Sergeant William Harvey Carney, Company C, 54th Massachusetts Infantry was the first African American Union soldier to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery at the Battle of Fort Wagner, South Carolina.
He had hoped to become a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but once the war began, he believed his services could be better used in the effort to free his peopl.
Carney was a former slave from Virginia, escaping to New Bedford, Massachusetts prior to America\'s Civil War.
Sergeant William Harvey Carney, Company C, 54th Massachusetts Infantry was the first African American Union soldier to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery at the Battle of Fort Wagner, South Carolina