William H. Carney

William H. Carney was born enslaved in Norfolk, Virginia, on February 29, 1840. He reached Massachusetts as a free man and enlisted in the 54th. At Fort Wagner, when the color sergeant went down, Carney took the national flag, carried it to the wall, and brought it off again after he was shot. He told the men the colors had never touched the ground.

The Medal of Honor came in 1900 — late, and after white soldiers from the same war had already been decorated. The citation is in the record. So is the wound. This page will not add a speech he did not need.

He worked later as a letter carrier in New Bedford and died in Boston on December 9, 1908. He is buried in New Bedford. The flag story is easy to romanticize. The work was holding silk on a beach while a fort that would not fall shot the men around him.