: American National Biography Online

: Carney, William Harvey (1840-after 1901), Union army sergeant
: and first African American awarded the Congressional Medal of
: Honor, was born in Norfolk, Virginia, the son of William Carney
: and Ann, a former slave. Little is known of his early years.
: As a young boy he expressed an interest in the ministry, and
: at the age of fourteen, in 1854, he attended a covertly run school
: under the tutelage of a local minister. Later he moved to New
: Bedford, Massachusetts, where he took odd jobs in the hope of
: saving sufficient funds to acquire his religious training.

: In 1862, despite strong opposition, Abraham Lincoln signed a
: bill authorizing the recruitment of African-American troops.
: Parties attempting to suppress the bill argued that African
: Americans
: were incapable of being trained, that in battle they would cower
: from the enemy, and that arming them was tantamount to giving
: them the means for insurrection. In January 1863 Governor John
: Andrew of Massachusetts was authorized to raise a regiment of
: African Americans. Since the African-American community was
: relatively
: small in that state, recruiters also turned to enlisting men
: from other states. It took some time to convince enough African
: Americans to enlist, given the availability of employment in
: the North for African Americans, the threat of being put to death
: by the Confederate army if they were captured as Union soldiers,
: and the fact that they would have to serve under white commissioned
: officers. With such prominent individuals as Frederick Douglass,
: William Lloyd Garrison, and Wendell Phillips acting as recruiting
: agents, by the end of April the ranks of the Fifty-fourth
: Massachusetts
: Regiment were filled, and Governor Andrew began securing men
: to fill the Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment. In February 1863
: Lieutenant James W. Grace, a businessman turned recruiting agent,
: opened a recruiting office in New Bedford, a town considered
: ideal for enlisting suitable men because of the large community
: of educated African Americans residing there. That year, at the
: age of twenty-three, Carney joined the Morgan Guards, which
: eventually
: became Company C of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment rather
: than a separate regiment. Evidently Carney was viewed as having
: strong potential, for when the New Bedford enlistees left for
: camp he was listed on the roster with the rank of sergeant.

: Within two months of active duty, Carney participated in one
: of the bloodiest battles witnessed by African-American soldiers
: during the Civil War, the assault of 18 July 1863 on Fort Wagner
: on Morris Island near Charleston, South Carolina. Two days prior
: to the assault, the men of the Fifty-fourth were first put to
: the test, seeing action on James Island, South Carolina. Under
: heavy fire they came to the aid of the Tenth Connecticut Regiment,
: possibly saving three companies from total annihilation by the
: Confederate forces. The unwavering front of African Americans
: coupled with the shower of mortar from the Union navy forced
: the enemy to retreat. The performance of the African-American
: regiment impressed General Alfred H. Terry, commander of the
: 4,000-man division, and as the Union troops withdrew, the
: Fifty-fourth
: received its orders to proceed to Morris Island, which controlled
: the harbor entrance to Charleston.

: From its inception, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Colored
: Infantry,
: under the command of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the scion of
: a wealthy Boston merchant family, had to prove itself worthy
: of entering the battlefield in Union blues. Thus, even though
: they had been deprived of sleep, food, and water for several
: days, Shaw volunteered his men to lead the charge on the bastion,
: a mission that exacted a terrible toll because of the lack of
: normal assault preparation. Although open at the rear, Fort Wagner,
: or Battery Wagner, was only approachable from the south and
: presented
: a formidable structure. Equipped with sixteen to twenty guns
: mounted on the ramparts, its bombproof interior could house an
: entire regiment of men. Moreover it had artillery support from
: other Confederate strongholds nearby, including Fort Sumter,
: James Island, Sullivan's Island, and Fort Gregg. To compound
: the difficulties of an assault, any frontal invasion would
: encounter
: unfavorable terrain, with marshland on the left, sea and then
: sand stretching in front, and a ditch that forced men advancing
: from the right flank to wade through knee-high water.

: The Union orders were to take the fort by storm with the
: Fifty-fourth
: leading the way, followed closely by other units and aided by
: artillery support from the navy. Thus the men of the Fifty-fourth
: entered the battlefield, muskets loaded but not capped, bayonets
: fixed, only to find later that the 9th Maine, 10th Connecticut,
: 63d Ohio, and 48th and 100th New York were not in position to
: lead the second wave of the assault. At 7:45 p.m. on 18 July
: the assault unfolded as the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment,
: following the lead of Colonel Shaw, marched toward the fort.
: When the advancing line was within approximately two or three
: hundred yards of the perimeter, the Confederate troops opened
: up a barrage of fire, quickly bringing down the formation. Despite
: heavy casualties from shell and musket fire, the men of the
: Fifty-fourth
: pressed forward.

: Prior to the assault Brigadier General George C. Strong, the
: field commander for whom the battery was later renamed, had
: addressed
: the Fifty-fourth, telling the recruits to do honor to the nation.
: When he asked who would carry the national flag in case the color
: bearer fell in action, Shaw replied that he would. Shaw was one
: of the first to reach the summit, but as he raised his sword
: to rally his men on, shouting "Forward, Fifty-fourth," he
: was
: fatally struck in the chest. At the same time the color sergeant,
: John Wall, who was carrying the flag, also began to fall. Carney
: was close enough to see both men start to topple, and he heroically
: commandeered the colors and prevented the flag from falling to
: the ground. Despite wounds in both legs, his chest, and his right
: arm, he determinedly forged ahead, clutching the flag, which
: he planted on the crest next to the regimental colors. He managed
: to keep it aloft even as he lay on the outer slope surrounded
: by a hail of bullets. The lines of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts
: were decimated by the time a second charge of reinforcements
: reached them. Only then was Carney able to creep back to friendly
: lines, albeit on one knee, still determined to protect the colors.
: When he eventually staggered into a hospital tent, he collapsed,
: uttering the words, "Boys, the old flag never touched the
: ground."

: For his act of courage, Sergeant Carney was one of four soldiers
: from the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts who received the Gilmore
: Medal, and he was the first African American awarded the
: Congressional
: Medal of Honor. The citation of the latter read, "For
: conspicuous
: gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life, above and beyond
: the call of duty, in action involving actual conflict with an
: opposing armed force."

: When Carney was discharged from the army in 1864, he returned
: to New Bedford, Massachusetts. After spending some time at home
: he moved, for no known reason, to California. He returned to
: New Bedford in 1870. For the remainder of his years he resided
: in Massachusetts, where he worked as one of four African-American
: letter carriers, retiring in 1901 after thirty-one years of
: service.
: Following his retirement from the postal service he worked as
: a state employee in Boston. He died probably in Boston.

: Carney's home in Norfolk, Virginia, is a historic site, officially
: known as the "Sergeant Carney Memorial House." The
: American flag
: saved by Carney resides in Memorial Hall, Boston, Massachusetts,
: and his features are enshrined on Boston Common in the monument
: sculpted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens that pays tribute to Colonel
: Shaw and his warriors.

: Bibliography

: Two informative biographical sketches of Sergeant Carney are
: in Robert Ewell Greene, Black Defenders of America 1775-1973: A
: Reference and Pictorial History (1974), and Wilhelmena S.
: Robinson,
: Historical Negro Biographies (1970). Descriptions of the assault
: on Fort Wagner are in Luis F. Emilio, A Brave Black Regiment:
: History of the Fifty-fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer
: Infantry, 1863-1865 (1894); Corporal James Henry Gooding, On
: the Altar of Freedom: A Black Soldier's Civil War Letters from
: the Front (1991); Hondon B. Hargrove, Black Union Soldiers in
: the Civil War (1988); and Charles H. Wesley and Patricia W. Romero,
: Negro Americans in the Civil War: From Slavery to Citizenship
: (1967). The best depiction of the history and struggles of the
: Fifty-fourth Regiment is in the feature film Glory (1989), based
: partially on Peter Burchard, One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw
: and His Brave Black Regiment (1965).

: Dalyce Newby

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: Citation: Dalyce Newby. "Carney, William Harvey";
: http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-00207.html ;
: American National Biography Online Feb. 2000.
: Access Date: Copyright (c) 2000 American Council of Learned
: Societies. Published
: by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

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