Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Bazel Ciphas (b. circa 1842 - d. circa ?)
MSA SC 5496-050572
Enlisted with Company B, 39th Regiment, USCT, in Montgomery County, 1864

Biography:

Twenty-three-year-old Bazel Ciphas enlisted in Montgomery County with the Maryland Volunteer Infantry on March 22, 1864. He had left his place of enslavement on Ulysses Griffith's farm near Unity.1 Colonel Samuel M. Bowman mustered him into service on March 24, 1864 in Baltimore with Company B of the newly-formed 39th Regiment. The regiment fought in battles that included Petersburg, Spotsylvania Court House, and the Crater.2 Ciphas served in Company B with at least four other African American soldiers from Montgomery County: Samuel Debtor, Bazil Hall, Richard Harriday, Luke Letcher, and Robert Lincoln. A Josiah Ciphas also served in the company, although his exact relationship to Bazel is unknown. Like many soldiers in the regiment, Bazel Ciphas had to pay $6.00 for his musket and other supplies when he received his final pay on June 30, 1865.3 In 1890, his widow, Mary E. "Cephas," applied for a pension.4

Ciphas' name is among the 209,145 names listed on the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C. His name appears as "Bazil Cephas" on plaque C-53 on the Wall of Honor.5
 

1.     ADJUTANT GENERAL, (Muster Rolls), 1864-1865, S936, 1864-1865, Slaves mustered into U.S. Colored Troops, [MSA S936-51]. Basil Cephas, Montgomery County, Folder No. 38.

2.     L. Allison Wilmer, J. H. Jarrett, and Geo. W. F. Vernon. History and Roster of Maryland Volunteers, War of 1861-65. Vol. 2 (Baltimore, MD: Guggenheimer, Weil & Co., 1899) 261.

3.     ADJUTANT GENERAL, (Muster Rolls), 1863-1866, U.S. Colored Troops, [MSA S936-50]. Bazel Ciphas, Company B, 39th Regiment, Line 14.

4.     "Basil Cephas (widow of)." Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934. Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000. www.ancestry.com.

5.     "Bazil Cephas." Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System. National Park Service. http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/soldiers.cfm.
        "The African American Civil War Memorial." African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation and Museum. http://www.afroamcivilwar.org/.
  

Researched and written by Rachel Frazier, 2011.

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