William B . Gould I William B . Gould ( 1837 - May 25 , 1923 ) was a former slave and veteran of the American Civil War . William B . Gould was born to a slave woman and perhaps an Englishman . He learned to read and write and is known for his detailed entries in a diary about his work as a plasterer . He was owned by the Nixon family and worked on the Bellamy House . On September 21 , 1862 , a slave named William Benjamin Gould ( WBG ) escaped with seven other slaves by rowing a small boat down the Cape Fear River and out into the Atlantic Ocean where the USS " Cambridge " of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron picked them up as contraband . Prior to the escape , Gould had been working as a plasterer at an antebellum mansion ( now named the Bellamy Mansion ) in Wilmington , North Carolina . At the time of his escape he appears to have been owned by Nicholas Nixon , a peanut planter and slave owner in Wilmington . After his escape , Gould joined the U . S . Navy and believed he was " defending the holiest of all causes , Liberty and Union . " Beginning with his time on the " Cambridge " and continuing through his discharge at the end of the war he kept a diary of his day - to - day activities . According to John Hope Franklin , WBG ' s Diary is one of three known diaries in existence written during the Civil War by former slaves . In the diary , WBG chronicles his trips to the northeastern United States , Holland , Belgium , Spain , Portugal , and England . The diary is distinguished not only by its details and eloquent tone , but also by its author ' s reflections on the conduct of the war , his own military engagements , race , race relations in the Navy , and what African Americans might expect after the war and during Reconstruction . After he was discharged from the Navy at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Massachusetts , he married Cornelia Read in November 1865 . Cornelia was a former slave who was then living on Nantucket and they corresponded throughout the war . The Goulds moved to Milton Street in Dedham , Massachusetts , and together they had two daughters and six sons . In Dedham , Gould " became a building contractor and community pillar . " Gould " took great pride in his work " when he resumed work as a plasterer and helped to build the new St . Mary ' s Church . One of his employees improperly mixed the plaster and even though it was not visible by looking at it , Gould insisted that it be removed and reapplied correctly . Gould helped to build the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepard in Oakdale Square , though as a parishioner and not as a contractor . It may have been the Episcopal church he attended in Wilmington as a slave that taught him to read and write , and thus to be able to keep his diary . Gould was extremely active in the Charles W . Carroll Post 144 of the Grand Army of the Republic ( GAR ) . He " held virtually every position that it was possible to hold in the GAR from the time he joined < nowiki > [ in 1882 ] < / nowiki > until his death in 1923 , including the highest post , commander , in 1900 and 1901 . " Five of his sons would fight in the World War I and one in the Spanish - American War . A photo of the six sons and their father , all in military uniform , would appear in the NAACP ' s magazine , " The Crisis , " in December 1917 . Gould ' s great - grandson would describe them as " a family of fighters . " He died on or about May 25 , 1923 , at the age of 85 and was interred at Brookdale Cemetery in Dedham . The " Dedham Transcript " reported his death under the headline " East Dedham Mourns Faithful Soldier and Always Loyal Citizen : Death Came Very Suddenly to William B . Gould , Veteran of the Civil War . " His great - grandson , William B . Gould IV , served as chair of the National Labor Relations Board from 1994 to 1998 and edited his great - grandfather ' s diary into a book titled " Diary of a Contraband : The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor . " William B . Gould IV Bibliography . Print ISBN 978 - 0 - 7864 - 6515 - 6