Sergeant William H. Carney Jr.: From Escaping Slavery to Saving the Flag at Fort Wagner

"The old flag never touched the ground." Sergeant William H. Carney Jr. said those words after carrying the 54th Massachusetts Regiment's flag out of the assault on Fort Wagner in South Carolina while wounded, and the National Park Service (NPS) says that for it he became the first African American recipient of the Medal of Honor. A story map from the NPS follows his whole life, from his birth into slavery to his funeral. This article follows its stops in order.

Born enslaved in Norfolk (1840)

William Carney Jr. was born enslaved in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1840. Little is known about his early life. He later said that at fourteen, when he had no work, he attended a private and secret school kept by a minister, and that at fifteen he embraced the gospel and also worked in the coasting trade with his father.

His father, William Carney Sr., was also enslaved and had been hired out for many years, supporting his family by oystering. When his enslaver, Sarah Twine, died in 1857, Carney Sr. escaped north. Twine had promised him and others freedom on her death but never made it official, which left them at risk of being sold. He went to Philadelphia and sought help from William Still, the Underground Railroad activist, then made his way to New Bedford, Massachusetts. Working with several ministers in New Bedford and Norfolk, he bought the freedom of his wife Nancy, who joined him in 1859. Several of their children followed by 1863. The eldest, William Jr., appears to have reached freedom earlier.

Norfolk, Virginia, where William Carney Jr. grew up. Credit: Charles Magnus, Library of Congress.

New Bedford

How Carney Jr. got to New Bedford is unclear. In 1863 one of his commanders asked him to write about his early life for Massachusetts Governor John Andrew. He described his father's escape in great detail but said only of himself that in 1856 he "left the sea for a time." Historian Kathryn Grover cites a newspaper article saying he came to New Bedford soon after his mother arrived there in 1859. Carney Jr. also gave a different account of how his mother gained her freedom and used a different last name for her. Grover suggests that with the war's outcome uncertain, he probably hid his true status, as other fugitives in the regiment did.

In New Bedford he worked as a jobber for stores and took what work he could find. He found community in a local church and considered the ministry. When Black regiments were raised in 1863, he explained, he decided he could best serve God by serving his country and his oppressed brothers, and he enlisted for the war.

Training at Camp Meigs

In February 1863 Carney enlisted for three years with many other men from New Bedford. They trained at Camp Meigs in Readville, Massachusetts, where the New Bedford men, about seventy-five of them, became Company C. They first took the name Morgan Guards, for a man who had helped raise them, then renamed themselves the Toussaint Guards after Toussaint L'Ouverture, leader of the Haitian Revolution. Historian Matthew J. Clavin argues the soldiers themselves probably chose the name. On March 30, 1863, Carney was promoted to sergeant.

Camp Meigs, the 54th Regiment's training camp. Credit: F. Moras, Library of Congress.

Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863

The 54th left Boston for the front in May 1863. Carney recalled a raid on Darien that captured supplies, then four days on James Island, and then the attack on Fort Wagner. The regiment was offered the lead in the first assault on the fort, a stronghold guarding Charleston, and accepted the dangerous mission despite exhaustion.

The 54th Regiment in combat at Fort Wagner. Credit: Currier & Ives, Library of Congress.

As the men rushed the embankment, Carney saw the flag fall, threw down his gun, grabbed the staff and ran for the head of the column. He ended up near the top of the embankment, alone, and lay low among the dead, planting the staff in the sand so the flag never dragged in the dust. He then crawled back, wounded in the leg by a musket ball. When an officer offered to carry the flag, he refused to give it to anyone not of the 54th Massachusetts. A shell fragment struck his head, but he stayed conscious and, with a comrade's help, reached his own lines and handed the flag to a lieutenant. He said he shouted, "The old flag never touched the ground."

One observer wrote that wounded men, Black and white, rose from the straw to cheer him until they could shout no more. Carney received the Gilmore Medal and later the Medal of Honor, and spent several months in a hospital in Beaufort, South Carolina.

The hospital in Beaufort where Carney recovered. Credit: Samuel A. Cooley, Library of Congress.

Life after the war

Carney returned to New Bedford on furlough in December 1863, got around with a crutch, and was discharged on June 20, 1864. On October 11, 1865, he married Susanna Williams, also from Norfolk. In 1866 he became New Bedford's Superintendent of Street Lamps. A descendant says he helped found one of the early Black churches in the city, now the Union Baptist Church, where he was choir master.

He worked for political change too. In 1865 he carried a banner at New Bedford's Fourth of July celebration reading "The hand that holds the musket should have the ballot." In 1867 he spoke in Brooklyn on "Reconstruction and the Right of Suffrage." He spent a few years in San Francisco in the late 1860s, apparently after gold, and sent money home.

From 1869 he was a letter carrier for the Postal Service for 32 years. A family friend remembered him leaving at six each morning and often working until seven or eight at night. He and his wife had a daughter, Clara, in June 1876, and she was educated at the New England Conservatory of Music. He collected china and loved music. He served as an officer of a Grand Army of the Republic post named for Colonel Robert G. Shaw, was Chief Marshal of a Black soldiers' reunion parade in Boston in 1887, and spoke at civic events across the 1890s and early 1900s. Historian David Blight called him, with Robert Smalls, the closest thing to a national Black war hero from the Civil War.

San Francisco, where Carney lived for a few years. Credit: Lawrence & Houseworth Collection, Library of Congress.

The Shaw Memorial and the end

On May 31, 1897, Carney marched with other veterans at the dedication of Augustus Saint-Gaudens' Robert Gould Shaw/54th Massachusetts Regiment Memorial on Boston Common. At a program at Boston Music Hall, Booker T. Washington wrote, Carney sat on the platform holding the flag. When Washington turned to address the surviving soldiers and mentioned him, Carney rose as if by instinct and raised it, and the audience for several minutes lost control of itself.

In 1901 Carney became Messenger to the Secretary of State for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 1908 a leg injury in a State House elevator accident ultimately killed him; he died on December 9, 1908, at City Hospital. The Boston Globe wrote that thousands of schoolchildren had heard him tell the story of Fort Wagner. He was buried at Oak Grove Cemetery in New Bedford, and the governor sent a large floral design in the shape of the state seal.

Sergeant Carney's grave in New Bedford. Credit: New Bedford Whaling National Historic Park.

Sources

• National Park Service, "The Old Flag Never Touched the Ground:" Sergeant William H. Carney Jr. Story Map; rewritten in hubnx's own words. Longer quotations from Carney, Washington and newspapers are paraphrased.