William Saunders Crowdy (August 11, 1847 – August 4, 1908) was an American soldier, preacher, entrepreneur, theologian, and pastor. As one of the earliest Black Hebrew Israelites in the United States, he established the Church of God and Saints of Christ in 1896 after he claimed to have had visions telling him "That blacks were descendants of the twelve lost tribes of Israel." Early life In 1847, William Saunders Crowdy was born into slavery at the Chilsy Hills Farm, a plantation in Charlotte Hall, Maryland. His father was Basil Crowdy, a deeply religious man who oversaw the drying of clay for the plantation's brick kiln. His mother, Sarah Ann, was a cook, which often got her access to the "big house" despite her status as a slave. Crowdy was originally called "Wilson" by his overseer. Crowdy was born in a one-room slave cabin near the Patuxent River in the middle of a violent nighttime thunderstorm. Crowdy lived his early life in bondage working first by milking the plantation owner's cows. As he grew older he was assigned by the slave overseer to tend the plantation's melon patch, and then to work as a stable boy and tobacco drier. Plantation life during the 19th Century was hard, Crowdy's overseer would punish slaves brutally. Despite it being illegal for slaves to read, Crowdy was a religious and caring man from a young age and learned about the Hebrew prophets, especially Elijah. According to oral history Crowdy was beaten by the slavemaster at age 7 for taking too much cornpone from the ration cook to feed his sister. He spent the night locked in a barn for punishment but prayed to Moses to be released from bondage of his captors. Ten years to the day later, in 1863, at age 17, Crowdy escaped from his master after an argument. Crowdy shed the name Wilson, regarding it as a slave name, and became William, which he then used to enlist in the Union Army. He immediately took a job as quartermaster's cook. He joined the United States Colored Troops 19th Regiment of Maryland along with his half-brother Daniel. Military career Crowdy's unit was raised at Benedict, Maryland on December 19, 1863, when the United States Government offered compensation to his enslavers for his freedom to fight. During the Civil War the 19th Regiment USCT fought at the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864. Crowdy