July 18 · This Day in America
At twilight on a narrow strip of South Carolina beach, the 54th Massachusetts steps off first. They are a Black regiment, free men and former slaves, paid less than white soldiers and told their courage was a question. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, twenty-five, draws his sword at the front and is killed on the parapet. His men reach the wall, fight hand to hand in the sand, and are driven back at terrible cost. The fort does not fall. But the doubt does. Sergeant William Carney carries the flag forward though shot through, and would say only that it never touched the ground. Newspapers North and South reported what these men did under fire. After Wagner, the argument over whether Black Americans would fight for the Union was finished. They already had, and the nation had watched.
Source: www.nps.gov
Also on this day · 1792
The man who answered a British demand to surrender with "I have not yet begun to fight" dies at forty-five, forgotten and unceremonious, in rented rooms in Paris. America's first great naval hero is buried in a small cemetery that France soon sells off. More than a century later an American ambassador hunts down the lost grave, and a fleet brings him home to a marble crypt at Annapolis, where midshipmen still pass him every day.
Source: www.usna.edu
“Boys, the old flag never touched the ground!”Sgt. William H. Carney, 54th Massachusetts, 1863