For the ‘Deliverance of Their Race’: Black Civil Battle Sailors and the Medal of Honor

The aristocrats from Paris went right down to Cherbourg, France, by particular prepare to hitch the gang lining the shore and cheering on the Accomplice commerce raider Alabama in an epic duel at sea with the Union sloop of struggle USS Kearsarge on June 19, 1864.

A French warship, the Couronne, with a band on deck enjoying “Dixie,” accompanied the Alabama to the three-mile territorial restrict off Cherbourg. The ready Kearsarge turned away from the coast to carry the Alabama additional out into worldwide waters, after which turned once more to battle.

At his publish aboard the Kearsarge was Bizarre Seaman Joachim Pease, from the Cape Verde islands off Africa’s west coast. He was a loader on one of many Kearsarge’s large deck weapons that despatched the Alabama to the underside after a one-sided battle of about 65 minutes.

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For his actions throughout what got here to be generally known as the Battle of Cherbourg, Pease can be awarded the Medal of Honor.

The inscription engraved on the again of his medal reads: “Private Valor/Joachim Pease/(Coloured Seaman)/ U.S.S. Kearsarge/Destruction of the Alabama/June 9, 1864,” however the date is incorrect — the battle was fought on June 19.

The date mix-up, presumably the fault of the engraver, was one in every of a number of errors or oversights the Navy made in searching for to report who Pease was, the place he was from, how he got here to enlist, and what occurred to him when he left the service.

Black Sailors within the Civil Battle

Pease was one in every of eight Black sailors awarded the Medal of Honor from amongst about 18,000 Black sailors who served the Union throughout the Civil Battle, based on Navy data, however he by no means obtained the medal.

“The Navy simply could not discover him” after the struggle to offer him the medal, stated historian John Quarstein, director emeritus of the united statesMonitor Heart on the Mariners’ Museum and Park in Newport News, Virginia.

Army data on the time had been crammed with inaccuracies, and “many sailors once they joined used an alias. A few of these individuals simply disappeared” when their service was achieved, Quarstein, who has written on the contributions of Black Civil Battle sailors, advised Army.com

Many of the Black sailors held the rank of “landsman,” the bottom rank within the Navy on the time, which was given to these with little or no expertise at sea, Quarstein stated.

Some had been former slaves or escaped slaves. Some had been free Blacks residing within the North. Others had been listed as “contrabands,” or slaves who had been taken into custody as Union forces pressed South. They served in the entire main battles at sea that contributed to the Union victory.

Landsmen Wilson Brown, a former slave from Natchez, Mississippi, and John Lawson, a free Black from Philadelphia, had been with then-Rear Adm. David Farragut aboard his flagship, the Hartford, within the Aug. 5, 1864, Battle of Cellular Bay when Farragut was stated to have shouted “Rattling the torpedoes [mines] … full pace forward!”

Each Brown and Lawson had been assigned under decks to function a tool known as the “shellwhip,” which was used to elevate containers of gunpowder to the principle deck.

Brown was knocked unconscious “when an enemy shellburst fatally wounded a person within the ladder above,” his medal quotation stated. Then Brown “upon regaining consciousness, promptly returned to the shellwhip on the berth deck and zealously continued to carry out his duties though 4 of the 6 males at this station had been both killed or wounded by the enemy’s terrific fireplace.”

Lawson was “wounded within the leg and thrown violently in opposition to the aspect of the ship when an enemy shell whipped on the berth deck,” his quotation stated. “Lawson, upon regaining his composure, promptly returned to his station and, though urged to go under for therapy, steadfastly continued his duties all through the rest of the motion.”

The opposite 5 Black sailors who obtained the Medal of Honor combating for the Union had been Landsman Aaron Anderson; Bizarre Seaman Robert Blake; Landsman William H. Brown; Sign Quartermaster Thomas English: and Engineer’s Prepare dinner James Mifflin.

Black sailors additionally performed a job within the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 8 and 9, 1862, when the fearsome ironclad CSS Virginia, which was constructed on the scuttled hull of the Union steam frigate Merrimack, confronted off with the united statesMonitor and its revolutionary rotating gun turret on the second day of the engagement.

On the primary day, the Virginia got here to interrupt the Union blockade and ravaged the defenders, destroying the sloop USS Cumberland and the frigate USS Congress whereas coaching withering fireplace on the frigate USS Minnesota, which had run aground however continued to battle.

The Virginia withdrew as night time approached and returned the subsequent day to complete off the Minnesota, however there was the Monitor, whose odd design was described within the South as that “Yankee cheesebox on a raft.” The Monitor and Virginia fought to a digital draw, however the Minnesota was saved.

Capt. Gershom Jacques Henry Van Brunt, commander of the Minnesota, would later write in reward of the all-Black crew of 16 sailors who served the aft pivot gun, and speculated on why they remained steadfast in opposition to the onslaught of the Virginia.

“The [men] fought energetically and bravely — none extra so,” Van Brunt wrote. “They evidently felt that they had been thus figuring out the deliverance of their race.”

President Abraham Lincoln signed the invoice creating the Medal of Honor in December 1861 for sailors and Marines who distinguished themselves by “their gallantry in motion and different seaman-like qualities throughout the current struggle.” The Medal of Honor was licensed for the Army the next 12 months.

Of the greater than 3,500 Medals of Honor awarded so far, greater than 1,500 had been awarded for actions within the Civil Battle, essentially the most for any interval in American historical past. A complete of 26 Civil Battle Medals of Honor had been awarded to Black service members within the Civil Battle — 18 within the Army and eight for naval personnel.

The Union Army and Navy entered the struggle with completely completely different guidelines and laws on the service of Black males. The Army formally banned service by Blacks till the ban was lifted on Jan. 1, 1863, when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Navy had by no means barred Blacks from serving, though starting within the 1840s, their numbers had been restricted to five% of the enlisted ranks, stated Joseph Reidy, professor emeritus at Howard College and director of the college’s African-American Sailors Undertaking.

Earlier than the struggle ended, about 180,000 Black troopers had served within the Army, however shoddy guesswork by the Navy initially put the variety of Black sailors at about 29,000, Reidy stated in an interview with Army.com and in a 2001 article for the Nationwide Archives’ Prologue Journal.

However a fuller examination of the data by Howard College, the Navy, and the Nationwide Park Service put the variety of Black sailors within the Civil Battle at about 18,000 who served with the idea, generally acknowledged and generally unstated, that “the result of the struggle can be the tip of slavery,” Reidy stated.

So Who Was Joachim Pease?

One of many 18,000 who stood out was Joachim Pease, by purpose of his rank as Bizarre Seaman, which marked him as an skilled sailor, and in addition by his actions within the battle with the Alabama.

“He was a bit distinctive in that sense too,” and certain would have been “one of the vital revered males on the ship,” Reidy stated.

Nonetheless, the thriller stays on why he by no means obtained his medal and what occurred to him after the struggle.

“He simply completely disappeared,” and researchers have by no means been capable of finding a hint of his household or potential descendants, Reidy stated.

Even his Medal of Honor quotation had one and presumably two errors in stating the explanations for the award, stated Wesley Schwenk, a former curator and now the registrar on the Nationwide Museum of america Navy on the Washington Navy Yard.

The quotation reads: “PEASE, JOACHIM, Seaman, USN. Born Lengthy Island, N.Y.,” after which goes on to state that he “served as seaman on board the united statesS. Kearsarge when she destroyed the Alabama off Cherbourg, France, 19 June 1864. Performing as loader on the No. 2 gun throughout this bitter engagement, PEASE exhibited marked coolness and good conduct and was extremely really helpful by his divisional officer for gallantry beneath fireplace.”

However the Navy has since concluded that he was from Fogo Island in Cape Verde, moderately than Lengthy Island, and that he probably served within the dangerous job of loading the No. 1 gun, a 32-pounder, and never the No. 2 gun, Schwenk stated in an interview on the Museum and in follow-up emails.

Different errors within the authentic data difficult the Navy’s efforts to search out Pease after the struggle, based on a 2020 article posted by the Naval Historical past and Heritage Command (NHHC).

The enlistment data for New Bedford, Massachusetts, confirmed that Pease joined the Navy in January 1862 with the rank of Bizarre Seaman and listed his birthplace as “Togo Island,” which doesn’t exist.

However additional evaluation of the handwritten enlistment report confirmed that the “T” in Togo Island was actually an “F,” that means Fogo Island. At first, that was taken to imply Fogo Island in Newfoundland, however the Navy finally settled on Fogo Island in Cape Verde.

Cape Verde was a typical cease for New England whaling ships to resupply and decide up crew, and the data of the New Bedford Whaling Museum present {that a} “Joakim Pease” was listed within the ship’s log of the whaler Kensington on the ship’s 1857-1861 voyage, NHHC stated.

In an e-mail assertion to Army.com final week, the embassy of Cape Verde in Washington, D.C., stated there was no report of a Joachim Pease within the nation’s databases.

Though the Navy by no means discovered Pease, his imagined likeness was featured on one of many baseball-type playing cards of naval heroes the Navy commissioned in 1962 from the Topps buying and selling card firm.

His medal was transferred from storage on the Bureau of Medals to the Naval Historical past and Heritage Command in 1957, and it was on show till just lately on the Nationwide Museum of america Navy close to an artifact of the Kearsarge-Alabama battle.

The artifact nonetheless on show is of the remnants of the rudder publish of the Kearsarge, with a football-sized unexploded shell fired by the Alabama embedded in it. Some historians have maintained that if the dud had gone off, the Alabama might need gained, however Schwenk stated the Kearsarge nonetheless would have prevailed.

As for the Pease medal, Schwenk stated in an e-mail, “On the present time there are not any plans to return it to show, however it might be utilized in different upcoming displays presently being deliberate by the displays group right here on the Nationwide Museum of america Navy.”

— Richard Sisk will be reached at Richard.Sisk@Army.com.

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