During the assault on Fort Wagner in 1863, Sergeant William H. Carney of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry seized the American flag after its bearer fell. Though badly wounded, Carney carried the colors through the battle and refused to let them touch the ground.
Carney’s action was the earliest for which a Black American serviceman was awarded the Medal of Honor, although he did not receive it until 1900. Historian Elliott Drago shares the story of the formerly enslaved soldier whose courage became inseparable from the flag he protected.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
00:00:10
Speaker 1: And we continue with our American stories. Up next, the story of Army Sergeant William H. Carney, who became the first black American that have earned the Medal of Honor for protecting one of the United States’ greatest symbols during the Civil War, the American Flag. You to tell a story is the Jack Miller Center’s editorial officer and historian, Elliot Drago. The Jack Miller Center, by the way, is a nationwide network of scholars and teachers dedicated to educating the next generation about America’s founding principles and history. To learn more, visit Jackmillercenter dot org. Let’s take a listen.00:01:05
Speaker 2: William Carney heard a familiar voice roar forward fifty fourth. Dashing up the steep slope with sand chafing his arms, legs, and neck, he saw a bullet ridden flag flutter, beginning an agonizing plummet to the ground, throwing his rifle aside, He grabbed the stars and stripes before they landed on the gritty crest. Time stopped as he raised the flag as a monstrous rifle volley melted away the soldiers around him. He felt the heat of a lead ball careene through his thigh. Carney braced himself against the flag, ready to die, while rallying his friends to take the fort. Despite the danger around him, Sergeant William H. Carney of the fifty fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment survived, holding the flag aloft for one whole half hour on Fort Wagner’s power pit. William Henry Karney was born enslaved in Norfolk, Virginia, on February twenty ninth, eighteen forty. While his mother, Anne, was freed by her owner upon his death, his father, William Senior, remained enslaved to Sarah Twine of Old Point Comfort, Virginia. Twine promised to free her slaves in her will, but when she died in eighteen fifty seven, the high sheriff took them all to the auction block. William Senior escaped, making his way north via the underground railroad. He met with the black abolitionist and underground railroad conductor William still in Philadelphia, yet did not feel secure on the soil where the Declaration of Independence was written. Slave catchers proud the Philadelphia region, forcing the elder Carney to move to New York, though that city also had ruthless kidnapping gangs like Frederick Douglas. William Senior finally found safety in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he worked as a skilled laborer and coastal sailor and earned enough to emancipate the rest of his Enslaves family. Though not much as known of the younger Carney’s childhood, he later told a reporter that he attended a private and secret school led by a Norfolk minister who taught him how to read and write. Carney embraced the Gospel, and when he arrived in New Bedford as a young man, joined a church led by Reverend William Jackson, an underground railroad agent who would not only become the chaplain of the fifty fourth Massachusetts but also the first black man to be commissioned as an officer in the United States Army. Despite Carney’s strong inclination to join the ministry, the tug of the war inspired him to, in his words, serve my God by serving my country and my oppressed brothers, and so he enlisted in the fifty fourth Massachusetts in February eighteen sixty three. President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January first eighteen sixty three had already announced that black men could and would enlist in the United States Army and Navy. Many white Americans doubted their ability to fight, though by war’s end, over two hundred thousand black soldiers and sailors had joined the Union cause. Their statistics were mind boggling. Approximately three quarters of military age northern black men served, about half of them were former enslaved people from the Confederate States. Forty thousand black men lost their lives during the war. When Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew called for recruits, over one thousand black men responded, including two of Frederick Douglas’s sons, with many of these volunteers coming from the South and locales as distant as the Caribbean. Though Governor Andrew hoped to commission black officers for this new regiment, the fifty fourth Massachusetts, many viewed such a move as controversial, and therefore white officers led the black recruits. The governor selected the twenty five year old Colonel Robert Gould Shaw to command the fifty fourth. Born to a well healed Boston abolitionist family, Law was deeply moved by family friend Harriet Beecher Stowe’s uncle Tom’s cabin, and though initially reluctant to take command of the fifty fourth, he soon grew to respect the eager black recruits. Later, Shaw refused wages until his soldiers earned equal pay. The fifty fourth drilled outside of Boston, and on May twenty eighth, eighteen sixty three, they paraded through the city to bid the residents farewell. The parade passed the home of the famous abolitionist Wendell Phillips, where William Lloyd Garrison watched them. Crying with pride. Spectators thronged the streets of Boston, cheering the men on. At night, they left for the coast of South Carolina. Fast forward to early July eighteen sixty three, when Union forces began the siege of Charleston, the city that many Northerners blamed for starting the Civil War. The famous Fort Sumter loomed at the mouth of the city’s harbor, and Fort Wagner, situated on Morris Island, guarded the southern part of the harbor. Understanding the strategic necessity and morale boost of capturing Charleston, Union commanders soon concocted a plant Union forces would attack Morris Island from the south, take Fort Wagner, and then seize a battery on the northern tip of the island known as Cummings Point. The capture of Cummings Point would give the Union Navy the opportunity to level Fort Sumter and enter the port unmolested. On July tenth, Union forces captured the southern tip of Morris Island, but the next day Confederate forces prevented the taking of Fort Wagner. The fort itself boasted fourteen cannon, a massive bomb shelter for one thousand of the fort’s seventeen hundred defenders, and a moat ten feet wide and five feet deep. The Confederate forces stationed there prepared themselves for the next Union attack, which began with an eleven hour artillery barrage on July eighteenth. This bombardment was ineffective and the Confederates suffered few casualties. When the call was made for Union ground forces to take the foresk at dusk on July eighteenth, the fifty fourth Massachusetts led the way. One veteran of the battle described the beach in front of Fort Wagner as quote the fiery vortex of hell. The regiment surged through one of the narrowest points on the beach, effectively becoming a spear shaped massive men, with Colonel Shaw and the flag bearer at the tip, running over the dunes, wading through the moat, and now scaling the sandy ramparts. They watched as Shaw raised his sword atop the fort’s power pit, crying forward fifty fourth and then meet his death in a hail of gunfire. Carney did not wait to act after Shaw fell. He recovered the flag, held a rallying point on the sandy crest of the fort, and two hours later limped back to the field hospital. He refused to let anyone take the flag from him, and before he fainted from blood loss told the men around him, boys, the old flag never touched the ground. The Union forces failed to take Fort Wagner that day. The fifty fourth Massachusetts suffered heavy losses during the battle, and many of the survivors captured by the Confederates were given no quarter or sold into slavery. Shaw’s body was tossed into a mass grave alongside the brave Black Americans who fought and died with him. Those wounded in the battle evacuated to Beaufort, South Carolina the next day. According to the Free South, a Beaufort newspaper, the wounded of the fifty fourth Massachusetts came off the boat first. And as these sad evidences of the bravery and patriotism of the colored man passed through the lines of spectators, every heart seemed to be touched. And we will vouch for it that no word of scorn or contempt for the black soldiers will ever be heard from any who witnessed the site. In that moment, our volunteers saw suffering comrades in the black men, and the tender hand and wrong shoulder was extended as readily to them as to their farer compatriots. Nobody embodied bravery and patriotism more than Sergeant William H. Carney, an American whose wartime efforts epitomized the lengths to which one might strive to fulfill America’s founding ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. As a former enslaved man, Carney fought and bled for his nation in the hopes of securing freedom for all. For his valorous service to the United States, he became the first black American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, and as Carney humbly repeated throughout his life to anyone who asked about his actions at Fort Wagner, I only did my duty. The old flag never touched the ground.
Speaker 1: And we continue with our American stories. Up next, the story of Army Sergeant William H. Carney, who became the first black American that have earned the Medal of Honor for protecting one of the United States’ greatest symbols during the Civil War, the American Flag. You to tell a story is the Jack Miller Center’s editorial officer and historian, Elliot Drago. The Jack Miller Center, by the way, is a nationwide network of scholars and teachers dedicated to educating the next generation about America’s founding principles and history. To learn more, visit Jackmillercenter dot org. Let’s take a listen.00:01:05
Speaker 2: William Carney heard a familiar voice roar forward fifty fourth. Dashing up the steep slope with sand chafing his arms, legs, and neck, he saw a bullet ridden flag flutter, beginning an agonizing plummet to the ground, throwing his rifle aside, He grabbed the stars and stripes before they landed on the gritty crest. Time stopped as he raised the flag as a monstrous rifle volley melted away the soldiers around him. He felt the heat of a lead ball careene through his thigh. Carney braced himself against the flag, ready to die, while rallying his friends to take the fort. Despite the danger around him, Sergeant William H. Carney of the fifty fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment survived, holding the flag aloft for one whole half hour on Fort Wagner’s power pit. William Henry Karney was born enslaved in Norfolk, Virginia, on February twenty ninth, eighteen forty. While his mother, Anne, was freed by her owner upon his death, his father, William Senior, remained enslaved to Sarah Twine of Old Point Comfort, Virginia. Twine promised to free her slaves in her will, but when she died in eighteen fifty seven, the high sheriff took them all to the auction block. William Senior escaped, making his way north via the underground railroad. He met with the black abolitionist and underground railroad conductor William still in Philadelphia, yet did not feel secure on the soil where the Declaration of Independence was written. Slave catchers proud the Philadelphia region, forcing the elder Carney to move to New York, though that city also had ruthless kidnapping gangs like Frederick Douglas. William Senior finally found safety in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he worked as a skilled laborer and coastal sailor and earned enough to emancipate the rest of his Enslaves family. Though not much as known of the younger Carney’s childhood, he later told a reporter that he attended a private and secret school led by a Norfolk minister who taught him how to read and write. Carney embraced the Gospel, and when he arrived in New Bedford as a young man, joined a church led by Reverend William Jackson, an underground railroad agent who would not only become the chaplain of the fifty fourth Massachusetts but also the first black man to be commissioned as an officer in the United States Army. Despite Carney’s strong inclination to join the ministry, the tug of the war inspired him to, in his words, serve my God by serving my country and my oppressed brothers, and so he enlisted in the fifty fourth Massachusetts in February eighteen sixty three. President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January first eighteen sixty three had already announced that black men could and would enlist in the United States Army and Navy. Many white Americans doubted their ability to fight, though by war’s end, over two hundred thousand black soldiers and sailors had joined the Union cause. Their statistics were mind boggling. Approximately three quarters of military age northern black men served, about half of them were former enslaved people from the Confederate States. Forty thousand black men lost their lives during the war. When Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew called for recruits, over one thousand black men responded, including two of Frederick Douglas’s sons, with many of these volunteers coming from the South and locales as distant as the Caribbean. Though Governor Andrew hoped to commission black officers for this new regiment, the fifty fourth Massachusetts, many viewed such a move as controversial, and therefore white officers led the black recruits. The governor selected the twenty five year old Colonel Robert Gould Shaw to command the fifty fourth. Born to a well healed Boston abolitionist family, Law was deeply moved by family friend Harriet Beecher Stowe’s uncle Tom’s cabin, and though initially reluctant to take command of the fifty fourth, he soon grew to respect the eager black recruits. Later, Shaw refused wages until his soldiers earned equal pay. The fifty fourth drilled outside of Boston, and on May twenty eighth, eighteen sixty three, they paraded through the city to bid the residents farewell. The parade passed the home of the famous abolitionist Wendell Phillips, where William Lloyd Garrison watched them. Crying with pride. Spectators thronged the streets of Boston, cheering the men on. At night, they left for the coast of South Carolina. Fast forward to early July eighteen sixty three, when Union forces began the siege of Charleston, the city that many Northerners blamed for starting the Civil War. The famous Fort Sumter loomed at the mouth of the city’s harbor, and Fort Wagner, situated on Morris Island, guarded the southern part of the harbor. Understanding the strategic necessity and morale boost of capturing Charleston, Union commanders soon concocted a plant Union forces would attack Morris Island from the south, take Fort Wagner, and then seize a battery on the northern tip of the island known as Cummings Point. The capture of Cummings Point would give the Union Navy the opportunity to level Fort Sumter and enter the port unmolested. On July tenth, Union forces captured the southern tip of Morris Island, but the next day Confederate forces prevented the taking of Fort Wagner. The fort itself boasted fourteen cannon, a massive bomb shelter for one thousand of the fort’s seventeen hundred defenders, and a moat ten feet wide and five feet deep. The Confederate forces stationed there prepared themselves for the next Union attack, which began with an eleven hour artillery barrage on July eighteenth. This bombardment was ineffective and the Confederates suffered few casualties. When the call was made for Union ground forces to take the foresk at dusk on July eighteenth, the fifty fourth Massachusetts led the way. One veteran of the battle described the beach in front of Fort Wagner as quote the fiery vortex of hell. The regiment surged through one of the narrowest points on the beach, effectively becoming a spear shaped massive men, with Colonel Shaw and the flag bearer at the tip, running over the dunes, wading through the moat, and now scaling the sandy ramparts. They watched as Shaw raised his sword atop the fort’s power pit, crying forward fifty fourth and then meet his death in a hail of gunfire. Carney did not wait to act after Shaw fell. He recovered the flag, held a rallying point on the sandy crest of the fort, and two hours later limped back to the field hospital. He refused to let anyone take the flag from him, and before he fainted from blood loss told the men around him, boys, the old flag never touched the ground. The Union forces failed to take Fort Wagner that day. The fifty fourth Massachusetts suffered heavy losses during the battle, and many of the survivors captured by the Confederates were given no quarter or sold into slavery. Shaw’s body was tossed into a mass grave alongside the brave Black Americans who fought and died with him. Those wounded in the battle evacuated to Beaufort, South Carolina the next day. According to the Free South, a Beaufort newspaper, the wounded of the fifty fourth Massachusetts came off the boat first. And as these sad evidences of the bravery and patriotism of the colored man passed through the lines of spectators, every heart seemed to be touched. And we will vouch for it that no word of scorn or contempt for the black soldiers will ever be heard from any who witnessed the site. In that moment, our volunteers saw suffering comrades in the black men, and the tender hand and wrong shoulder was extended as readily to them as to their farer compatriots. Nobody embodied bravery and patriotism more than Sergeant William H. Carney, an American whose wartime efforts epitomized the lengths to which one might strive to fulfill America’s founding ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. As a former enslaved man, Carney fought and bled for his nation in the hopes of securing freedom for all. For his valorous service to the United States, he became the first black American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, and as Carney humbly repeated throughout his life to anyone who asked about his actions at Fort Wagner, I only did my duty. The old flag never touched the ground.
00:09:48
Speaker 1: And a beautiful job on the production, editing and storytelling by our own Greg Angler. In a special thanks to Jack Millicenter’s editorial officer and historian Elliot R. Trego. And the work that Jack Miller Center does around this country teaching and working with a nationwide network of scholars dedicated to educating the next generation of Americans on our founding principles in history. Well, it’s work that we applaud and celebrate, and you can find out more by going to Jackmillercenter dot org. And what a story a reminder by the way, that forty thousand Black Americans paid the ultimate price fighting to defend their freedom in the Civil War. That is a part of the story that is not told enough, the story of Army Sergeant William H. Carney, the first Black American to earn the Medal of Honor and for doing so by protecting the flag. Here on our American Stories
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