The Flag Never Touched The Ground: William Carney at Battery Wagner

    The battle still raged at Battery Wagner as Captain Luis Emilio, the ranking surviving officer of the 54th Massachusetts, rallied the battered survivors of the failed charge behind a sand embankment. The regiment had suffered grievously: Colonel Shaw was missing and presumed dead, hundreds of men were missing, at least 50 more had returned with wounds ranging from the trivial to the ghastly, and the pride of the regiment, its state and national colors were missing. One of the color guards had managed to bring off the staff of the state colors, but the silk flag itself was missing.

Out of the gloom, the men of the regiment spied a man stumbling towards the line carrying a flag; to their surprise, they found that it was Sergeant William H. Carney of Co. C bringing back the national colors of the 54th through a hail of bullets and shells. The Virginia-born sergeant had been wounded once in the left hip, once in the right leg, once through the chest, once more through the right arm, and finally a bullet grazed his head. His blue uniform was riddled with bullet holes and soaked with blood, but he still grasped the colors firmly and his comrades broke into cheers once he presented the colors to Captain Emilio. “Boys, I only did my duty,” he said plainly. “The flag never touched the ground.”

In late 1892, Sergeant Carney wrote the following account to the National Tribune detailing his experiences at Fort Wagner in response to a prior article written by Sergeant Solomon C. Miller of Co. H of the 76th Pennsylvania, the Keystone Zouaves. Carney would be awarded the Medal of Honor on May 23, 1900 for his actions at Battery Wagner, the citation reading “when the color sergeant was shot down, this soldier grasped the flag, led the way to the parapet, and planted the colors thereon. When the troops fell back, he brought off the flag, under a fierce fire in which he was twice severely wounded.” Sergeant Carney was the first African American soldier to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

 

Sergeant William H. Carney posed with the colors he carried at Battery Wagner several months after the battle; note that he stands with a cane since he was still recovering from the multiple wounds he had received during the fight. Carney's heroism drew much notice from the eastern press and the 54th Massachusetts' new colonel Milton Littlefield sent a detailed account to Governor John Andrew of Massachusetts shortly after the battle. He was discharged for wounds June 30, 1864 at Morris Island, South Carolina and returned home to Massachusetts where he worked as a mail carrier and as a messenger in the Massachusetts State House. 

In an article speaking of the charge on Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863, Sergeant S.C. Miller of Co. H of the 76th Pennsylvania [Keystone Zouaves] says he was there on July 11th and on the 18th carrying the colors of his regiment which is all right. Then he also says he does not want to rob Sergeant Carney of his honors. I would like to ask the sergeant how near he got to the fort on the night of July 18 because I shall tell just how near I got.

While on the charge, he will remember that we came to the rifle pits where the pickets were stationed outside the fort and just after crossing the rifle pit, I found the national colors of my regiment unguarded; that is to say that the color sergeant [John Wall] had fallen into the rifle pit and as the regiment rushed on, he was trampled over so far as I know. I must submit that there was no time for investigation there at that time, and I did not attempt an investigation, but seeing the colors, I grabbed them and rushed on with my regiment and although the sergeant says no men reached the fort that night, I can describe the manner in which the 54th with Colonel Shaw, Carney, and the rest actually reached not near the slopes, but the ramparts of Fort Wagner. And I am sure that if he did not reach the fort that night, he did not get a chance to inspect it for three long months.

Now, on our charge we came to the slope that he speaks of and descended into the ditch. We crossed the ditch and ascended the upward slope and our men did actually reach the parapets of Wagner and were killed on the parapets and fell inside the fort when killed as did Colonel Shaw of which there is abundant proof, by both Federals and Confederates. I crossed the ditch with the flag and ascended the rising slope which was of sand until I came so near the top that I could reach it with my flag, and at this time the shot, grape, canister, and hand grenades, came in showers and the columns were leveled. I found myself the only man struggling and at this instant I halted on the slope, still holding the flag erect in my hand.

The charge of the 54th Massachusetts at Battery Wagner by artist Rick Reeves depicts Sergeant Carney carrying the colors upon the parapets of the fort. Colonel Littlefield later wrote that Carney "planted the flag on the parapet, lay down on the outer slope that he might get as much shelter as possible and there he remained for half an hour till the Second Brigade came up. He kept the colors flying until the second conflict was ended. When our forces retired, he followed, creeping on one knee, still holding up the flag. When he entered the field hospital where his wounded comrades were being brought in, they cheered him and the colors. Though nearly exhausted with the loss of blood, he said, "Boys, the old flag never touched the ground." 


In this position I remained quite a while, thinking that there were more to come, and that we had captured the fort. While in this position, I saw a company coming toward me on the ramparts of the fort and I thought they were Federal troops and raised my flag and shouted to them at the top of my voice, but before they saw me, I discovered by the light of a discharged cannon their flag to be that of the Confederates. Judge for yourselves how close I must have been to them on that dark night. But they did not see me, and I rolled my flag around the staff, remaining still in the position that I had held for quite a while and finding myself to be the only struggling man, as all around me, under me, and beside me were dead or dying and wounded. This was after the retreat for I did not hear the order to retreat.

This newspaper clipping from the July 25, 1863 edition of the Free South published in Beaufort, South Carolina shows William Carney as a patient in Hospital No. 6, also called the Negro Hospital then under charge of a Dr. Benton of Florida. "The wounded of the 54th Massachusetts reside here in a most cheerful condition. Their dreams are of Colonel Robert G. Shaw as he stood on the ramparts waving his sword with only one word of command sounding in their ears: onward my brave boys, onward! This hospital has 35 beds, all full. Female nurses as well as male attend here, relieved by the generous residents of Beaufort," the newspaper reported. 

I thought then I would try to get away as I saw no one standing erect but myself. I descended the slope in the ditch over the dead and dying, and the ditch that was dry half an hour before when I crossed it now comes up to my waist in water; but by the help of the Good Father, I struggled and crossed the ditch and crawled up the slope on my return. I still held the flag in my hand and reached the top of the slope going back. I had not been shot until I reached the place where I received a bullet in the left hip. I was not prostrated but continuing struggling to the rear, seeing no living man but myself moving.

When a little farther on, I was challenged by someone and upon answering he proved to be a man of the 100th New York. This man came to me. The sergeant speaks of the words spoken that night; I said many things that night that have never been printed, of them this. “Are you wounded?” I was asked and told him I was. “What flag is that you carry?” I told him the flag of the 54th Massachusetts. He said, “I am not wounded. I will help you down the beach.” He came to me and got on my wounded side and took me by the arm and said, “Let me carry the flag, you are pretty badly wounded.” I told him I would not give that flag to any living man save a member of the 54th Massachusetts.

Sergeant William Harvey Carney poses proudly with his Medal of Honor which he received in 1900. He lived to the age of 68, passing away on December 9, 1908 in Boston, Massachusetts. Sergeant Carney is buried at Oak Grove Cemetery in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

So, on we went until we reached the rear guard where we were halted and examined. The officer examined and found me wounded, and the other man he sent back to his regiment. The officer asked my number and regiment and passed me over to the Ambulance Corps with instructions to find my regiment which was done.

As I reached the remnant of my regiment, I tried to hurrah, in fact I did hurrah, and the boys hurrahed for the flag that had been brought back to them and the man that brought it. I said to them, “Let us go back to the fort.” And the officer in charge [Captain Luis Emilio] said “Sergeant, you have done enough. You are badly wounded, you had better keep quiet” or words to that effect when I replied, “I have only done my duty; the old flag never touched the ground.” It did not to the best of my knowledge while I had it, although I was struck twice after that.

This was on Saturday night probably at midnight on Morris Island and I lost myself; did not regain consciousness until Monday afternoon when I had been carried to the hospital at Beaufort, South Carolina. Now regarding the medal. I received a medal and if I had time, I would describe it fully. But suffice it to say this medal was lost at one time and found in the city of Boston, and when I went to obtain it, I carried it to a jeweler and had a patent fastener put on it. The deed I performed, the medal I have, and though it was but lead, I prize it as a diamond.

 

Source:

Account of Sergeant William H. Carney, Co. C, 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, National Tribune, January 5, 1893, pg. 4




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