The Life and Times of a former slave - William “Bill” Flanagan

b. 08/23/1840 - d. 02/05/1941



William “Bill” Flanagan was born on August 23, 1840, during the height of the Slave Trade. It is believed that his mother was an African woman and his father was an Irishmen. His father, Stephen J. Flanagan, was an overseer over the plantations of Silas, Rober and Simon Clark. The founders of Attalaville, Mississippi. Stephen Flanagan died when Bill was just a year old.
Bill was raised on this farm with his mother in the town of Attalaville, later known as Kosciusko, Mississippi to be the slave of a well-known slave owner - Silas Clark. Silas Clark was one of the founders of Attalaville. He lived and worked as a slave on his Plantation. Clark was killed during the early years of the Civil War.
John C. Ashley also owned a plantation in the same town. He bought the mother of Bill Flanagan when he was a small boy and he and his mother became the property of John. C. Ashley. His mother was a cook for the plantation.
Bill became a body servant to Captain John Ashley during the Civil War. A body servant is a person who serves as a slave to an enlisted soldier during the Civil War.

A body servant refers to someone working as a personal servant for a soldier. Generally, that included tasks such as cooking and caring for the soldier’s gear. The vast majority, though not all, of body servants traveling with the Confederacy were held in slavery.


As a young slave in his twenties, he was also allowed to carry a weapon during the Civil War as few slaves were given that privilege. Bill recalls he was serving in the war in Petersburg, Virginia at the time of the Confederate Army’s surrender on the Roanoke River, as a Body Servant to Captain Ashley of the 50 Day Troops from Attala County.

Bill Flanagan was one of the former slaves interviewed during the 1930’s by the WPA - Works Progress Administration for Mississippi Slave Narratives, an Historical Research Project by the Federal Government from 1930-1938. At the age of 92 in 1933, Bill
was interviewed and had a good recollection of his time as a child slave.
He tells the interviewers of a time when he was young, he remembers his slave owner being good to his slaves and would never beat them like some other slave owners.
He says that he remembers hearing the slaves on adjourning plantations begging for mercy when being beaten by their masters. Bill recalls his slave master giving the slaves a piece of land to work and would allow them to have Saturday afternoons off to work their own lands. The slave owner would provide them sufficient clothes and food and when they would make a trip to town, he would buy a gallon of whiskey. He would give them a week off during Christmas time, but when the week was over, they had to get back to work. William recalls also as a little boy that he played more than he worked at picking cotton and no one would bother him.

Bill was among the first African American slaves to actually be recognized as an actual civil war soldier and given a pension after the war years later.

Bill was 101 years old at the time of his death. He was married twice and had 22 children. Before his death in 1941, William “Bill” Flanagan owned his own farm. He bought 160 acres of land in Kosciusko, Mississippi.

William “Bill” Flanagan is my great-grandfather and today he has a multitude of descendants that live all over the United States and abroad. The family together have created a Genealogy Tree on Ancestry.com that will allow his legacy to live forever.

Written by Ella Shines Goldsmith in honor of Juneteenth 2025

Published June 19, 2025