Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

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Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862–1867
enough or attacked with sufficient vigor to break through the Confederate lines
and occupy Richmond. 88
Sergeant Major Fleetwood’s terse diary entry, “Charged . . . at daylight and got
used up. Saved colors,” contained a catch phrase that could mean “took heavy casualties”
as well as “became depleted” or “exhausted.” A set of colors consisted of
one national flag and one distinctive regimental flag. When Sgt. Alfred B. Hilton,
carrying the national color of the 4th USCI, saw the regimental standard-bearer
shot, he picked up that flag, too, “and struggled forward with both . . . , until disabled
by a severe wound at the enemy’s inner line,” an officer wrote. Fleetwood
then took the national color, and Pvt. Charles Veal the regimental color, and they
carried them through the rest of the fight. On 6 April 1865, Fleetwood, Hilton,
and Veal were awarded Medals of Honor. Hilton’s was one of the few posthumous
awards in the nineteenth century; his wound necessitated amputation of his right
leg, and he died three weeks afterward. 89
Theirs were among twelve Medals of Honor earned by the men of Paine’s
division on 29 September. Sgt. Maj. Milton M. Holland, Sgt. Powhatan Beaty,
Sgt. James H. Bronson, and Sgt. Robert Pinn each received a medal for taking
command of a company of the 5th USCI when eight of the regiment’s officers
were wounded. In the middle of the battle, “we got mixed,” Pinn wrote in a letter
supporting Bronson’s pension application.
Bronson then personally in command of his Co. passed me I then saw . . . blood
on the calf of his left leg, . . . noticed that he limped and sup[p]orted himself on
his gun in answer to me he said he had been struck by a piece of a shell—This all
took place in less time than it takes to write it, there was no time then to more than
glance at a wounded man, as I was personally in command of my company and
was suffering severely from two wounds, was soon after wounded a third time. 90
In the 6th USCI, 1st Sgt. Alexander Kelly “seized the colors, which had fallen
near the enemy’s inner line . . . , raised them, and rallied the men, at a time of confusion
and a place of the greatest possible danger,” his citation read. Pvt. William H.
Barnes and 1st Sgt. Edward Ratcliff had been among the first men of Company C,
38th USCI, to enter the Confederate trenches in their part of the line. Pvt. James
Gardner of the 36th USCI “shot a rebel officer, who was on the parapet cheering his
men, and then ran him through with his bayonet.” In the same regiment, Cpl. Miles
James “loaded and discharged his piece with one hand” after being wounded in the
arm, “and urged his men forward . . . within 30 yards of the enemy’s works.” These
soldiers’ acts were of the kind for which most Medals of Honor were awarded during
88 OR, ser. 1, vol. 42, pt. 1, pp. 761, 767, 769, 772, 774, 793–94; Longacre, Army of Amateurs,
p. xi. A specimen of the Birney-Shaw controversy is William Birney, General William Birney’s
Answer to Libels Clandestinely Circulated by James Shaw, Jr. . . . (Washington, D.C.: privately
printed, 1878).
89 OR, ser. 1, vol. 42, pt. 3, p. 169; U.S. Department of the Army, The Medal of Honor of
the United States Army (Washington, D.C. Government Printing Office, 1948), 174–75; Butler
Correspondence, 5: 622.
90 OR, ser. 1, vol. 42, pt. 1, p. 136; R. A. Pinn to Commissioner of Pensions, 14 Mar 1883, in
Pension File SO343751, James H. Bronson, CWPAF.