From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (PIONEERS & PATRIOTS: Anderson County Military Servicemen, Revolutionary War - WWI)

John Mountjoy was born a slave in Anderson County about 1834. He remained a slave into adulthood; President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in states openly hostile toward the Union. Later in the war, however, the government called for the enlistment of colored regiments, and all who answered the call were granted immediate freedom.

Mountjoy therefore made his way to Camp Nelson to enlist and on March 1, 1865 was enrolled as a private in Company E of the 5th U.S. Colored Cavalry Regiment. At that time he testified that he was born in Anderson County about 1834.

Throughout the spring and early summer of 1865, the regiment saw duty at various posts in central Kentucky until August, 1865 when it was transferred to the Department of Arkansas. The regiment was engaged in that state against renegade groups until March 1866, then mustered out of the service at Helena, Arkansas March 20, 1866.