As the nation prepares to celebrate Juneteenth, the legacy of thousands of Black Civil War soldiers who once trained in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, will never be forgotten, thanks to the Camp William Penn Museum.
Nestled away inside a small, unassuming garage in Cheltenham are powerful mementos and artifacts from a little-known piece of history from the Civil War.
“Eight feet tall, this is an original recruiting broadside asking for Black people to come forward,” Jim Paradis, a board member at the Camp William Penn Museum, said. “We’re just a block away from the site of Camp William Penn, which was the first and largest federal training camp for Black soldiers in the Civil War.”
Referred to as the U.S. Colored Troops, as many as 200,000 were sent to fight in the Civil War. After the Emancipation Proclamation, 10,000 soldiers trained a stone’s throw away from the museum that honors their legacy…