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(suspenseful music)
- [Kareem] When it comes to American history,
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
I would almost guarantee
that no four years has been studied, debated,
and picked apart more than 1861 through 1865,
The Civil War.
(explosion booms)
While the Revolutionary War created the concept of America,
the Civil War defined the reality
of a democracy. (uplifting music)
There were so many courageous African-Americans involved
in this crucial conflict whose bravery deserves all
of our recognition.
(dramatic music)
By taking a closer look at these black patriots
of the Civil War,
my hope is that we can come to understand
that these heroic African-Americans
are part of a history we all share.
(dramatic music)
I remember history books when I was in grade school.
black Americans were only mentioned
in the context of slavery and civil rights.
Nothing else was ever acknowledged
about what we've contributed to America.
(suspenseful music)
Almost 200,000 blacks were involved in the Union Army.
They helped the Union win the Civil War.
If the role that African-Americans have played is
not acknowledged, then our worthlessness is proven
by that idea.
We helped make this nation.
It's 1783 and the end of the Revolutionary War
sees a new nation break free
from the shackles of British tyranny.
(draatic music)
But for hundreds of thousands of African-Americans,
the struggle for freedom is far from over.
In America's South, a new cash crop emerges.
- By the 1780s, 1790s, early 1800s,
cotton finds its way to the United States.
And with cotton comes the expansion of slavery.
(suspenseful music)
- It was the one commodity
in the United States that did nothing but rise in value.
The one assurance of making money was to acquire slaves.
- And so really there's a Northern sphere of influence
that became free, while there was a Southern sphere
that was unwilling to even imagine life without slavery.
(dramatic music)
- The disputes over slavery
would simmer for decades,
until Americans finally turned against each other.
American cotton growers were the richest people
per capita at that point,
and the value in slaves was probably
in the billions of dollars.
Abolitionists thought it was a crime
what was being done to people of African descent.
So somebody was going to have
to give a very strongly held position
and a war was fought over it.
(cannons booming) (men shouting)
As the war officially breaks out
in South Carolina on April 12th, 1861,
free black men rush to volunteer with the Union forces.
But President Abraham Lincoln is steadfast
in keeping them out of the fight.
(cannons booming)
- [John] The first aim as president was for Lincoln
to preserve the nation, to prevent the upper South,
the other slave states, from seceding
and lure the seceded states back into the Union.
- He opposed slavery, but he did not want
to interfere with slavery where it existed in the South.
He was not someone who advocated
the forceful overthrow of slavery in the South.
- When the Civil War starts,
there's 4.3 million African-Americans living
in the United States.
3.9 million of them were enslaved.
- For African-Americans,
this war was about their freedom.
blacks knew what was happening with this conflict
and which side that they had to perform for.
(suspenseful music)
I first read about Robert Smalls in Benjamin Quarles's book
about African-Americans in the Civil War.
This story really represents anything that you can say
about all of the slaves that freed themselves.
They weren't gonna wait for the Union Army
or someone to come and give them their freedom.
They were gonna take it.
(suspenseful music)
- Robert Smalls was born a slave
in Beaufort, South Carolina,
but eventually becomes a pilot
around the port of Charleston.
When the Civil War begins, Robert Smalls finds himself
as the pilot of a Confederate ship, the Planter,
and they rely on his skills
to pick up supplies and ammunition and guns.
- Remember, these slaves did everything.
This is the hardest thing for us to wrap our heads around.
blacks were growing food.
They were piloting some of these ships, like Robert Smalls.
They were building the fortifications,
making arms and armaments.
(suspenseful music)
- [Kareem] By April of 1862,
the Union Navy began setting up blockades
along the coastline of Southern states,
including South Carolina.
(suspenseful music)
Tensions are high in the port city of Charleston.
Smalls, like so many enslaved people,
is haunted by the idea that his wife, Hannah,
and children might be sold
and the family split apart.
- Robert really started looking
for an opportunity to escape,
but as a father of two, including an infant,
the idea of them running by foot was nearly impossible.
- [Kareem] Determined not to lose his family,
Robert comes up with an extraordinary
and audacious plan:
steal the Confederate ship Planter and sail north.
- The captain of the ship was Charles Relyea.
He was short and stocky, like Robert was.
Relyea loved to wear a certain hat
and a light bulb went off for Robert Smalls.
He started thinking maybe
this is the way I can get my family to safety.
He would have to impersonate a white captain.
(suspenseful music)
- He has gotten word about where U.S. naval forces are.
He knows how to navigate that ship without any difficulty.
He knows who he can trust on that ship
to carry out this plan with him.
- If anyone found out,
there would be terrible punishments inflicted.
The potential of the family being sold,
obviously physical harm.
- [Kareem] On May 13th, 1862,
Robert Smalls gets the chance to execute his bold plan.
- Robert and the crew learned
that two of the white officers were going
to be in town that evening,
despite being against Confederate orders.
They were not supposed to leave the steamer
in the hands of the enslaved crew.
- I think there was a certain amount
of confidence and arrogance that went
with leaving enslaved people in charge of the Planter.
- [Kareem] Robert Smalls and his crew
wait until darkness falls.
Around 3:00 AM, Smalls, quietly steers the Planter out
of Charleston Harbor, stopping first
to pick up family members hiding nearby.
- The likelihood of this actually succeeding
was very small.
They knew that they were either going
to escape or die that night.
(suspenseful music)
- [Kareem] Before sunrise, Smalls will need
to pass undetected
through four heavily-armed Confederate checkpoints.
Castle Pinckney,
Fort Ripley,
Fort Johnson,
and Fort Sumter.
As Smalls comes upon the first
of four heavily-armed Confederate checkpoints,
he has to pass himself off as a white officer.
(suspenseful music)
- The moon was the exact level that they needed
to have enough light,
but not enough to showcase Robert's face.
Robert knew all the right signals to give
to the various forts as they passed.
- But there's also a certain amount of bravado involved.
Robert actually dons the captain's hat.
He pretends to be him
and adopts his mannerisms and walks around on the deck.
They are fooled and they let them go by.
(suspenseful music)
- [Kareem] As daylight breaks, Robert Smalls, his family,
and his crew have made it through all four checkpoints
against the odds.
But on his way to freedom,
he still faces one final and deadly challenge.
(suspenseful music)
- [Kareem] In the predawn hours of May 13th, 1862,
after slipping past four Confederate forts,
Robert Smalls, his family, and crew face
the most dangerous threat in their daring escape to freedom:
a heavily armed Union blockade.
- It was a particularly risky move because they were
in a steamer that had a Confederate flag flying.
It was very possible that the Union fleet would assume
that they were trying to attack them.
Everything was on the line at this point.
- [Kareem] Robert's wife, Hannah,
pulls out a white bed sheet,
which they quickly hoist in place of the Confederate flag.
- The Union was preparing their guns to fire on the ship.
And just as the captain was about
to order all guns to go off, someone noticed a white flag.
- And they assume that it is a Confederate ship
coming to surrender.
What they didn't expect to see were enslaved people
steering and piloting this ship.
- Robert said, "Good morning, sir.
"I've brought you some of Lincoln's guns, sir."
- It was a time in which the Union Navy
was in desperate need of ships.
And this was a gun boat. (uplifting music)
- [Kareem] One with over 200 valuable rounds
of ammunition and guns.
(suspenseful music)
As the news of Robert Smalls's dramatic escape spreads
throughout the North,
his story helps to reshape an image of the enslaved.
- Lincoln hears of it.
The War Department hears of it.
- [Kareem] The navy enlists Smalls as a civilian pilot.
- Robert Smalls, he doesn't have to go to basic training.
He's been running this baby for almost a year and a half,
and he's showing the Union Navy
how to run down Confederate ships.
- When it came time
for someone to stand up and go out and fight,
black Americans were just waiting for the opportunity.
The increased manpower
of the Union Army gave them a tremendous advantage
on the battlefield.
(suspenseful music)
The first black volunteers to fight
in the Civil War really showed the willingness
of free blacks to go out and do what they could
to make our country what it was supposed to be.
(uplifting music) That's the story
of the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment
and William Matthews.
- William Matthews was born free in the late 1840s.
He settled in Baltimore,
but discriminatory laws made it hard
for him to make a living.
So he just decided, the heck with it.
I'm gonna go somewhere where, you know, I can be freer.
- [Kareem] Matthew settles in Kansas
and opens a boarding house,
which also serves as a station
on the Underground Railroad.
When Kansas Senator Jim Lane musters a black regiment
due to a shortage of eligible white soldiers,
Matthews is tapped to help with recruitment.
- Jim Lane decides to recruit black units
and he reports this to the War Department
and he gets responses, well, this has not been authorized,
but then he just goes ahead and does it anyway.
- [Erica] The 1st Kansas is unique
because it's organized in Kansas.
It is free black men who volunteer in 1862.
- [Gregory] Matthews was a wonderful recruiter.
He became kind of the animating spirit in the regiment.
- Matthews wanted to prove not only
that black soldiers could fight,
but that black officers could lead.
And he took it very personally
that his unit become highly trained,
highly experienced, the best trained company
in the regiment.
- [Kareem] Not only does Matthews raise enough men
to captain his own company,
but it is said he encouraged hundreds to enlist
across the 1st Kansas Colored Regiment.
This prepares the Kansas Army
with enough manpower to face the historic day
of October 29th, 1862,
when a band of Confederate guerrillas surrounds
their military headquarters on the Kansas-Missouri border,
called Fort Africa.
(men shouting)
- So 25 black soldiers or so chase after
some Confederate guerrillas,
and suddenly 130 guerrillas materialize.
(men shouting) (guns popping)
- [Kareem] The conflict becomes known
as the Battle of Island Mound
and marks the very first time black soldiers see combat
in the Civil War.
- They were outnumbered four or five to one.
These soldiers had single-shot muskets.
So once they fired,
they had only their bayonets to defend themselves.
And so the accounts describe men bayoneting
at Confederates, swinging their muskets as clubs.
This was a fight for survival.
Other members of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry arrived,
opened fire, and eventually drove the Confederates off.
(men shouting) (dramatic music)
- [Kareem] The entire engagement at Island Mound
is a small skirmish in the grand scheme of battles,
but the contributions of men like William Matthews
and the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteers
changes how black soldiers are now perceived.
- People who began advocating for black military service
used the victory at Island Mound as a real example.
Not only that blacks were willing to fight,
but they could fight and win and support the Union cause.
(suspenseful music)
- While the bravery of the 1st Kansas sent a message
that African Americans could have an impact
on the battlefield, an entirely different kind
of patriot was making an impact behind enemy lines.
(suspenseful music)
The willingness of black Americans
to confront their oppressor
and enslaver is pretty amazing.
The role of the black spy was very important
because the fact that the Southerners saw blacks
as inferior meant that they had no respect
for their intelligence.
So they didn't think that black people could gather
and remember information crucial to military matters.
It was just fine when black people
were looking over their shoulder when they're making plans.
Sometimes those plans ended up
in the hands of the Union Army.
(suspenseful music)
In 1911, Harper's Magazine publishes an amazing
and little-known story from the Civil War,
detailing one enslaved woman's journey that, if true,
may have been instrumental to turning the tide of the war.
- Over the past really few decades,
we've come to learn much more about this woman.
One of the things that was very interesting is
that she had many names,
both during the Civil War and after.
Like Mary Bowser or Richmonia Richards.
- [Keisha] She also went by the name of Mary Denman,
Mary Gavin, or Mary Jones.
- [Erica] But for the majority of her life,
she went by the name, Mary Richards.
- [Kareem] As a black woman in a slave-holding country,
she understandably needs to protect herself
and it's believed that her multiple names helped
to conceal her identity as a Union spy.
Mary was born in Richmond, Virginia around 1840,
and enslaved by the Van Lew family.
It's unclear whether they freed her,
but the Van Lews gave her the opportunity
to get an education in the North
and then sent her to Liberia to do missionary work.
On the Eve of the Civil War,
Mary comes back to Virginia and is arrested
for returning to a slave state after being freed.
- Elizabeth Van Lew makes arrangements
to have Mary released,
but the only way in which Mary would be released
was to reenter an arrangement of enslavement.
- [Kareem] But eventually Elizabeth and Mary
broker a partnership,
one that depends on Mary's education and wit.
Once the war starts, Elizabeth begins organizing one
of the most important Union spy rings
and Mary joins in on her plan.
And when Confederate president, Jefferson Davis,
moves to Richmond in 1861,
it's believed Mary finds herself in his home.
- A great deal of the business
of the Confederacy took place in his own home.
The moment she stepped foot in Jefferson Davis's house,
she knew that if her identity was revealed
that she would most certainly,
at the very least, be imprisoned.
Worse yet, sold further south.
She could be abused, raped, tortured.
She was putting her life in danger
for a nation that never quite saw her
or anyone like her as a human being.
- She was able to listen carefully to the conversations.
She was able to read documents that were lying around.
No one imagined that, one, a black woman would even know,
at the time, how to read or how to write.
And Mary was able to use all of these assumptions
to her advantage and to aid the Union Army.
- We know that information was passed
in ways that were discrete and quite genius.
Whether it was hemmed in her skirt
or located inside of hollowed out eggs
that were passed to other members of the spy network.
(suspenseful music)
- We are still uncovering key details about Mary,
but we know for sure that black men and women risked
their lives to spy on the Confederacy,
making significant contributions to the Union's progress.
Mary's story represents the wonderful way
that underdogs can win.
She was not seen to be any type of threat,
and yet her information made it possible
for the Union Army to prevail in this conflict.
(dramatic music)
But for the Union to win the war,
it will take more than individual acts of courage.
It will take an army with black soldiers
who will soon get the chance to fight
for their freedom and glory.
(gun explodes)
- Everybody who wanted to end the institution of slavery
realized that it wasn't gonna be ended without
an armed conflict.
It just wasn't going to end.
Frederick Douglass wanted Lincoln
to include black Americans in the army immediately.
He has a statement that he says, look,
if you want to change this situation,
just arm the slaves,
and it really forced Lincoln to contemplate
what was going on.
By the fall of 1862, more than a year into the war,
there are scattered African-American soldiers
helping the cause,
but they are mostly tasked with manual labor.
President Lincoln still won't officially recruit black men
to join the army because he fears
slave-holding border states,
like Kentucky and Maryland, will leave the Union.
It's a mindset influential abolitionist,
Frederick Douglass, knows has to change.
He is one of the most influential figures
in the Civil War,
even without donning a uniform.
- From the beginning of the war,
Douglass said the easiest way to win this war is
to free slaves and arm them.
It's something that took the Lincoln administration
quite a while to realize or to accept.
And it turns out Douglass was absolutely right.
- If you look at his editorials, he's very direct
about his critique of Abraham Lincoln.
He calls him out as someone who's weak.
He calls him out as someone who's failing the nation
- [Kareem] On January 1st, 1863, President Lincoln issues
the Emancipation Proclamation
that not only famously frees the enslaved in the South,
but marks the moment official recruitment
of black soldiers begins.
- Lincoln calls for the arming of blacks as soldiers,
and that's crucial because the arming of blacks
as soldiers reflects that blacks are now citizens.
- [Kareem] Just days after
the Emancipation Proclamation is issued,
abolitionists governor of Massachusetts, John Andrew,
starts raising a black regiment.
He asked Douglass to be a lead recruiter.
- To recruit black soldiers, Frederick Douglass had
this famous slogan:
"Men of color, to arms!
"Now or never."
- [Kareem] Hundreds of black men answered the call
to form the 54th Massachusetts Regiment.
- The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
was the first black regiment raised
by a Northern state east of the Mississippi.
- It's this grand abolition experiment in black soldiering
and in taking that anti-slavery war
into the heart of the south.
(suspenseful music)
- [Kareem] It's the first time
the U.S. Army officially recruits
and pays black soldiers on a massive scale.
- But when the time comes to muster them for pay,
they're told, well, the law says
that black soldiers won't receive the same amount of money
as white soldiers.
- White Union Army soldiers got $13 a month.
They ended up getting only $7 a month.
54th Massachusetts decided to protest this unequal pay
when they could ill afford to do so.
- Were not going to allow
themselves to be treated as
second-class citizens.
- [Kareem] Frederick Douglass is witnessing
this gross inequality and takes action
because it's not only wrong,
it's personal as well.
- For him, it's about making sure
that once his two sons, Charles and Lewis,
joined the 54th regiment, that they're treated fairly
and they're treated with respect.
It's something that he simply cannot ignore.
- There was still a remnant of racism.
People thought that blacks should not be paid
what whites should be paid,
when actually they taking the same risks.
(suspenseful music)
In August, 1863, Douglass travels to White House
and demands justice for black soldiers.
- Lincoln calls up Douglass ahead
of all the other whites in line.
Douglass says, I want you to pay black soldiers
the same as white soldiers.
- [Erica] Abraham Lincoln certainly listened
to him and engaged him.
- Lincoln said Congress needs to pass another act
that will pay them the same amount.
So he essentially defends himself.
They have an hour-long meeting
and they genuinely get along.
Douglass left and felt much better
about Lincoln as president.
- Frederick Douglass was, at the time,
the most significant voice in the black community.
And he's, in many ways, seeing the way that black people
are being continually mistreated,
even at the moment that they are serving their country.
- [Kareem] Throughout the war,
Douglass continues to hold president Lincoln accountable.
That same summer,
the 54th fights a battle that will solidify their legacy.
(guns popping) (men shouting)
- [Kareem] After months of training,
the 54th Massachusetts,
the Union's official first all-black regiment
is sent down to South Carolina near Fort Wagner.
Frederick Douglass' son, Charles, has fallen ill
and is unable to make the journey south.
His oldest son, Lewis, is promoted to Sergeant Major,
the highest ranking black soldier among the contingent.
On July 18, 1863, they're tasked with the mission
to conquer the fort, clearing a path to capture Charleston.
- Fort Wagner which is a really important fort,
because Confederates are ensconced in this fort.
If Union soldiers can take Fort Wagner,
then they can take Charleston,
the most important single city in the South.
- The 54th Massachusetts was marched to the sandy beach
leading to Fort Wagner.
The commander of the brigade, George Crockett Strong,
said, "I know you're tired, but is there any man here
who doubts he can sleep in that fort tonight?"
And 600 black soldiers, they all raised their hands said,
"No, no, we can do it!"
(gun shots firing)
- [Dr. Stauffer] To take Fort Wagner
requires the 54th Regiment
run up this steep hill while Confederates are
ensconced behind bulwarks and protection
who can fire down on the soldiers.
- The black troops advanced and they got to a point
about 200 yards from Fort Wagner
and according to one eyewitness at that point,
Wagner became a volcano of detonating death.
(loud explosions booming)
Sergeant Major Lewis Douglass, Frederick Douglass' oldest son,
will write his fiance that he saw exploding shells
clear spaces 20 feet wide in the ranks.
- They come close to taking Fort Wagner,
but they're turned back.
The casualties are very high.
(dramatic music)
- [Kareem] 40% of the 54th Regiment are either killed,
wounded, or captured.
Although the battle of Fort Wagner
is considered a Union loss,
the news of the 54th's bravery is heralded.
- This is just a couple of weeks after Gettysburg.
The 54th's self-emulation at Fort Wagner
is seen as an act of martyrdom.
- There was an important illustration of
the willingness of African American men to fight
and to die for their country.
A lot of people assume that
as soon as it got hot and heavy
and bullets started flying,
that they would retreat
and fall back.
And what they represented
was just the opposite,
a willingness to sacrifice themselves for a larger goal.
- [Kareem] That is how the 54th is remembered
from that moment on.
It's the first time the valor of black soldiers
enters the national consciousness.
- The 54th's legacy has been one of honor.
They went and did what they had to do
knowing that they were gonna take extreme casualties.
I think it prove once and for all
that they didn't have anything to worry about
with regard to the courage or determination
of the black soldier.
- [Kareem] On November 19th, 1863,
President Lincoln delivers a short but monumental speech
that becomes known as the Gettysburg Address.
(inspiring music)
- "Here we highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain.
That this nation under God
shall have a new birth of freedom
and that government of the people, by the people,
for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."
Now in saying this, Lincoln talks about reconciliation
and a new birth of freedom.
I think he's referring to black Americans,
and that their freedom will guarantee
that what our founding fathers envisioned
will last,
and that our nation will last until the end of time.
And that's something that we all hope will be a fact.
(melancholic music)
- He had seen the valor on the battlefield
and understood that now was the time
for this birth of new freedom
where every man, woman, and child
should have the right, the basic right to live their lives
as they intended and as God intended which was not slavery.
- [Kareem] But there is more blood to be shed
and work to be done before that freedom comes.
Leading the way is one of the most
famous African American heroes in history.
A woman called Moses who will charge head on into battle.
(dramatic music)
- Well I first learned about Harriet Tubman
when I was in grade school.
Most people know about Harriet in terms of her
being able to escape slavery, and then kept returning,
and freeing slaves,
but they didn't know that all of the things
that she was successful at, traveling,
the accumulation of knowledge,
her ability to talk to people
and just her stealthy skills were
what made her so valuable to the Northern cause.
- [Kareem] Fall 1862.
After spending nearly a decade
leading enslaved people to freedom
on the Underground Railroad, the woman dubbed Moses
once again risks life and limb
to combat the institution of slavery.
This time from the frontlines of war torn South Carolina.
- The governor of Massachusetts actually reached out
to Harriet Tubman, asked her if she would be willing
to travel towards South Carolina
on behalf of the Union Army.
- [Kareem] The army first assigns Harriet Tubman
to be a nurse and domestic worker
along with other formally enslaved people.
- She worked in the contraband camps,
teaching formally enslaved women
to wash military uniforms.
Then that earned her a spot of honor and respect.
(explosion booming)
- [Kareem] In late spring of 1863,
nearly six months after the
Emancipation Proclamation is issued,
the war is not going well for the North.
After the Union defeat at Chancellorsville,
it becomes clear to many, the Confederacy
still has the power to invade the North.
For the war-worn Union,
the time for unconventional strategies is now.
(crickets chirping)
Harriet Tubman is once again called upon to serve,
this time as a scout and spy.
Her mission?
To map the Confederate strongholds
along the waterways of South Carolina.
- She's primed and ready,
and she has a community of people willing to help her.
She begins to gather information about Confederate troops.
She slips in and out behind enemy lines
dressed as an older woman.
Then she learns delicate information
about the placement of naval mines
throughout the Combahee River.
(dramatic music)
- [Kareem] Armed with this information,
the Union Army has an even bigger assignment for Harriet.
To lead the 2nd South Carolina Colored Infantry
on the military raid to free enslaved people
along the Combahee River.
- In the early morning hours of June 2nd,
Harriet Tubman boarded a gun boat
and along with several other crafts
sailed slowly up the Combahee River.
(dramatic music)
This happened under the cloak of darkness
such that when they arrived,
they surprised the Confederates.
Things were set afire.
Confederates had no choice but to retreat.
- They had already been a land campaign
to let enslaved people know in the plantations
that bordered along the Combahee River
when and where to show up and to wait for the signs.
- As the Confederate soldiers retreated,
black men and women, those who were enslaved
gathered belongings, the things
that they could carry in their hands, chickens,
clothing, baskets of rice,
and they headed towards the ships.
Harriet Tubman was reported to have sung
to these men and women attempting to calm them,
calm their spirits as they climbed on board
of these ships that they knew would take them to freedom.
- Excerpt from the Wisconsin State Journal, June 1863.
"300 soldiers, under the guidance of a black woman,
dashed into the enemies' country,
struck a bold and effective blow,
destroying millions of dollars worth of commissary store,
cotton, and lordly dwellings,
and striking terror to the heart of the rebellion,
brought off bear 800 slaves
and thousands of dollars worth of property."
Now that's an account of a very successful raid.
It's one that really must have shocked the Confederacy,
because they never understood that
the Union had that kind of information,
and a guide that could point out where they could make
such an effective strike against the Confederacy.
- There aren't any other woman, black or white,
that do what she did.
- [Kareem] Almost 100 men freed that day
enlist in the Union Army.
By September 1864 as the Civil War enters its final stages,
there's no question an influx of black soldiers,
the majority formally enslaved,
have given the Union a significant advantage.
- As the war got toward its end,
the Confederacy was losing troops
through attrition, the killed and wounded,
and the Union was gaining troops,
and these are soldiers who have a grudge.
They would love to get into combat with their former masters
and have an opportunity to go against them
with deadly weapons.
- Without them, the Union would've not been able to occupy
the territory it needed to occupy
to keep the Confederacy under control
and black men played crucial roles
in a number of pivotal fights.
- [Kareem] The capture of the Confederate capital
of Richmond is crucial to ending the war.
General Ulysses S. Grant's strategy
is to utilize dozens of black regiments
in the surrounding areas to achieve that goal.
Grant believes Chaffin's Farm is the key to Richmond.
- The United States had tried to take
Chaffin's Farm and could not.
- [Kareem] This is an opportunity
for hundreds of black soldiers
to defy the odds against them.
Among them is Christian Fleetwood, a 23 year old soldier
who sees an opportunity to make his mark.
- Christian Fleetwood was
a free African American
who decides to join the army
much in the way I think that Frederick Douglass
is asking people to do to really show
his commitment to ending slavery
and for helping those who are caught in that system
to gain their freedom.
- [Kareem] Fleetwood and the
4th United States Colored Troops,
along with 13 other black regiments,
attempt to break the Confederate lines
at New Market Heights near Chaffin's Farm.
A victory will bring them one step closer to freedom
if they survive the battle.
(dramatic music)
- [Kareem] On September 29, 1864, Christian Fleetwood
and the 4th United States Colored Troops
along with 13 other black regiments
begin their assault on Confederate forces
at Chaffin's Farm in Virginia.
- The first brigade goes in
and makes it to the outer Confederate fortification,
barriers made out of down trees
and then other barricades,
and they're getting shot all to pieces.
- [Kareem] As Fleetwood and his unit charge forward,
their color bearer is shot.
- A regiment's flag
was considered really its,
its heart and soul and for it to fall on the ground
or be captured by enemy forces
was considered both failure and a dishonor.
- He yells, "Take the flags!"
And Sergeant Major Fleetwood grabs one
and a private grabs another.
Men are falling all around them.
Fleetwood is carrying the colors throughout this though
which makes him a bullet magnet.
(bullets whizzing)
- [Kareem] With the flag in hand,
Fleetwood leads the rest of his unit
out of Confederate fire.
- The flag is a symbol for African Americans
of the possibility of democracy,
a possibility of the ideals of the Declaration.
- Not only did they break through the line
in fierce fighting, they kept pushing until they took it.
It's a significant moment.
Less than seven months later, the war ends.
- [Kareem] On April 9th, 1865, Confederate general,
Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union general,
Ulysses S. Grant.
Just three days before Lee's surrender,
Christian Fleetwood becomes one of 14 black soldiers
to receive a medal of honor for their bravery
at the Battle of Chaffin's Farm.
- This is the largest number of medals of honor
received by black soldiers in a single action
in the Civil War.
- That honor was one of the most prestigious honors
in the United States at that time.
For an African American to receive the medal of honor,
that's for the government to recognize
the absolutely crucial role of blacks in general.
- [Kareem] For the nearly 180,000 black army soldiers,
20,000 black U.S. navy men and countless named
and unnamed black men
and women who fought in big and small ways,
the ultimate reward is more noble, freedom.
- It's a turning point in the
history of the United States.
- Tens of thousands of people
who sees the war as an opportunity for freedom
do this work to prove that our people deserve
not only to be free, but to be citizens,
and that is an extraordinary legacy.
It's an extraordinary legacy.
- [Kareem] On April 15, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln
dies from an assassin's bullet,
but the America he envisioned by the end of the war
becomes ingrained in the Constitution.
The 13th Amendment abolishes slavery.
The 14th Amendment gives U.S. citizens
equal protection under the law.
The 15th Amendment gives African American men
the right to vote.
- What African Americans efforts and bravery and role
in the Civil War inspired
was that true democracy can be achieved.
- [Kareem] This story started with Robert Smalls,
an enslaved man working Confederate waterways.
After the war, he went on
to have a long career and public life as a U.S. congressman
utilizing a new skill, his voice.
- My race needs no special defense.
- For the past history of them in this country
proves them to be equal to anyone.
- All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.
- Smalls was saying he doesn't have to prove himself
equal to anyone because he is.
He inherently is.
- And now we need to be treated
as citizens like anyone else.
- The Civil War literally lays the foundation
for freedom movements that occur later on
in the 20th century and into the 21st century.
It's the same equality
that Martin Luther King was fighting for,
it's the same equality that Rosa Parks was fighting for.
It's the same equality
that the protestors are fighting for now.
- [Protestors] Black Lives Matter!
- Black Americans made it possible
for all Americans to attain the American dream,
and when we get to the point
where the contributions of all Americans are acknowledged,
all Americans can have the benefits
of first class citizenship.
We have helped formed this nation
and we have to be given our just rewards.
That's only one, what we earned.
(Southern gospel music)
♪ It started like
♪ It started in the fields like ♪
♪ Picking cotton like
(Southern gospel music)
♪ Like all my forefathers before me ♪
♪ They won't do forget
♪♪