Over a century ago, President Woodrow Wilson established Veterans Day to honor “the heroism of those who died in the country’s service” after the First World War. Wilson proclaimed that the day, originally called “Armistice Day” to mark the end of that war, should be a sign of the nation’s gratitude. In celebration of the country’s heroes, Americans left work early, marched in parades, and held public meetings. Within a decade, Congress made the day a national holiday with the goal of commemorating the veterans “to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”
President Dwight D. Eisenhower expanded the holiday in the wake of the Second World War. He called upon Americans to “solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly … to preserve our heritage of freedom” after the nation faced down fascism. He also called for the celebration to promote “an enduring peace,” which was particularly important after the planet had suffered yet another costly world war and had entered the nuclear age amid escalated Cold War tensions.
This year, as white nationalists continue disputing the fundamental role Black men and women have played in founding and sustaining American democracy, President Biden has an opportunity to reimagine this holiday once again, this time by honoring Black patriots who struggled for freedom on and off the battlefield during the Civil War.
The multi-Academy Award-winning film Glory helped to elevate a popular narrative of Black military service during the war. It showed Black soldiers of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts courageously storming Confederates at Battery Wagner. Although the regiment failed to take the enemy position, the soldiers battled boldly. They reminded the nation how heroic African Americans could be.
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These warriors came to embody Black Civil War service, if not African American patriotism. As the war raged, Sergeant Major Lewis Douglass of the Fifty-Fourth gloried in the regiment’s performance. After receiving wounds in the battle, he wrote his mother and father, Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass, “Our men fought like tigers.” He then assured them, “If I die tonight, I will not die a coward.” To publicize the men’s valor, his world-famous father reprinted the letter in Douglass’ Monthly.
Over a century later, then Secretary of State Colin Powell contended that the troopers personified African American patriotism. “Battery Wagner was not the first battle for Black troops, and it certainly would not be the last,” Powell said. “But it served as a gleaming example of their courage and their fortitude.” Two decades after that, President Barack Obama lauded such soldiers during the dedication of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. “We’ve buttoned up our Union Blues to join the fight for our freedom,” he intoned.
These combat-tested Black soldiers have symbolized selfless patriotism among Black Civil War troopers. But most Black Civil War soldiers never saw combat. Instead, they worked on U.S. fortifications, largely because officials believed Black men were better suited than white men for the arduous manual labor, or, since they hailed from the region, they guarded Union positions across the South. These duties may have not been glamorous. But they were essential to victory. And during their duties, the once-enslaved men struggled to make freedom meaningful.
Consider, for example, Private John Handy. Handy was a formerly enslaved Louisianan serving at Port Hudson, a fort Black Civil War soldiers famously assaulted in May 1863. However, Handy did not become a celebrated warrior. In 1863, Handy enlisted and shortly after met white Illinois soldiers eager to hire a cook. Unaware that leaving his regiment—even if he remained in the army’s employ—violated regulations, he traveled with the Midwesterners until the army arrested, tried, and imprisoned him for desertion in mid-1864. During his incarceration, he wrote to a general and called his sentence unjust, pointing to his prior enslavement.
He explained that he left because the Illinoians persuaded him to work for their regiment and, after a life in chains, he did not realize that leaving his regiment was a crime. “I have be[e]n a slave al[l] my life,” he wrote, and decamped not knowing the “regulations of the army.” He asked the general “ta forgive me” and “let me go ta my reg[imen]t.” Before closing, he vowed that he would serve the nation faithfully despite having been incarcerated by the army. “I promise you that I wil[l] be a good soldier,” he wrote. Two months later, an officer reviewed the letter and remitted the sentence. Handy returned to his regiment to fulfill his duties and keep his promise.
Recognition of soldiers like Handy would broaden our commemorations to encompass formerly enslaved men not often remembered but nonetheless important to Union victory.
Almost 135,000 of the nearly 180,000 Black U.S. Army soldiers escaped slavery prior to enlistment. For these formerly enslaved soldiers, military service therefore coincided with their first experiences in freedom. As a result, while the men underwent the hardships of service all soldiers weather during war, they also faced adversities that resulted from a life in bondage. Many also often worried over the safety of their families still in slavery. Such experiences defined the wartime struggle for freedom and taxed these soldiers.
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To cope with the rigors of war in the ranks, men took short breaks from service to exercise freedom. Men like Nathan Wright, an enslaved Mississippian (and paternal grandfather of novelist Richard Wright), returned home with his brothers to recuperate from an illness sweeping through his regiment. Like enslaved southerners before the war, the Wrights likely wished to receive care from women they trusted, so they returned home. They were not alone. Many formerly enslaved men hoping to recover from wounds or the war’s deadliest killer, disease, returned to the attention of wives, mothers, or Black female caregivers who remained in slavery.
During his service, William Hampton, a formerly enslaved Kentuckian, left camp to recover from “frosted feet” and to see his family. He returned to the plantation he had only months before escaped from to enlist. He planned to rejoin his regiment but was forced to remain on the farm to cultivate the season’s crops when his former enslaver threatened Hampton’s wife, who remained legally the white Kentuckian’s property. So, to protect his wife, Hampton helped the enslaver harvest rather than return to his regiment.
Mississippi-born Private David Washington escaped slavery months before enlisting as well, but he found discipline in the ranks too similar to life under a violent white overseer. After a white U.S. Army officer hung him by his thumbs, a painful punishment that irked Black and white soldiers alike, he ran from his regiment to break free from the brutality.
By decamping, these soldiers and thousands more pursued opportunities considered vital to liberation. They objected to life-threatening labor in the ranks following years of picking cotton whatever their health. They tended to wives and children after having no right to help their families during slavery. And they evaded white authorities who enforced remorseless discipline some soldiers equated to bondage.
The soldiers’ tribulations show that emancipation in the army was a process of becoming free. The men no doubt welcomed freedom, but freedom did not come at once or only during front-line sacrifices.
The travails of battling wartime diseases, the ongoing oppression inflicted on kin by enslavers, and the violent (and sometimes abusive) white officers within the ranks were a more consequential part of most Black soldiers’ day-to-day lives than combat heroism. Therefore, acknowledging the wartime sacrifices of formerly enslaved soldiers should be central to how we honor their service.
This November, President Biden should recognize that Black Civil War patriots fought everyday battles to become free. This would remind the nation yet again of the importance of peace as conflicts rage elsewhere. An expansion of this sort would also be especially fitting because the President points to the white nationalist rally where marchers espoused a vision of the past that actively disregards Black Americans’ sacrifices, as the reason he ran for the highest office and continues fighting hate at moment when it is on the rise. Commemorating the heroism of Black soldiers struggling to be free men as they served to end the Confederacy, the most concerted program of white supremacy in the nation’s history, would be an appropriate way to mark the last Veterans Day he is in office.
Jonathan Lande is assistant professor of history at Purdue University and author of Freedom Soldiers: The Emancipation of Black Soldiers in Civil War Camps, Courts, and Prisons (Oxford University Press, 2024).
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.
