Jones, Rufus Sib

Rufus Sib Jones (alternately spelled Rufus Sibb Jones) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1834 and became a bricklayer. On July 10, 1863, seven months after President Abraham Lincoln decreed that blacks could fight in the Union Army, Jones enlisted in the 8th Regiment of the United States Colored Troops for a term of three years. Promoted to the rank of Sergeant Major in November 1863, Jones helped lead his regiment through Jacksonville, Florida and surrounding Confederate holdings during the following year.. Jones and his regiment faced Confederate soldiers at the Battle of Olustee (or Ocean Pond) in Barbour, Florida on February 20, 1864. Jones sustained a wound in his thigh in an unrelated confrontation on August 16, 1864.. Between January and February of 1865, Jones returned home on furlough. He returned to duty in March through June 22, 1865 when he was reassigned as the clerk for the regiment’s headquarters in Brazos Santiago, Texas. He maintained that position through the summer of 1865 and left the regiment once it disbanded in November of that year. Jones died on July 17, 1897 and was buried in Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh. (By Brandon Rothenberg)
Life Span
to
    Full name
    Rufus Sib Jones
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Estimated
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    Black
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Free State
    Occupation
    Military
    Other
    Other Occupation
    Brickmaker
    Relation to Slavery
    Free black
    Military
    Union Army
    How to Cite This Page: "Jones, Rufus Sib," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/33481.