Ceremony Celebrates Black Soldiers’ Civil War Bravery

Black soldiers who braved cannon fire and bigotry during the Civil War were remembered by descendants Thursday as heroes who marched for freedom and equality.

A ceremony in the amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery was the first event in a three-day celebration leading to the dedication Saturday of a $2.6-million monument to the 208,943 black Union soldiers and their white officers.

As descendants of the troopers and supporters of the monument listened from marble benches, black men uniformed in the dark blue of the Union Army took turns reading citations of the dozens of black soldiers and sailors awarded the Medal of Honor during the war.

“They knew America was not a perfect country, but they had strong hopes that the flaws would mend one day,” said keynote speaker Willie L. Hensley, director of the Center for Minority Veterans in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“These were soldiers who would rather die fighting than die as slaves,” he said. “They fought for respect, for acceptance, for citizenship. . . . They were tested at every turn, in more than 40 major engagements. . . . And even as they fought, their relatives were being harassed, persecuted and even hanged.”

More than 37,000 black soldiers died in the Civil War, Hensley said. More than 4,000 are buried at Arlington under stones that bear the initials USCT for “U.S. Colored Troops.”

The central statue of the memorial, “Spirit of Freedom,” depicts the head of an advancing column of black soldiers. It will be unveiled at a site near Howard University in a predominantly black neighborhood.

The surrounding granite walls and metal plaques bearing the names of all black soldiers and sailors of the Civil war era are expected to be in place by Veterans Day, Nov. 11.