Spottswood Rice

Spottswood Rice (November 1819 – October 31, 1907) was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church and a private in the Union Army during the US Civil War.

Rice is most famous for a pair of forcefully written letters to the owner of his wife and children during the war while he was stationed in St. Louis and they were enslaved in Howard County, Missouri.

Mary was interviewed and provided a slave narrative for the Works Progress Administration Writer's Program.

[4] Before emancipation, Rice's wife and all of his children were owned by a single woman named Kitty Diggs.

Rice remained for six months, but then left the plantation with eleven other slaves and joined the Union Army in Kansas City.

[4] Rice enlisted on February 9, 1864, near Glasgow, Missouri,[5] joining as a private in Company A of the 67th United States Colored Infantry Regiment.

[1] During parts of his service, Rice was hospitalized at Benton Barracks near St. Louis, Missouri for chronic rheumatism.

[6] While there in September 1864, Rice wrote two letters, one to his daughters who were still enslaved in Howard County and the other to Kitty Diggs, their owner.

In defiance of Diggs' wish to keep the girls, he said, "She is the first Christian that I ever heard say that a man could steal his own children, especially out of human bondage."

[4] He joined the African Methodist Church of St. Louis, and became licensed as a local preacher, being ordained deacon in 1870[1] or 1874.