Photo Essay - Black Medal of Honor Recipients
Courtesy of the Library of Congress/Daniel Murray Collection
William Henry Carney (c. 1900), Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment Sergeant and the first African-American to receive the Medal of Honor. The American flag saved by Carney during the 1863 assault on Fort Wagner, off the Charleston, South Carolina coast, is still displayed at Boston's Memorial Hall.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress/Daniel Murray Collection
Private Christian Abraham Fleetwood (c. 1900), Civil War veteran and Medal of Honor recipient "for bravery and coolness under fire at the Battle of New Market Heights (Chaffin's Farm), 29 and 30 September 1864". Fleetwood moved to Washington, D.C. after the Civil War, and along with his wife, Sarah Iridell Fleetwood, became one of the most important literary boosters among the city's black middle class.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress/Daniel Murray Collection
Powhatan Beaty (c. 1900), Sergeant of Company G, Fifth United States Colored Troop, and Medal of Honor recipient for his actions at the Battle of New Market Heights. An accomplished actor, Beaty became the director of the Literary and Dramatic Club of Cincinnati in 1888.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress/Daniel Murray Collection
Alexander Kelly (c. 1900), First Sergeant of Company F, Sixth United States Colored Troop, and Medal of Honor recipient for his actions at the Battle of New Market Heights. From Western Pennsylvania, the 5' 3" Kelly was a lifelong coal miner.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress/Daniel Murray Collection
Robert Pinn (c. 1900), First Sergeant of Company G, Fifth United States Colored Troop, and Medal of Honor recipient for his actions at the Battle of New Market Heights. Pinn, who was from Ohio, graduated with a law degree from Oberlin College after the war, and worked the rest of his life as a lawyer.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress/Daniel Murray Collection
"Buffalo soldier" and Medal of Honor recipient John Denny (c. 1900), acting Sergeant of Company C, Ninth Cavalry. In September 1879, under attack from a band of Apache warriors in the Las Animas Canyon (in present-day New Mexico), Denny—in defiance of orders to retreat—rescued a wounded private.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress/Daniel Murray Collection
Corporal Isaiah Mays (c. 1900), "Buffalo soldier" and second-in-command of an Army detachment charged with escorting a payroll wagon through the Arizona Territory in May 1889. After an ambush by nearly 20 outlaws, the detachment was forced to retreat, and the entire payroll was lost. During the firefight Mays was hit in both legs, and was forced to crawl two miles to muster help.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress/Daniel Murray Collection
Thomas Shaw (c. 1900), Sergeant of Company K, Ninth Cavalry. Like many black soldiers after the Civil War, Shaw's military career was largely spent in pursuit of the various Indian tribes resisting the expansion of the United States into western Territories. A skilled sharpshooter, Shaw was awarded the Medal of Honor for his conduct in August 1881. In a particularly fierce battle in Carrizo Canyon, his company faced down an assault led by the fabled Apache chief Nana.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress/Daniel Murray Collection
Dennis Bell (c. 1900). Soon after the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Bell, a member of the 10th Cavalry regiment, was sent to Cuba to provide support to insurgents. Though an initial raid was able to make it ashore at Tayabacao, subsequent assaults were unable to land, leaving a number of American soldiers stranded. Bell, along with three other black soldiers (and co-Medal of Honor recipients), took on severe fire but was ultimately able to retrieve the soldiers.
Courtesy of the Associated Press/Ruth Fremson
In a brutal, nearly two day-long assault that brought his platoon's casualty rate to sixty percent, Vernon Baker helped cleared out multiple German positions in the mountains of Italy, just miles from the Gothic Line. For his actions in World War II Baker was awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and Distinguished Service Cross, but it would not be until 1997 that Baker, Second Lieutenant of the 360th Regimental Combat Team of the 92nd Infantry Division, would receive the Medal of Honor.
Courtesy of the Associated Press/St. Petersburg Times
761st Tank Battalion Sergeant Ruben Rivers was killed in November 1944, after his tank was shelled in northeastern France. A vital part of General George Patton's Saar Campaign, Rivers had already been awarded the Silver Star before his death. Rivers did not receive the Medal of Honor, however, until a Congressional review commissioned in the 1990s determined that he had been overlooked.
Courtesy of the U.S. Army Medical Department Office of Medical History
A combat medic serving with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, Lawrence Joel helped slow a ferocious attack in the hills close to Saigon. On a search and destroy mission in November 1965, Joel's unit came under Viet Cong fire that lasted 24 hours, and by the end, killed 48 U.S. soldiers. Joel was wounded by machine gun fire multiple times, but was still able to attend to other wounded soldiers, earning him the Medal Honor less than two years later.