If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive – even the promise of freedom. And the promise made must be kept.”
~ Abraham Lincoln to James C. Conkling, August 26, 1863
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Courtesy of U.S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, N.H.
Frederick Douglass said, “Who would be free themselves must strike the blow….” Though they comprised less than one percent of the North’s population, African-Americans who wore Union blue made up nearly one tenth of the Union forces. Despite unequal pay and treatment, some 180,000 African-American men served in the Army, another 18,000 in the Navy. Many more performed vital non-combat support functions, as did black women who served as nurses, scouts, or spies. Nearly 40,000 gave their lives.
The promise of freedom did not come easily. The end of slavery did not mean the end of prejudice and injustice. Many continued the struggle. Men like Lewis Hayden and Joshua B. Smith, ardent abolitionists before the war, later served in the Massachusetts legislature, and fought to preserve and expand hard-won freedoms. They, like countless other African-Americans through the nineteenth century and beyond, were prompted by the promise of freedom, and the belief that a promise made must be a promise kept.
Dedication of the Memorial to the Massachusetts 54th Infantry
In 1884, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, with funds raised by an interracial committee, was commissioned to create a memorial to the Massachusetts 54th. Twelve years later some 225 veterans of the state’s three black regiments assembled for the dedication ceremony.
Massachusetts Archives