Details on the Recruiting Record Book:
This was a recruiting record book from 1863 kept by Lieutenant Humphrey Hood, a Union army medical officer, who recorded whether or not African American volunteers were fit for service in the Union war effort. Medical ailments and age were typical reasons for excluding volunteers from service, but the majority of the men listed here were approved for service. Many of these volunteers were recently self-emancipated from enslavement on Southern farms, businesses, and homes. The men who passed muster became the 1st Tennessee Heavy Artillery Regiment (African Descent) and later renamed 3rd U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery Regiment which was based at Fort Pickering at Memphis during the remainder of war and subsequently mustered out of service in 1866.
Joseph Lundy, listed second-from-the-bottom on this page (p.37), was a teamster and wagon-maker from Jackson County, Virginia when he volunteered to join the 3rd U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery Regiment (Company E). He was a private and served as a teamster, often detached from his company to serve as the regimental wagonmaster hauling supplies under orders from the quartermaster. Lundy was mustered out of the service in 1863, his last pay was $57.95 for service time during March and April 1865. According to a later Congressional investigation, Lundy was killed during the Memphis massacre of May 1 to May 3, 1866. After a riot had broken out between white Memphis residents united with police officers against Black Memphis residents, many of them recently discharged soldiers from the Union Army, Lundy apparently tried to find and bring home his fellow veterans who were in the city celebrating the end of the war and the end of their service. Riding his horse near the scene of the riot, still in his uniform, he was shot and later died of his wounds. One affidavit indicates that a police officer standing in a group of white rioters was the one to pull the trigger. Another account indicated that Lundy was further wounded after being struck in the head by the mob. Lundy was one of at least six veterans of the 3rd U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery killed during the Memphis massacre.
Sources: Collection Finding aid
Record of Recruits Examined at Fort Pickering, Memphis, Tennessee, for the 1st Tennessee Artillery, 1863, Benjamin S. Hood family papers, 1839-1889, MS-BC293
Memphis Avalanche, December 6, 1866
U.S., Colored Troops Military Service Records, 1863-1865, for Joseph Lundy, Artillery, 3srd U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery, compiled service record (accessed online: https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/search/collections/1107/ .
Reports of Committees: 16th Congress, 1st Session - 49th Congress ..., Volume 3, United States. Congress. House, pages 35, 179, 201, 208, 211, 216. (accessed online: https://books.google.com/books?id=ep8FAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false )