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Updated: March 7, 2025
When the orator turned to the coloured soldiers on the platform, to the colour-bearer of Fort Wagner, who smilingly bore still the flag he had never lowered even when wounded, and said, "To you, to the scarred and scattered remnants of the Fifty-fourth, who, with empty sleeve and wanting leg, have honoured this occasion with your presence, to you, your commander is not dead.
"Now Pennsylvania Bucktails, you're making history! Do your durndest!" "Close ranks!" shouted the officer of the 58th. "Close ranks! Forward!" There came a withering volley. The second colour-bearer sank; a third seized the standard. Another officer was down; there were gaps in the ranks and under feet the wounded. The regiment wavered.
While the echoes were yet thundering, burst a fierce volley from all the Confederate short rifles. Down went the Federal colour-bearer, down went other troopers in the front rank, down went the great gaunt horse beneath the Englishman! Those behind could not at once check their headlong gallop; they surged upon and over the fallen. The Blakeley blazed again and the grey carbines rang.
Among those on the platform was Sergeant William H. Carney, of New Bedford, Mass., the brave coloured officer who was the colour-bearer at Fort Wagner and held the American flag. In spite of the fact that a large part of his regiment was killed, he escaped, and exclaimed, after the battle was over, "The old flag never touched the ground."
But as the Royals dashed in, "the head of the column was seized with a panic, gave us a fire which brought down about twenty men, then went instantly about and endeavoured to regain the opposite side of the hedges; but we were upon and amongst them, and had nothing to do but press them down the slope." So wrote Captain Clark Kennedy, who sabred the French colour-bearer and captured the eagle.
Again the earthwork blazed and rang, and again the colour-bearer fell, pitching forward, shot through the heart. Billy Maydew caught the colours. "Thar's a durned sharpshooter a-settin' in that thar tree! Dave, you pick him off." Again the bank blazed. A western regiment was behind it, a regiment of hunters and marksmen.
But as the Royals dashed in, "the head of the column was seized with a panic, gave us a fire which brought down about twenty men, then went instantly about and endeavoured to regain the opposite side of the hedges; but we were upon and amongst them, and had nothing to do but press them down the slope." So wrote Captain Clark Kennedy, who sabred the French colour-bearer and captured the eagle.
Before it stretched a long bank of springtime turf, a natural breastwork seized by the blue soldiers as the stone fence on the left had been taken by Fulkerson. From behind this now came a line of leaping flame. Several of the grey fell, among them the colour-bearer. The man nearest snatched the staff.
Next time he runs he's going to get all the votes " The regiment tried twice to pass the abattis, but each time fell back. The brigadier had ordered it not to fire until it was past the trees; it obeyed, but sulkily enough. Men were dropping; the colour-bearer went down. There was an outcry. "Colonel! we can't stand this! We'll all get killed before we fire a shot!
All these figures stood out against it, soldiers with their muskets, colour-bearer with furled colours, officers on foot, officers on horseback, guns, caissons, gunners, horses, forges, ordnance wagons, commissary van, main body and rear, an army against the daybreak sky. "Well, if ever I saw the like of that!" breathed the orderly. "What d'ye reckon it means, sir?"
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