On a Race­course, Freed Slaves Gave Thanks to Fallen Sol­diers

Posted in: News By House Divided on June 1, 2022

Memorial Day is a day set aside each year to remem­ber and honor this nation’s war dead. A day Amer­ic­ans recog­nize the liber­ties we enjoy were pur­chased at a steep price. A day we remem­ber free­dom isn’t free. A day to remind ourselves that long before there were red states and blue states there were free states.

The his­tory of Memorial Day dates back to the Civil War, when there was cata­strophic loss of life. At the Battle of Gettys­burg, fought in July 1863, his­tor­i­ans estim­ate the South lost 28,000 men while Union cas­u­al­ties numbered 23,000. All told over 750,000 sol­diers died dur­ing the Civil War, what Whit­tier called this nation’s “bap­tism in blood.”

Pres­id­ent Abra­ham Lin­coln had signed the Eman­cip­a­tion Pro­clam­a­tion to be effect­ive Janu­ary 1, 1863, but this his­toric declar­a­tion didn’t free a single African slave. Theirs was a con­tin­gent free­dom: free­dom con­tin­gent upon the suc­cess of the Union army.

The Union forces fought inspired by a reli­gious pro­pos­i­tion, “…that all men are cre­ated equal and are endowed by their Cre­ator with unali­en­able rights among those being life, liberty, and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness.” Because it’s not pos­sible for any man to pur­sue hap­pi­ness when for­cibly deprived of his liberty, Union sol­diers fought defend­ing this truth on behalf of their fel­low man.

John Brown was an abol­i­tion­ist who died to free African slaves. Union sol­diers were moved by Brown’s sac­ri­fice, as the lyr­ics of a Union march­ing song reveal: “Old John Brown’s body lies a mol­der­ing in the grave, while weep the sons of bond­age whom he ven­tured all to save. But though he lost his life in strug­gling for the slave, His truth is march­ing on.”

The day after she heard those words, Julia Ward Howe penned the words to the Battle Hymn of the Repub­lic, stat­ing in part, “In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that trans­fig­ures you and me, As he died to make men holy let us die to make men free…His truth is march­ing on.”

In April 1861, the south­ern strong­hold city of Char­le­ston fell to the advan­cing Union army. As Con­fed­er­ate troops made a hasty retreat, they interred the bod­ies of 257 Union sol­diers in a mass grave at what was then a horse racing track. These sol­diers had died of ill­ness and star­va­tion in a make­shift prison camp erec­ted at the race­course.

When Union sol­diers, includ­ing U.S. Colored Troop Regi­ments, lib­er­ated Char­le­ston, they dis­covered the mass grave. Word spread throughout Char­le­ston of the shame­ful burial these men had received. Imme­di­ately, freed black slaves from around the city went to work and rein­terred the Union dead. A proper burial was given to each man and a fence was built around the new grave­yard. On the arch above the entrance to the cemetery they inscribed, “Mar­tyrs of the Race­course.”

On May 1, over 10,000 Black Char­le­sto­ni­ans gathered at this site. A parade of nearly 3,000 chil­dren covered the graves with flowers to honor those who died to set them free. The chil­dren were fol­lowed by mem­bers of the Pat­ri­otic Asso­ci­ation of Colored Men and Mutual Aid Soci­ety, who provided sup­plies for the buri­als.

Chil­dren led the crowd in singing of The Star-Spangled Ban­ner. Scrip­ture was read and pray­ers were said for the fallen. That day, the freed men, women, and chil­dren under­stood the sac­ri­fice made by those who died in the effort to secure their liberty.

These mov­ing events were only recently dis­covered by Yale his­tor­ian David Blight. Many now con­sider this heart­warm­ing expres­sion of grat­it­ude at the race­course to have been Amer­ica’s first Memorial Day.

The freed slaves did not con­sider the Union sol­diers to be her­oes but mar­tyrs, men who died for their reli­gious beliefs. What beliefs? In his Gettys­burg Address, Lin­coln explained these sol­diers were “ded­ic­ated to the pro­pos­i­tion that all men are cre­ated equal”. Moved by their con­vic­tions, they “gave the last full meas­ure of devo­tion” to the nation “ded­ic­ated to (this) pro­pos­i­tion.”

As Amer­ic­ans remem­ber the mar­tyrs of the race­course, let us rekindle in our hearts the grat­it­ude expressed that first Memorial Day for all who, as Lin­coln said, “gave their lives that (the) nation might live.”