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Story Archives: Black, 15 & free in 1863: John Roy Lynch & Mary Reynolds
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Black, 15 & free in 1863: John Roy Lynch & Mary Reynolds
 (Sixth in a series)
For John Roy Lynch, a freed slave at the age of 15 in 1863, finding a job to help support his mother in Natchez was a primary concern. For Mary Reynolds, a 15-year-old freed slave on Black River in Concordia, survival was a major concern.
John Roy Lynch, his mother, Caroline, and his brother, William, had spent years in bondage as house servants at Dunleith mansion for Natchez planter Alfred Vidal Davis. The fall of Vicksburg in July 1863 changed that and changed life for everyone in Natchez country, black and white.
Now the Mississippi River belonged to the Yankees. The Union Navy was blocking Confederate seaports in the gulf and the Atlantic and huge federal armies were invading the South. Slowly, the Union -- like a giant anaconda -- was squeezing the life out of the South.
In Natchez, 12,000 federal troops had converged after the Battle of Vicksburg with several tasks, including wrestling control of northeastern Louisiana. By September of 1863, following the fall of the Rebel stronghold Fort Beauregard on the Ouachita at Harrisonburg, the Union army was swarming all over the region.
Slaves were being freed. White planters were fleeing to Texas. The Confederacy here was in turmoil. Yet Natchez, which offered little resistance to the Union advance, was basically at peace. A large federal payroll was a help to almost everyone, including the slaves arriving from the plantations.
"The problem of making a living was one that was before me," John Roy Lynch would recall years later when writing his biography. "The only capital I possessed was youth, health, and a determination to win the race of life."
In a framed building on Market Street, John Roy and his small family along with others occupied apartments. Rent, he said, "was unreasonably high and at that time, had to be paid promptly at the end of each month, otherwise we would be without a place to lay our heads.
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