Josiah Thomas Walls was born a slave in Winchester, Virginia on December 30, 1842. He was conscripted by the Confederate Army and captured in Yorktown by Union forces in 1862. Walls then enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops Infantry Regiment in 1863 where he rose in rank to First Sergeant. Prior to his discharge from the Army in 1865, Walls married Helen Ferguson of Newnansville, Florida. After leaving the U.S. Army, Walls settled in Alachua County, Florida and became active in local politics. After passage of the U.S. Military Reconstruction Act of 1867, Walls joined the newly formed Republican Party in Florida. He was an elected delegate to the 1868 state constitutional conventions and shortly afterward was elected to the lower house of the State Legislature in 1868. He advanced to the State Senate representing the 13th District, which was mostly Alachua County, in 1869. First elected to the Congress in 1870, Josiah T. Walls became Florida...