BWoodse

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Sound like the makings of a good movie? Well, it just might be soon. And that movie will be based on the true-life

adventures of Sergeant Brent Woods, the only man in Pulaski County to receive the Medal of Honor, and only the

second black man in Kentucky to be so honored.

The First Piece of the Puzzle

It all started in 1980 when Western Kentucky University student Steve Carr, while researching old Army records

for black Medal of Honor recipients, came across an obscure name: Sergeant Brent Woods. The old records told

why and when Woods was awarded the Medal of Honor, and how long he served in the Army, but little else ...

except that he had listed his place of birth as Pulaski County, Kentucky. It was little enough to go on, but it was the

first piece of the puzzle.

A search through the Pulaski County courthouse records produced nothing. The historical society also proved to

be a dead end. In exasperation, Carr turned his information over to the Pulaski County courthouse and into the hands

of Peggy Whitaker. Whitaker, in turn, thought her friend Lorraine Smith would be interested and passed the information on to her.

A young man came into the office one day with a stack of papers this thick," Smith said, spreading her finger and thumb

about 3 inches apart, "and gave them to Peggy. She thought I might be interested in it, so she brought the folder to me.

" But Smith's job at that time as Somerset's Equal Employment Opportunity Officer kept her too busy to play detective, so

the file remained unopened on her desk for several months. Finally, able to set aside a little time one day, Smith flipped

open the folder thinking she would spend a few minutes with it and then get it out of her way. But as she read through the file, s

he became more and more interested, and those few minutes she'd set aside would eventually turn into nearly three years

of relentless research and work.

The Man in the Folder

Despite its thickness, the information Smith had in the folder was little enough. Born in 1855, Woods was a slave for the first 10 years of his life, until the end of the Civil War and the Thirteenth Amendment removed the bondage of slavery. At the age of 18, with few other opportunities open to a former slave, Woods traveled to Louisville and enlisted in the United States Army. Assigned to the all-black Company B of the Ninth Cavalry, he became part of the famed "Buffalo Soldiers." For 13 dollars a month, Woods and other Buffalo Soldiers sweated, bled and died in the Western lands. They fought Indians, protected settlers, escorted stages and wagons, laid thousands of miles of telegraph lines, and kept the peace in the lawless frontier towns, among numerous other duties. And making this job even more difficult was the fact that the very people they were trying to protect often hated the blue-coated black soldiers. The long years of slavery still left many whites believing that blacks couldn't do a job as effectively as a white man.

It didn't take long, however, for the black soldiers to prove themselves. Indeed, their adversaries, the Cheyenne, gave them the nickname "Buffalo Soldiers" in 1867 because their ferocity in battle reminded the Cheyenne of the fierce fighting ability of the buffalo. On August 19, 1881, Woods proved again that the comparison was fitting. While his patrol of 17 soldiers was leading a group of civilians out of dangerous territory, they were suddenly ambushed by Apaches in Gavilan Canyon, New Mexico. The troop's commander, Lt. G.W. Smith, and several others were killed instantly, and Woods himself was wounded in the arm. With their commander dead and the situation seemingly hopeless, many of the men began to panic. Knowing they would be picked off one by one if he didn't do something, Woods, despite his arm wound and facing superior numbers, fought his way to a high ridge where he conducted a one-man war until he forced the Indians to retreat.

Color barriers meant little on that day, and one white civilian saved by Woods'

unselfish action testified that, "If it had not been for him, none of us would have come out of that canyon."

Other testimonies were not hard to find, and Woods was recommended for the Medal of Honor.

Thirteen years later, on June 21, 1894, for "gallantry clearly beyond the call of duty," he was finally awarded

the medal he'd so clearly won long before. In 1902, after 28 years and nine months of service,

Woods finally retired from the Army.

Almost 90 years had elapsed since Woods had received his medal. It was believed that he had come back to

Pulaski County after retiring from the Army, and had probably even died there. But if Lorraine Smith had any notions

that following a 90-year-old trail would be easy, those thoughts were quickly abandoned.

"I literally walked miles talking to people, trying to find someone ? anyone ? that I thought might be a link to

Woods," Smith remembered. She talked to hundreds of "people-who-knew-people-who-might-know-someone" in search of a clue,

but with no luck. No one knew the name Brent Woods. It seemed that Pulaski County's most honored soldier was destined to remain

trapped in obscurity.

Then Smith was given another name: Professor G.P. Wilson, once the principal of Dunbar High School in Somerset. Tired,

and with little or no expectation of success, she called him anyway. But after only a few questions her weariness quickly left her.

Yes, he knew about Brent Woods. In fact, he was in possession of Woods' Medal of Honor. It was given to him by

Woods' widow, Pearl Woods Barber, who was currently residing in a nursing home in Somerset.

Things now moved forward quickly in the 90-year-old manhunt. After contacting Woods' widow, Smith learned that she was

too old and weak to take an active part in the project, but she dearly wanted a headstone placed on her husband's grave noting

his accomplishments. Smith wanted it too.

Barber told Smith that her husband was buried at the old Sinking Creek Baptist Church Cemetery. Smith promised she would

take Barber to the cemetery and let her point out her husband's grave site, but they would wait for spring.

"She was really sick," Smith recalled, "so I was waiting for the weather to get warmer so she could make the trip."

But early that spring Barber died.

Though Barber hadn't been able to point out the grave site herself, she had told Smith how to find it.

"She told me," Smith said, "that there was a big rock about 30 steps into the graveyard, and that he was

buried beside that rock." Making her way to the abandoned cemetery, Smith nervously marked off 30 steps f

rom the weed-covered entrance and stopped in front of a plain, rough rock. "Seeing that rock sent chills down

my spine," Smith recalled. "We'd finally found him."

The Puzzle Solved

With all of this information in hand, Smith thought it was time to get help. She went to the Somerset office of

U.S. Representative Harold "Hal" Rogers, and when he heard her story he declared that a simple headstone

would not be enough for such a distinguished soldier. As a veteran, Woods had been entitled to a military burial.

His remains would be moved to Mill Springs National Cemetery for reburial, complete with a full military funeral.

Before Woods' remains could be interred at Mill Springs Cemetery, his old grave site had to be dug up.

Smith pointed out the anonymous rock that marked Woods' grave for the coroner and stepped back to let him work.

Digging down, it was discovered that the cheap wooden coffin

Woods' final resting place in Mill Springs National Cemetery.

Woods was buried in had deteriorated, leaving nothing more than a

coffin-like outline in the soil surrounding the remains. Woods' remains were

quietly exhumed and moved to Mill Springs National Cemetery and interred there.

Next, plans to honor Woods' memory were soon underway. On October 28, 1984,

amid a swarm of state and national media, Smith was a guest of honor at a "Freedom Rally"

honoring Woods, with guest speakers Hal Rogers and Secretary of the Army John O. Marsh.

Finally, the "hero lost in history," as Rogers called Woods, was no longer lost.

That afternoon, under an overcast sky, Woods' new headstone, complete

with the gold lettering reserved for Medal of Honor recipients, was unveiled.

The man who had won this nation's highest honor and then died of paralysis in 1906,

forgotten and buried in a pauper's grave, was now placed in the most prestigious spot in the cemetery, next to the flagpole.

As the notes from a lone bugler drifted over the otherwise mute cemetery, Smith cried.

A Mysterious Letter

But Smith's connection with Woods still wasn't over. Feeling Woods' medal would be safer in the Hall of Heroes,

a floating museum aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid in New York Harbor, Smith turned the medal over to Rogers, who in turn

presented it to Don Jenkins, one of Kentucky's four living Medal of Honor recipients. Jenkins then presented it to

representatives from the U.S.S. Intrepid. Several people wrote Smith, angry that the medal was taken out of Pulaski County.

And one letter went a little further.

The writer, identified at the top of the letter simply as "One Who Knew Him," not only condemned Smith for letting Woods'

medal leave Pulaski County, but went on to furnish more information on Woods.

Claiming that Woods was born of a prominent white father and a slave mother, the letter also alleged that Woods was

buried beside his natural father prior to his removal to Mill Springs. Then the letter suggested that she research the Pulaski County

court records for more information.

The letter, signed "From One Who Knows," insinuates that perhaps the final chapter

of the Brent Woods story still remains to be told.