An enlistment card for Henry Jones, whose former owner was named as Jefferson Higginbotham here. That Jones described his birthplace as Wilson County, rather than Edgecombe or Wayne or Johnston or Nash, suggests that he left the area after 1855 when the county was founded. Jones’ identification of a non-Wilson County resident as his enslaver further suggests that he was sold away, rather than ran away.

U.S. Colored Troops Military Service Records, 1863-1865 [database on-line], http://www.ancestry.com.