Inventory of the Personal Effects of Jorden Turner, a Black Union Private in the 63rd United States Infantry, Who Died at Freedmen's Hospital in Memphis in March 1865

Memphis, Tennessee, 1865. Printed Article 95 inventory form completed in manuscript, recording the effects of Jorden Turner, Private in Captain S. A. Walker's Company B, 63rd Regiment, United States Infantry. 8 x 10 inches. Very Fine.. A scarce Civil War document recording the death and remaining property of Jorden Turner, a Black Union soldier serving in Company B of the 63rd United States Infantry. According to the completed form, Turner enlisted at Memphis, Tennessee, on October 27, 1863, and died of pneumonia at Freedmen's Hospital in Memphis on March 12, 1865, only weeks before the surrender at Appomattox.

The document is an official Article 95 inventory of Turner's effects, prepared six days after his death. The printed form records his name, rank, company, regiment, place and date of enlistment, birthplace, physical description, death date, place of death, and cause of death. The inventory section, intended to list clothing and personal property, is left largely blank. At the bottom, the certifying officer writes: "The deceased did have no effects except check having turned over."

At death, Turner's recorded personal estate consisted of no clothing, equipment, or property beyond a check. The form shows the administrative handling of the sparse effects of an African American soldier who died in federal service. The Freedmen's Hospital in Memphis served formerly enslaved people, refugees, soldiers, and civilians during the wartime and Reconstruction crisis in the Mississippi Valley. An uncommon record from the final weeks of the Civil War.