Gladstone, W. A. (1818) William A. Gladstone Afro-American Military Collection: Officer's pay voucher, 8th Regiment, United States Infantry, African-American servant, 27 July. [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mss83434005/.

pid
8thregimentpayment
label
Gladstone, W. A. (1818) William A. Gladstone Afro-American Military Collection: Officer's pay voucher, 8th Regiment, United States Infantry, African-American servant, 27 July. [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mss83434005/.
Timestamp
10/24/2021 16:55:07
URL for full object
https://www.loc.gov/resource/mss83434.005/?sp=2&r=-0.355,-0.007,1.643,0.714,0
Citation for full object
Gladstone, W. A. (1818) William A. Gladstone Afro-American Military Collection: Officer's pay voucher, 8th Regiment, United States Infantry, African-American servant, 27 July. [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mss83434005/.
Filename in shared drive folder
8thRegimentPayment
General description of the complete original artifact
This record is a payment voucher from the 8th regiment of the United States Army in 1818. The voucher includes various fields specifying information from the soldier as well as taking count of his time of service, last payment, and the amount he will be paid. The amount of the payment was calculated depending on different factors such as uniforms, forage, and substances as well as the number of servants. The voucher explicitly refers to “private servants (not soldiers)” referring to black members of the regiment and includes their payment in the general payment made to who he works for. The voucher includes a complete section with information about the private servants. In the table, there is general physical information about the servant including complexion, height, name, and where he was born.
Estimated number of records in data set
330
Estimated number of fields if this were a database
25
Estimated time to digitize all records in set (hours)
150
Time period when data was created
1818
Organization creating data
United States Army
Individual who created data (if known or guessable).
Charles B Tallmadge
Shortcomings of this taxonomy for data set (if any)
The record is concrete and very straightforward. It resembles modern grid calculators such as excel where total value is derived by multiplying variables in columns. It is easy to understand how the amount of the payment is obtained and see the different values from where it comes from.
Notes about the image you chose
It is difficult to understand exactly what the role of "Private Servants" was in the army, but from this artifact it can be inferred that they were black men who enlisted in the army as an extension or in name of their boss. In the table where the payment is calculated, the row representing the servant's payment is labeled as "Private Servants (not soldiers)". The payment voucher is not directed towards the "servants" it is a payment to someone who has "private servants" in the army. The sum of both of their earnings gives the total payment. There is a clear difference between both of their payment, as the officer earned 25 dollars per month, while a servant earned 3. Moreover, the voucher creates an explicit emphasis on "servants", having a whole section to identify them by physical features. The information filled out in this section uses various racial derogatory terms, further pushing the idea that "Private Servants" were not "respected soldiers" and were not treated with the same standard than the person actually receiving this payment voucher.