William Henry "Bill" Costley, born in 1840 in Pekin, was the oldest son of Benjamin and Nance (Legins) Costley. Born into indentured servitude with his two older sisters, Amanda and Eliza Jane, he and his family had their freedom confirmed through the 1841 Illinois Supreme Court case Bailey v. Cromwell, becoming the first enslaved persons to be freed with Abraham Lincoln's help. Answering Lincoln's call to defend the Union, Bill enlisted on Sept. 21, 1864, in Company B of the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry. He took part in the Appomattox campaign but was absent from Lee's surrender because he had been injured during the Battle of Petersburg. After recovering, he accompanied his regiment to Galveston, Texas, in June 1865 and was present for the first Juneteenth, when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 proclaiming an end to slavery and absolute equality for former slaves with whites. Mustered out in Sept. 1865, he returned to Pekin and worked as a hostler in livery stables. In Nov. 1870, he saved Elizabeth Doyle from being beaten to death by her husband, Patrick Doyle, and when Doyle ignored his warnings to stop, Bill shot and killed him. Though indicted for murder, he was found not guilty by a jury of 12 white men because he had acted to defend a woman. He later moved to Iowa and then Minnesota, and died in 1888 in Rochester, where he is buried.