It took 150 years for this veteran to finally get the respect he deserves.
Sandy Wills, a brave black Civil War soldier, was recently given a heartfelt military burial — Spectrum News NY1 anchor Cheryl Wills visits his unmarked grave in Tennessee. After locating her, she told the Post.
Wills undertook a 15-year fact-finding mission with the help of professional genealogists and archaeologists. — to find the final resting place of her ancestors who fled slavery and joined the United States Colored Army in 1863.
This Veterans Day, flags will be flown on headstones at the West Tennessee State Military Cemetery for the first time in honor.
“This is very emotional for me. To me, this is justice,” Wills said. “He was a leader, fearless, strong and visionary.”
Willis said she began researching her ancestry in 2009 after learning that she had not received “honor from her country” like her late Vietnam veteran father.
“I said, 'This is too bad,'” she recalls. “And I started digging.”
She quickly worked with a genealogist to retrieve family tree records and historical documents from the National Archives, eventually locating Sandy's burial site in Brownsville, Tennessee.
“We discovered he was buried in an unmarked grave on the slave plantation where he worked, and the same family still owned it,” she said.
“He would have said, 'Granddaughter, get me out of here,'” she said.
In 2017, the family that owns the plantation allowed visitors to visit the property where Sandy and several other former slaves are buried on the hillside.
A team of archaeologists dug up his grave and identified his remains. He was 5'9 tall and died at the age of 50.
“I almost passed out,” Wills said. “I had to hold on to the tree when the excavator fell. … I was emotional.”
After a year-long investigation, the U.S. Army recognized his military service and he was buried Aug. 10 surrounded by relatives in a military cemetery, Wills said.
“They handed his remains to me and I placed them in the most expensive casket money could buy,” she said. “It was an honor.”
After being sold into slavery as a 10-year-old boy, Sandy Willis escaped from a plantation with a friend and served in the 4th Heavy Field Artillery of the United States Colored Troops.
“Today is the first Veterans Day that we will put a flag on his headstone,” Wills said. “I'm proud of his accomplishments and proud that he survived slavery.”
