The 29th U.S. Colored Infantry, one of 175 Civil War regiments that gave African-American men the chance to fight for the Union, was organized on April 24, 1864, and dismissed on Nov. 6, 1865. With 2072 men from Illinois, Missouri, and Wisconsin, it was the largest Black Civil War regiment. It fought in the Siege of Petersburg, the Battles of the Crater, Globe Tavern, Poplar Grove Church, Boydton Plank Road, and the Appomattox campaign. Sent to Texas, the last U.S. stronghold of slavery, the regiment took part in the June 18, 1865, Galveston landing, and freedom was proclaimed there on June 19 in an event known as Juneteenth. In April 1864, 12 African-American men went to the Tazewell County Courthouse and volunteered for the Union Army, knowing the evil of slavery and the danger they faced as Black men fighting to end it. One of them, Pvt. William H. Costley, was the first enslaved male freed with the help of Abraham Lincoln. Of these 12 men, two died in service, five remained with the regiment and witnessed the first Juneteenth, and another, Pvt. Costley’s brother-in-law George Lee, was assigned to a Massachusetts colored regiment and was also present at Juneteenth.