 
     called him, Stonewall Jackson and Jeb Stuart and the laud and 
     honor given to their pursuit of ``constitutional principles'' 
     and the Confederate Navy against which William B. Gould and 
     his comrades fought and defeated.
       Thus it is meet and right that Wilmington, North Carolina, 
     this day takes note of the perilous journey that William B. 
     Gould and 7 other comrades began here at the foot of Orange 
     Street on the night of September 21, 1862, and the wider 
     complement of 14 others who left Wilmington in concert with 
     those 8 who boarded the U.S.S. Cambridge. It is meet and 
     right that we note their names, William B. Gould's comrades 
     being Joseph Hall, Andrew Hall, George Price, John Mackey, 
     Charles Giles, John Mitchell and William Chanse. These men 
     were to use their knowledge of North Carolina and its 
     waterways on behalf of our country to interdict supplies 
     destined for Lee's army in Virginia.
       But as your sign properly notes, the September 21st escape 
     involves others as well, many of them William B. Gould's 
     associates and correspondents: Virgil Richardson (for whom 
     one of William B. Gould's sons may be named) and Ben Greer 
     who boarded the Penobscot, and Thomas Cowan, Charles Mallett

[[Page E98]]

     and Frank Clinton of the Monticello. All of them boarded 
     these North Atlantic Blockading vessels near the mouth of the 
     Cape Fear River for the same purpose . . . freedom and 
     participation in the war effort against slavery. Many of 
     these men, both literate and skilled, became key players in 
     Reconstruction, the South's first brief Nineteenth Century 
     interlude with democracy. Many, though not William B. Gould, 
     returned to Wilmington after its liberation in 1865.
       These men, part of the 8,000 who fled the Confederacy to 
     fight for freedom in the U.S. Navy were part of a silent 
     black exodus which transformed the war's nature. They made my 
     life possible. And more than any other event since September 
     21, 1862, and its aftermath, here and now, 141 years and 1 
     month later, they provide hope for my grandchildren, Timothy 
     Samuel Jr. and Joseph Jeremy and the generations of all 
     mankind yet to come.

  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the words of 
William G. Gould IV and all they represent as he remembers his great-
grandfather, William B. Gould.

                          ____________________