Orindatus Simon Bolivar Wall

Who was Orindatus Simon Bolivar Wall?

Orindatus Simon Bolivar Wall, known as OSB Wall, was the son of a planter, Stephen Wall, and his slave, Pricilla, who, during the American Civil War, became the first black man to be commissioned as captain in the Regular US Army.

Wall attended Oberlin College, established a successful footwear business in the town of Oberlin, OH and then read law under John M. Langston. After the Civil War, he played an active role in the Reconstruction, ran a law practice in Washington, DC and was a magistrate.

He and his wife Amanda Ann Thomas had five children who survived to adulthood. However, within a few years of their father’s death, they began to cut their ties to the black community and identify as white.

The following excerpt from a letter sent by Wall to General Rufus B. Saxton while both were stationed in Charleston, SC, gives a flavor of the cruel treatment that former slaves sometimes faced from their 'liberators' in the Union military:

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