William B. Gould

William Benjamin Gould Sr. (November 18, 1837 – May 25, 1923) was a former enslaved person and veteran of the American Civil War, serving in the U.S. Navy. His diary is one of only a few written during the Civil War by a formerly enslaved person that has survived, and the only one by a formerly enslaved sailor. The story of his life has been chronicled by his great-grandson in his book Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor which annotates the diary and includes five additional chapters on the life and accomplishments of Gould.

Early life William B. Gould was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on November 18, 1837, to an enslaved woman, Elizabeth "Betsy" Moore, and Alexander Gould, an English-born resident of Granville County, NC. He was enslaved by Nicholas Nixon, a peanut planter On June 14, 2024, the House of Representatives as a whole voted to direct the Secretary to name a ship for Gould as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Diary of a Contraband Gould's diary was discovered 35 years after his death, in 1958, when his attic was being cleaned out.