The 108th Colored Infantry Guards the Civil War Prison Camp

Rock Island was the destination for over 12,000 Confederate soldiers who had been captured by the Union troops during battles of America's Civil War (1861-1865).  
For a period of 9 months--between September 24, 1864, and May, 1865--a unit largely made up of freed slaves from Kentucky, the  108th Colored Infantry Regiment, took their rotation  in maintaining guard over those Confederate troops imprisoned on the Arsenal Island that had been captured in America's Civil War (relieving the 37th Iowa Volunteers, men in their 50s and 60s called the "Greybeards").  
Our speaker, Virgil Mayberry, is a local expert on the Colored Infantry Regiment soldiers and of that time that they spent here in the exercise of their military duties. Come hear him give insight and understanding of this important era in Rock Island's history.