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WILLIAM U. SAUNDERS^{1Baltimore-born William U. Saunders was a barber by trade. During the Civil War, he became a quartermaster sergeant in an infantry regiment for the U.S. Colored Troops, for which he later received a pension. After the war, he settled in Florida and became an organizer for the state’s young Republican party. Saunders played a critical role in the Florida state constitutional convention during Reconstruction. Along with Liberty Billings and Daniel Richards, he established the Florida chapter of the National Union League, a semisecret Republican group intended to recruit African Americans. This faction repeatedly clashed with more moderate Republican leaders, which ultimately led to intervention by federal military authorities on the moderates’ behalf. Saunders returned to Baltimore around the end of 1868 and resumed barbering before working for the federal government as an at-large special agent in the Post Office Department. He remained active in the Baltimore social scene, interacting with the likes of Frederick Douglass and Postmaster General John Creswell. In 1870, Saunders served as the chief marshal of a Baltimore parade commemorating the Fifteenth Amendment; several notable figures, including Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, were honored guests. Very little is known about Saunders’s life after the early 1870s. Official Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1869 (Washington, D.C., 1870), 916; George C. Osborn, “Letters of a Carpetbagger in Florida, 1866–1869,” Florida Historical Quarterly, 36: 239–85 (January 1958); Jerrell H. Shofner, “The Constitution of 1868,” Florida Historical Quarterly, 41: 356–74 (April 1963); Gordon C. Bond, “The First Negro Politicians of Florida: The Black Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1868,” NHB, 38: 486–89 (December 1975); Brad Alston, “Baltimore’s 1870 15th Amendment Parade and Celebration,” Baltimore Gaslight 17, 2: 1 (Fall 2018).} TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Baltimore, [Md.] 12 Oct[ober] 1869.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS ESQ

ROCHESTER, N. YORK.

DEAR FRIEND,

Please accept my thanks for the assurances of assistance conveyed in
yours of the 4th inst.