Rodney Long

Biography

Rodney Long was an American Civil War soldier and public official who served as a sergeant in the 29th United States Colored Infantry and later became one of the earliest African American police officers in Chicago. He was wounded and captured during the Battle of the Crater in 1864, survived months of imprisonment at Danville Prison, and returned to Union service before the end of the war. In the postwar period, he joined the Chicago Police Department, where contemporary newspapers and later historians described him as a detective and identified him as either the city's first or second Black police officer.

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