William H. Carney was the first African American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Civil War. He was born in 1840 in Norfolk, Virginia, to a slave father who escaped to the North via the Underground Railroad. The family settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, one of the major stops for fugitive slaves, and briefly the home of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Carney was working as a laborer when the war broke out. In February 1863, the Massachusetts governor John A. Andrew organized the first all-black regiment and called for volunteers. Carney and 39 other African Americans from New Bedford joined the 54TH Massachusetts Regiment. The New Bedford men were part of the 54th’s famed Company C.
Carney was selected to be a sergeant, one of the noncommissioned officers of the unit. After training near Boston, the 54th was sent to Hilton Head, South Carolina, to participate in the Union campaign to reduce the forts and batteries that protected Charleston. On the night of July 18, 1863, the Massachusetts Regiment led an assault on Fort Wagner, the main fortification that protected Charleston Harbor. Commanded by Col. Robert Gould Shaw, the 54th displayed great courage in battle. William H. Carney was one of the few to make it to the top of the fort, where he rescued the regimental flag from the dead color bearer. Injured three times, Carney survived the battle, and upon entering the field hospital for wounded men he told his comrades: “Boys, the old flag never touched the ground.”
The regiment saw further action in South Carolina and Florida before disbanding. Carney was officially discharged on June 30, 1864. He returned to New Bedford and worked as a mail carrier and later as an elevator operator in the Massachusetts State House. After the war, William H. Carney gave many speeches recounting his role in the battle of Fort Wagner. He became a symbol of African-American manliness and courage, and he was memorialized in paintings and sculpture. Carney’s Medal of Honor was awarded to him in May 1900, nearly 37 years after the attack on Fort Wagner. Carney died on December 9, 1908, in Boston, Massachusetts.
See also African-American regiments.
Further reading: Peter Burchard, One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965); Luis F. Emilio, A Brave Black Regiment: History of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (Boston: The Boston Book Co., 1894).
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