For This Ex-Slave, His Own Freedom Wasn’t Enough
by
John J. Dunphy
Originally published in the 1/23/19 edition of The Telegraph of Alton, IL. Reprinted in the 33:4 issue of Springhouse magazine)
It’s one of the most unforgettable photos of a Civil War veteran.
A shirtless man is seated on a stool. His left leg, which is missing its foot, is crossed over his right leg. His right arm has been amputated just above the elbow.
Lewis Martin incurred these horrific injuries while serving in the Union Army. He was one of 179,000 black men who voluntarily enlisted in our nation’s army to fight for the United States. These courageous men ultimately comprised approximately ten percent of the North’s troops. About 19,000 blacks served in the Union Navy.
The need for men to battle the Confederacy ultimately trumped any reservations that Washington had regarding opening the ranks of the Union Army to blacks. Enlistment was slow until the famous black abolitionist Frederick Douglass proclaimed that joining the Union military afforded blacks an opportunity to strike at the very heart of slavery. Black soldiers served in segregated units that were commanded by white officers.
Lewis Martin escaped slavery in Arkansas and made his way to the village of Upper Alton, Illinois. Many fugitive slaves chose to journey further north, perhaps even to Canada where they couldn’t be pursued by southern slave-catchers. Martin might well have lived under the protection of Thaddeus Hurlbut, an ardent abolitionist who had been the martyred Elijah Lovejoy’s most steadfast ally. Hurlbut had made his Upper Alton home, located where Calvary Baptist Church now stands, into an Underground Railroad station.
Records state that Martin was recruited in Upper Alton to serve in the 29th Regiment Infantry, United States Colored Troops, Company E. Martin’s decision to participate in the Civil War required an extraordinary amount of courage and altruism on his part.
While combat was hazardous for all Union troops, black soldiers faced unique dangers. The Confederacy had enacted a law stipulating that captured black Union troops would be tried as rebellious slaves in kangaroo courts, which would invariably find them guilty and order their execution. Black Union troops could also be sold into slavery, even if they had been free as civilians. Confederate troops took little interest in capturing black troops, however. At Fort Pillow, Tennessee in 1864, for example, Confederates massacred black troops who had surrendered.
Nonetheless, Lewis Martin enlisted. He incurred the wounds that necessitated the amputation of his left foot and right arm at the disastrous Battle of the Crater in Virginia on July 30, 1864. Martin was fortunate to have survived this engagement. A white Union officer recalled, “Many a dusky warrior had his brains knocked out with the butt of a musket, or was run through with a bayonet while vainly imploring mercy.” Edward Porter Alexander, a Confederate general, noted, “Some of the Negro prisoners who were originally allowed to surrender….were afterward shot.”
Research conducted by Kathleen Heyworth indicates that Martin was granted a disability pension by the U.S. government after the war and lived in Springfield, Illinois. He died in 1892 and was buried as a pauper in that city’s Oak Ridge Cemetery. Newspaper articles about this veteran’s death were brutally frank. Heyworth found one that sarcastically noted most of Martin’s pension “went to local saloon-keepers.”
As a black man with such horrendous disabilities in the United States of that era, Martin’s life was wretched. He had no family. A headline announcing his death read: “Louis (sic) Martin, a colored man, dies alone.”
Martin could have refrained from enlisting in the Union Army and spent the Civil War living in safety in Upper Alton. Yet, this escaped slave willingly chose to risk death or re-enslavement. The freedom he enjoyed wasn’t enough for Lewis Martin. His conscience demanded that he join an army that was liberating black men, women and children still held in bondage. Those contemporary Americans who have adopted an I’ve-Got-Mine-Screw-You attitude could learn much from the example of Private Lewis Martin.
John J. Dunphy is the author of Abolitionism and the Civil War in Southwestern Illinois. His latest book, Unsung Heroes of the Dachau Trials, includes interviews with veterans of the U.S. Army 7708 War Crimes Group, who apprehended and prosecuted Nazi war criminals after World War II.
Photo from National Archives