The Black Dispatchers of War ✯ How Black Spies Helped Win White Wars. A Special Publication of Black Texans, Inc.

✯ The Black Dispatchers of War ✯ How Black Spies Helped Win White Wars.  A Special Publication of Black Texans, Inc.

By Pastor Kyev P. Tatum, Sr.

🕊️ Introduction: A Man, a Mission, a Memory.

FORT WORTH, TEXAS - When war came to America—whether it flew a Union flag or the banner of rebellion—Black people were already at war with bondage. Among the unsung heroes who rose from those shadows was a man named Lawson Daniels Gratz—born enslaved, but determined to carve his name into freedom’s book with his own hand.

This is not a story about background figures. It is the story of Black dispatchers—men and women who slipped past suspicion to deliver intelligence, sow disruption, and shift the tide of war. Among them, Gratz stands tall. He didn’t just carry messages. He became one—an embodied declaration of Black humanity in a time that tried to deny it.

While we honor the memory of figures like Emily D. West, the woman remembered through legend as the Yellow Rose of Texas, this telling places Gratz at the center—not as a support to someone else’s story, but as a protagonist of America’s reckoning.

🪖 Lawson Daniels Gratz: Dispatching Himself into History

Born September 15, 1839, in Lexington, Kentucky, Lawson Daniels Gratz came into the world as property. But he did not leave it that way.

When the Union Army began enlisting Black men under the banner of the U.S. Colored Troops, Gratz’s enslaver sought to enlist him on his behalf—a common practice to avoid personal conscription. But Lawson Gratz had other plans. He refused to sign under his owner’s name, instead writing his own, declaring: “I am not your property. I am my own purpose.”

That signature changed everything.

He trained at Camp Nelson, one of the few Union sites that permitted Black soldiers to formally serve. There, he became First Sergeant of Company C, 114th U.S. Colored Infantry. He fought bravely at Petersburg and stood at the edge of history during Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in 1865.

But freedom wasn’t the end. It was the beginning.

🐃 Buffalo Soldier, Texas Homesteader

After the war, Gratz reenlisted in the 10th Cavalry, one of the first regiments of the legendary Buffalo Soldiers, tasked with protecting settlers and policing the Texas frontier. He suffered the loss of an eye in an explosion—but not his vision for the future.

Gratz eventually settled in Fort Griffin, Texas, married Rosa Dedman, and fathered fourteen children. In 1892, he purchased land in Annetta, Parker County, laying down roots for a Black family legacy deep in the red Texas soil—land that represented not just property, but proof of perseverance.

He passed away on June 18, 1909, one day before the observance of Juneteenth. Some would call that a coincidence. We call it divine alignment.

🌹 Emily D. West: The Unwitting Operative

Before Gratz fought with weapons, Emily D. West fought with presence. In April 1836, as the Texas Revolution reached its climax, West—a free Black woman from New York—was taken captive by Mexican forces and brought to General Santa Anna’s camp near the San Jacinto River.

As the story goes, her presence in the general’s tent distracted Santa Anna during a surprise attack by General Sam Houston’s forces. The battle lasted just 18 minutes, but it changed the course of history and birthed the Republic of Texas.

Though wrapped in legend, Emily West’s story reveals a deeper truth: Black women, even in captivity, found ways to disrupt power and create opportunity. Her later request for a passport to return to New York shows not weakness—but agency, strategy, and survival.

West, like Gratz, used proximity to power to fracture the enemy’s hold.

📜 What Is a Black Dispatcher?

A Black dispatcher was a human conduit of strategy. These were not just messengers—they were missionaries of freedom, slipping past suspicion to deliver news, decode terrain, report troop movement, and sow confusion behind enemy lines.

Some were enslaved. Others were free. Most were forgotten. But their impact was undeniable. They operated where generals could not go, and brought back what spies could not see.

Their weapons were memory, language, and trust. Their reward? Often silence. But their role was crucial—especially for those like Gratz, who turned a signature into a sword.

🧠 Historical Significance: Shifting the Lens

Let the record reflect:

• Lawson Gratz didn’t just enlist—he elevated. From chattel to sergeant, from soldier to settler.

• Emily D. West wasn’t a song lyric—she was a strategic variable in the chaos of war.

• Countless unnamed Black dispatchers, scouts, and spies changed the shape of battlefields without ever appearing in the official orders.

These were not extras in someone else’s story. They were authors of the outcome.

✊🏾 Conclusion: Dispatches from the Other Side of History

Gratz teaches us that Black loyalty was not presumed—it was proven. That freedom was not a gift—it was carried. And that Black soldiers didn’t just fight to end slavery—they fought to define what it meant to be American.

It’s time we place them not in the margins, but in the main text of our collective memory.

Let their names rise. Let their legacies speak.

“Black dispatchers helped win white wars—not by force alone, but by faith, by strategy, and by refusing to be invisible.”

🕊️ Published by Black Texans, Inc.

Preserving the Past. Proclaiming the Truth. Powering the Future.

Pastor Kyev P. Tatum, Sr., Publisher

New Mount Rose Missionary Baptist Church | Fort Worth, Texas

817-966-7625 | kptatum1@gmail.com