Trailblazer Charles M. Meek

Civil War Heritage 150 Years

Remembering Our Civil War Heritage and Heroes:

In Honor of Black History Month:

Trailblazer Charles M. Meek

By Ken Robison

For The Great Falls Tribune

February 26, 2012 Sunday Life

Born a slave on a Tennessee plantation in January 1849, Charles M. Meek attained a remarkable record of achievement and adventure. He spent his early boyhood days as servant in his master’s house. When the Civil War began he either escaped or was freed from bondage and fell in with Union troops, becoming a personal servant to General Ulysses Grant. Young Charles Meek was illiterate, but an officer on Grant’s staff became interested in the boy and taught him to read and write. Meek learned so rapidly that before leaving Grant’s service the general offered to send him to college. Meek declined, and when Grant went east to become Commanding General in March 1864, he remained in Kentucky.

In September 1864, fifteen-year-old Charles Meek, reported his age as “eighteen” to join Company D, 5^th Cavalry Regiment, U. S. Colored Troops at Lebanon, Kentucky. Under regimental commander Colonel James Brisbin, a well-known abolitionist, the 5^th United States Colored Cavalry (USCC), former slaves with white officers, participated in Burbridge’s Raid from Kentucky into Southwestern Virginia during September-October 1864, when they saw fierce action at Saltville, Virginia. In the later Stoneman’s Raid during 10-29 December, the 5^th USCC participated in the capture of Saltville and destruction of an important Confederate salt works.

Despite his youth, Meek proved a natural leader and was promote Corporal May 1, 1865 and Sergeant just two months later. The 5^th USCC was stationed in Arkansas after the war hunting down rebel renegades, supervising free elections, and trying to protect office holders and freemen from counter-reconstruction violence. Sergeant Meek left the Army in January 1866, married, and settled at Prairie, near Kansas City, Kansas.

Late in 1880, Charles Meek came up the Missouri River to Fort Benton to join his older brother Joseph, and seek his fortune in the Barker mines in the Little Belt Mountains. (See Joe Meek’s story in The Tribune October 30, 2011.) Charles developed mining claims in Barker and Yogo, but lacked capital to work them. Charles came to Great Falls in 1887, and in November 1888 was selected to serve as juror at the District Court, the first known black juror in Montana. Charles Meek became active in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R), Republican Party politics and organized a Colored Lincoln Republican Club. From 1889-1894, Meek was elected delegate to Cascade County Republican conventions. In the 1894 convention, he gave an eloquent speech that triggered the nomination of William Morgan for Great Falls Townsite Constable, the first black man to be nominated and elected to public office in Montana. In March 1891, Meek served a second time as juror in Cascade County and in 1895 served as juror in the Crowe murder trial.

In the fall of 1895, Meek returned to Kansas, and The Tribune observed, “Mr. Meek has . . . won for himself the respect of the community . . .  the colored people of Great Falls will lose one of their brightest representatives and a natural leader, and Great Falls will lose a patriotic and worthy citizen.” Ever the adventurer, eighteen months later he returned to Great Falls, but the lure of gold soon attracted him to the Klondike stampede with The Tribune reporting, “Charlie Meek has been in the van of the pioneers all his life and he is confident that he will win fortune in Alaska.”

Meek wrote insightful letters to The Tribune about the many failures and few successes in the “Land of ice and gold.” His letters advised that he “found the yellow metal everywhere, [but] failed to find it in paying quantities” with “only one or two in a hundred” finding paying claims. He observed “corruption reigns supreme in Dawson and the Klondike,” yet he spoke “in terms of admiration of the grit and endurance displayed by the gold seekers.”

After eighteen months, Meek returned from Alaska, but soon moved on to mine in Idaho and Washington. In April 1901, he returned to Great Falls after being badly injured in a mining accident. The adventurous black pioneer died at the Deaconess Hospital April 6, 1910. Attended by brother Joseph and other G.A.R members, Sergeant Charles M. Meek was buried in Soldiers’ Plot, Highland Cemetery.

In a tribute to the black soldiers that served in the Civil war, poet Paul Laurence Dunbar penned:

          “The Colored Soldiers”

And their deeds shall find a record, 

In the registry of fame;

For their blood has cleansed completely
Every blot of slavery's shame. 
So all honor and all glory 
To these noble Sons of Ham-- 
To the gallant colored soldiers, 
Who fought for Uncle Sam! 

Note: This continues a monthly series commemorating Union and Confederate veterans of the Civil War who settled in central Montana. Descendants of Montana Civil War veterans are encouraged to send their stories to mtcivilwar@yahoo.com.

Photos:

1. Civil War Muster and Descriptive Roll for Private Charles Meek
2. Private Charles M. Meek, 5^th Kentucky Cavalry gravestone at Soldiers’ Plot, Highland Cemetery. No photo has been found of Charles Meek.