William Benjamin Gould Sr. (November 18, 1837 – May 25, 1923) was a former enslaved person and veteran of the American Civil War, serving in the U.S. Navy. His diary is one of only a few written during the Civil War by a formerly enslaved person that has survived, and the only one by a formerly enslaved sailor. The story of his life has been chronicled by his great-grandson in his book Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor (2002) which annotates the diary and includes five additional chapters on the life and accomplishments of Gould.
Early life William B. Gould was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on November 18, 1837, to an enslaved woman, Elizabeth "Betsy" Moore, and Alexander Gould, an English-born resident of Granville County, NC. He was enslaved by Nicholas Nixon, a peanut planter who owned a large plantation on Porters Neck and at Rocky Point. Gould learned masonry. Nixon hired him out to construction and renovation projects around the Wilmington area. His carved initials can be seen in the plaster of the antebellum Bellamy Mansion in Wilmington.
The outbreak of the Civil War brought danger to Wilmington in the form of crime, disease, threat of invasion, and "downright bawdiness." This prompted many slave owners to move inland, resulting in less supervision over those they were enslaving. During a rainy night on September 21, 1862, Gould escaped with seven other enslaved men by rowing a small boat down the Cape Fear River. They embarked on Orange Street, just four blocks from where Gould lived on Chestnut St. Sentries were posted along the river, adding additional danger. The boat had a sail, but they did not raise it until they were out in the Atlantic for fear of being seen.
Just as the dawn was breaking on September 22, they rushed out into the Atlantic Ocean near Fort Caswell and hoisted their sail. There, the of the Union blockade picked them up as contraband. Other ships in the blockade picked up two other boats containing friends of Gould in what may have been a coordinated effort. Though Gould had no way of knowing it, within an hour and a half of his rescue President Abraham Lincoln convened a meeting of his cabinet to finalize plans to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
During the war, his home was burned and with it a family Bible. His birthday was inscribed in that Bible but that was the only record of his birth.
Naval service
There had been some concern about the numbers of slaves who were escaping and making it to Union ships before Gould's escape. One captain had written to the Navy Department asking what was to be done with them as they did not have room for the extra men. William A. Parker, the captain of the Cambridge, however, had written to Acting Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee just five days before picking up Gould that his ship was short 18 men due to desertions and sickness. As a result, he said, he intended to fill the vacancies with escaped slaves.
After his boarding the Cambridge, Gould notes that he was "kindly received by officers and men." In his diary he noted that on October 3, 1862, he took "the Oath of Allegiance to the Government of Uncle Samuel." Upon joining the U.S. Navy on board the Cambridge, he was given the rank of First Class Boy. At the time, boy was the highest rank a black sailor could earn. He was later promoted to landsman and then ward room steward, making him a petty officer but without the authority that came as an officer of the line.
The Cambridge was part of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, enforcing the blockade of the Confederate coastline. Gould found the work to be difficult and lonely, recording after just three months on the ship that all the men had the blues. Still, Gould believed he was "defending the holiest of all causes, Liberty and Union." During his service he saw combat and chased Confederate ships across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. In a span of five days, the Cambridge and two other ships were able to capture four blockade runners and chase a fifth to shore.
Gould also served on the . While on board of the Ohio, he came down with the measles and had to leave the ship to go to the hospital. His time in the hospital, from May to October 1863, is the only time he broke from his habit of writing in his diary. During this time he was visited by one of his maternal cousins, a Jones, who was the child of emancipated slaves who moved north for fear of being re-enslaved.
In October 1863, after he was recovered, Gould was transferred to the . The ship was in port in Gloucester, Massachusetts, waiting for a full complement of men. On December 10, it unexpectedly left port and raced up the eastern seaboard to Nova Scotia chasing after the Chesapeake. The Chesapeake had been captured off the coast of Cape Cod by Confederate sympathizers from the Maritime Provinces.
From June 1, 1864, until well into 1865, Gould and the Niagara sailed to and around Europe, searching for Confederate ships. The Niagara was involved in two major confrontations while in Europe, including the taking of the CSS Georgia. It stalked the CSS Stonewall along the coasts of Spain and Portugal, but declined to fight the armored ship and let it get away. It was also on the hunt for the CSS Alabama, the CSS Florida, the CSS Shenandoah, and the Laurel, but they did not find them.
While off the coast of Cadiz, Spain, those on board the Niagara learned of the surrender of the Confederate Army. "I heard the Glad Tidings that the Stars and Stripes had been planted over the Capital of the D--nd Confederacy by the invincible Grant," Gould committed to his diary. Not knowing that it signaled the end of the war, the Niagara set sail again, this time searching for Confederate ships in Queenstown, Ireland. The Irish came out in great numbers to see the American warship. Leaving Ireland, the Niagara sailed to Charlestown, Massachusetts, where Gould received an honorable discharge after three years of service in the United States Navy.
During his first leave from the ship in the spring of 1863, Gould visited Mary Moore Jones, his maternal aunt, in Boston and then his eventual wife, Cornelia Read, on Nantucket. There were a number of other women that he visited in New York during leaves as well. Gould had an active social life during leaves, attending concerts, lectures, and public meetings. During his time in New York he also met William McLaurin, a future North Carolina state representative.
Though black men served alongside white men in the Navy during the Civil War and made up roughly 15% of the Union Navy, Gould experienced racism while serving on board the . He recorded the relative racial equality he observed in the Navy, while also highlighting the persistent slights and occasional instances of overt discrimination experienced by Black sailors. Black soldiers from a Maryland regiment who had been taken aboard temporarily were "treated shamefully," Gould said, when they were not allowed to eat out of mess pans and were called disparaging names. The incident seemed to be out of the ordinary, suggesting that it was not common while serving.
Post-war life Career
Gould visited Wilmington after the war, perhaps in October 1865, and found it to be largely deserted, very unlike the bustling city he knew before the war. He found it to be an improvement, however, where many of the trappings of the former slave economy had been removed.
Gould married in 1865 and spent his first year as a married man working as a plasterer on Nantucket. After living in New Hampshire and in Taunton, Massachusetts, for a time, in 1871 the Goulds moved to 303-307 Milton Street in Dedham, Massachusetts. In Dedham, Gould became a building contractor and pillar of the community. Gould "took great pride in his work" as a plasterer and brick mason. His skill was rewarded with contracts for public buildings, including several schools.
He helped to build the new St. Mary's Church in his adopted hometown of Dedham. While working on the church, one of his employees improperly mixed the plaster. Even though it was not visible by looking at it and though the defect would not be discovered for some time, Gould insisted that it be removed and reapplied correctly. The decision nearly bankrupted him, but it helped cement his reputation in the town. He also worked as a stonemason, constructing buildings around Dedham.
He later took the minutes of the Hancock Mutual Relief Association.
Social and civic life
Shortly before he got sick with the measles, Gould met John Robert Bond, another black sailor serving on the Ohio. The Gould home was close to the border with Readville, where Bond settled after the war. The two would reconnect ten years after the war and become good friends. Gould would later serve as godfather to Bond's second son.
Gould helped to build the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepard in Oakdale Square, though as a parishioner and not as a contractor. He and his wife were baptized and confirmed there in 1878 and 1879. As a signer of the Articles of Incorporation, he was one of its founders. Gould's family remained active members of the church and, along with the Bonds and one other family, the Chesnuts, were the only black parishioners. There was only one other black family in Dedham at the time. Gould and his family were more likely to experience subtle slights on account of their race as opposed to outright racism while living in Dedham.
Gould was extremely active in the Charles W. Carroll Post 144 of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). He "held virtually every position that it was possible to hold in the GAR from the time he joined [in 1882] until his death in 1923, including the highest post, commander, in 1900 and 1901." He attended the statewide encampments of the GAR in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with Bond and other black veterans from the area. He also joined the Mt. Moriah Masonic Prince Hall Lodge in Cambridge with several other black veterans. In 1911, Gould was interviewed by the local veteran's association about his wartime experiences.
By 1886, Gould would earn enough esteem in the community to be appointed to the General Staff and to lead the parade held in honor of Dedham's 250th anniversary. Gould gave a speech at Dedham's 1918 Decoration Day celebrations at which he received "an ovation welcome." He also regularly spoke to school children on Memorial Day and presided over the town's celebrations of the holiday. Gould was driven through town on parade days into the 1920s in cars adorned with red, white, and blue decorations.
Gould was a committed Republican, as were his children. He adamantly opposed the notion that newly emancipated blacks should be repatriated to Africa or Haiti, saying they had been born under the American flag and would know no other.
Family
After he was discharged from the Navy on September 29, 1865 at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Massachusetts, Gould considered moving back to North Carolina where he believed he would have "a fair chance of success [in] my business". Instead, he immediately went to Nantucket where he married Cornelia Williams Read, on November 22, 1865, at the African Baptist Church on Nantucket. Rev. James E. Crawford, Read's uncle, officiated. Gould had known Read since childhood, and she was his most frequent wartime correspondent. Cornelia, who had been purchased out of slavery, was then living on Nantucket.
Their oldest daughter, Medora Williams, was born on Nantucket, and their oldest son, William B. Gould Jr., was born in Taunton. The rest, Fredrick Crawford, Luetta Ball, Lawrence Wheeler, Herbert Richardson, and twins James Edward and Ernest Moore, were all born in Dedham.
The 1880 United States census lists a boy with the last name of Mabson living with the Goulds and working as an employee of Gould's. The child is almost certainly the son of one of Gould's nephews through his sister Eliza, George Lawrence Mabson or William Mabson.