Wicked Local
It all came to a head in the spring of 1775 on the green at Lexington and bridge in Concord. Massachusetts militia and British troops fired the opening salvos in what would become the American Revolution, altering the course of history by forever changing the socio-politico-economic landscape of North America – and the world.
Plymouth’s native sons answered the call to arms to defend home and hearth from what they viewed as an oppressive regime, denying them the rights of liberty and self-determination. Four of those young men served with distinction through some of the fiercest battles: Bunker Hill, Trenton, Saratoga and Monmouth. One even survived the bitter cold of Valley Forge.
Introduction:
With the events that have taken place during 2020, it is important to look back over the events that have been pivotal in breaking down racial barriers. This discussion will investigate the numerous examples of black military service, with black Americans fighting in every United States conflict from the American War for Independence to the present day. It will also explore how the military valor of African Americans helped end limited martial involvement and segregated military service.
American Revolution to the Civil War:
Black service members have fought in every single American conflict. The United States Army History Office estimates around 5,000 warriors in the American Revolution were black.[1] These men served in the artillery (the most advanced branch of service during the period), the infantry, as laborers, and even musicians. One particular unit, the 1
Compiling his
Reminiscences in the final years of his life, the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) recalled how the coming of America’s Civil War had moved him. Saint-Gaudens had been an aspiring artist, aged 13, and a New York cameo-cutter’s apprentice when the war’s first shots were fired; from the lathe where he learned to cut lions, dogs, and horses into amethyst and malachite, he watched the Federal army gather. ‘From my window,’ he wrote, ‘I saw virtually the entire contingent of New England Volunteers on their way to the Civil War, a spectacle profoundly impressive, even to my youthful imagination.’ Amid strains of abolitionist song, and the marching of feet, one silhouette loomed in his memory: ‘above all, what remains in my mind is seeing in a procession the figure of a tall and very dark man, seeming entirely out of proportion in his height with the carriage in which he was driven, bowing to the crowds on each side. […] the man was Abraham Lin