Camp William Penn’s Black Soldiers In Blue - November ‘99 America’s Civil War Feature

Camp commander Wagner supported his black troops, despite frequent public pressure. Local newspapers wrote several accounts of a black soldier guarding the post who shot a belligerent white man intent on entering the camp without permission. Although the white community became enraged and demanded the black soldier be brought to trial in nearby Norristown, the Montgomery County seat, Wagner refused to hand him over.

Wagner also insisted that his black soldiers ignore segregationist policies and ride beside him on local trains. Braving opposition, he also paraded the next regiment to leave the camp for battle, the 6th USCT, right down Philadelphia’s main thoroughfare, Broad Street, and past the Union League’s front steps filled with dignitaries and top military brass.

“There was an immense crowd of white and colored [who] followed them through the streets,” the Christian Recorder reported. “We were somewhat amused while standing on the corner of Third and Walnut to hear some person remark, ‘Here comes the flag of distress.’ Some white men were in the crowd, and one well-dressed heavy-set gentleman, whom we took to be a German, although he spoke good English, exclaimed, ‘What did you say, sir? I’ll let you know, sir, that it is the American flag, and it is time you had learned enough to that effect, and if you don’t know it, I can quickly teach you.’ The poor fellow looked bad and hung his head when he saw those who stood around him look upon him with contempt; but the gentleman who addressed himself to him looked with as much indignation as to say if the poor ignorant fellow would have said so again he would have felled him to the ground.”

Another eyewitness gave an account of the 6th Regiment’s parade: “Walnut, Pine and Broad Streets listened to the measured tread of the dusky soldiers and the staccato of a full drum corps. The Union blue, the white gloves and the glint of fixed bayonets contrasted sharply with the dark faces perspiring under the rays of a warm October sun.

“As the regiment passed the Continental Hotel, a city tough ran out from the crowd and snatched the color away from the sergeant, who knocked the intruder down, rescued his flag, and resumed his place in the ranks, to the cheers of many of the spectators.”

The unit’s regimental flag, designed by the famed black artist David Bustill Bowser and depicting the Goddess of Liberty holding a flag while exhorting a freedman dressed as a soldier to do his duty, would soon face other such tests during the heat of battle.

Almost a year after marching down Philadelphia’s Broad Street and then sailing south by boat, Nathan H. Edgerton was among more than 350 soldiers in the 6th Regiment to run into a deadly hail of Confederate bullets at the Battle of New Market Heights (Chaffin’s Farm) in Virginia on the chilly and foggy morning of September 29, 1864. More than 60 percent of the regiment’s men, trained at Camp William Penn, would die in that battle.

That morning, the 6th USCT had rushed toward a line of Rebel fortifications manned by the hardened veterans of Colonel Frederick M. Bass’ Texas brigade. Dozens of Edgerton’s comrades had been hit and had fallen, including most members of the color guard, when Lieutenant Frederick Meyer of Company B seized the colors and a bullet slammed through his heart and killed him. Meyer, however, maintained a death grip on the staff.

“I took it from him and pushed forward to bring up the colors to their proper place,” Edgerton later recalled. “All at once I went down, but jumped up immediately and tried to raise the flag, for I thought I had fallen over the dewberry vines which grew thickly there, but finding it did not come, I looked down, after trying again, to see why I could not lift it, and found my hand covered with blood, and perfectly powerless, and the flag-staff lying in two pieces. I sheathed my sword, took the flag with its broken staff and reached the abatis.”

When Edgerton began to reel and stumble due to the loss of blood, Sergeant Alex-ander Kelly of Company F grabbed the flag and carried it from the field. Edgerton mi-raculously survived his wound. Under similar conditions that day, Sgt. Maj. Thomas Hawkins of Company C also retrieved the flag. All three eventually received the Medal of Honor for their bravery.