FIRST SERGEANT GEORGE GREGORY

Three Quarters of a century ago, George Gregory, was laid to rest in the Monrovia Union cemetery on the banks of the Ashley River. In his 85 years life, George had much to be proud of. A free black man in a society that enslaved 4 million, a literate man in a society deprived of basic education, a skilled carpenter where most could only hope to be laborers or field hands, a homeowner amongst gripping poverty, a loyal and devoted son to his mother, a husband and a beloved stepfather. His stepson, Louis George Gregory, became the first African-American lawyer to have credentials to argue before the Supreme court of this land and a noted proponent of racial unity. When George Gregory passed in October of 1929 he died a man respected by black and white Charlestonians.

Cemeteries are places where a word or two etched in stone attempts to capture something of the essence of a person's life. Most often these words reflect relations the individual had to family or his or her faith and say little to anyone other than those who knew the person closely. Other times the words though brief speak volumes. The stone marking George Gregory's grave is one of those that says much more than simple words can reflect. He certainly could have chosen to be remembered as a beloved son -- loving husband or father but George chose to be remembered as a soldier in the 104th USCT. When you consider that his unit was activated during the final months of the Civil War, missed the major battles and was disbanded after less than a year in service, you have to question why George would want us to remember him by this brief period of a long and productive life.

The exact reasons will likely never be known but we need only look at what he and others were experiencing in the middle of the 19th century to understand why he wanted to be remembered as a soldier of the USCT. George Gregory knew that in those waning months of the Civil War he had been part of something so grand and so noble that it defined who he was and what he stood for in life. He had become a soldier in the War for Freedom, a soldier who risked his liberty for the liberty of others.

Imagine yourself growing up in the Charleston that George knew. At 16 years of age he would have seen what James Louis Petregru called "the insanity" that prevailed in Charleston as the State of South Carolina declared itself an independent Republic. He would have heard the deep reports of the cannon fire that would launch this nation into a long and bitter Civil War when on April 12, 1861, Fort Sumter was attacked.

Many argue to this day that the War was about Southern independence, tariffs and States Rights. Perhaps it can be said that neither your typical southerner nor your typical northerner was fighting for or against slavery but you have to allow that whether they knew it or not, they were both fighting because of slavery. Slavery was a divisive issue during the formation of this nation and it dominated the political scene for most of its first century. George Gregory knew, as did every slave in Charleston, that the war was about slavery.

A year later George would have heard of the bravery of a slave named Robert Smalls when on the night of May 12 he commandeered the steamer Planter from right outside Confederate General Ripley's headquarters and sailed it past Fort Sumter's mighty guns to the safety of the Union fleet blockading the port. What he probably didn't learn until after the war was that Robert Smalls had returned on April 5 1863 as pilot of the ironclad Keokuk, where his knowledge of the tides and channels allowed him to take his ship so close to the Fort that it was shot through 90 times. Today one of the guns of his ship is mounted on the corner of East Bay and South Battery, aimed toward Fort Sumter.

George was only 18 when prisoners and wounded men of the 54th Massachusetts were brought to the City Jail on Magazine Street after their heroic assault on Battery Wagner. He probably knew that the men were at risk of being hanged if it could be proved they were slaves in insurrection. They were acquitted on that charge and sent to the Florence Stockade as prisoners of war four months later. W hat George would not learn until after the war was that the bravery of the 54th on the evening of July 18, 1863 had ignited the hopes of the Union and inspired efforts that led to the recruitment of over 200,000 Africans Americans into the US forces.

George would have seen the situation in Charleston deteriorate when Fort Sumter was demolished, Battery Wagner evacuated and the City bombarded in the late summer of 1863. He probably didn't learn until after the war that thousands of African-American soldiers labored ceaselessly in the heat and sands of Folly and Morris Islands to mount an artillery siege and would last nearly 18 months, one of the longest sieges in modern history with hundred of shells landing in the city.

He also could not have missed the frightful night of February 17, 1865 when huge explosions rocked the City as the Confederates destroyed guns and warships in preparation for evacuation of the city. George had to have been among the throngs of African-American Charlestonians that greeted units of the 54th Massachusetts and 21st US Colored Infantry regiments as they marched up Meeting Street the next day to Marion Square. Ironically, that same Saturday, the Confederate Congress authorized the formation of regiments of freed slaves and the US Congress passed a proposal to amend the Constitution to abolish slavery in the United States. George could have witnessed the main body of the 54th on the 27th of February as it marched through the City on the way to Magnolia Cemetery not a mile from Monrovia Cemetery to its first encampment.

A few weeks later, George Gregory came under the influence of one of the most remarkable figures of the Civil War, Martin Robinson Delaney. Trained as a Physician at the Harvard Medical School and a colleague of Frederick Douglas, Martin had been the recruiting officer for the 54th Massachusetts and later for numerous other USCT regiments. After recruiting thousands of African Americans into the Union Army including his own son Toussaint Delaney into the 54th, he longed to command men in the field and petitioned President Lincoln in February 1865 to give him a commission. Recognizing his potential, Lincoln commissioned him a major, the highest field rank held by an African American in the war, and sent him South to the raise the 104th USCT.

Martin Delaney arrived in Charleston in time to attend the April 14th flag raising ceremony at Fort Sumter, travelling to the fort on the Planter with Robert Smalls and accompanied by Denmark Vesey's son. That evening while the celebration was still going on, the President was mortally wounded at Fords Theater, having declined an invitation to come to Charleston.

Major Delany set up his recruiting office in a mansion on the south-east corner of Calhoun and St. Phillips Streets just one block from the neighborhood were George Gregory lived most of his life. Martin Delaney was a man of considerable intellect and he knew how to appeal to patriotic men.

This is an excerpt from one of his recruiting posters that George Gregory may have seen:

Charleston, S.C., APRIL 28, 1865

The free colored men in this city, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, are hereby earnestly called upon to come forward to join the CHARLESTON Regiment now to be organized. It is the duty of every colored man to vindicate his manhood by becoming a soldier, and with his own stout arm to battle for the emancipation of his race. I urge you by every hope that is dear to humanity, by every free inspiration which a sense of liberty has kindled in your hearts, to be soldiers, until the freedom of your race is secured. The prospect of your future destiny should be enough to call every man to the ranks.

We can look back with the clarity of hindsight knowing that the fighting was almost over by May of 1865 and assume that there was no risk of enlisting. But no one at that time could have known what was going to happen. Even if the Confederate armies surrendered, guerilla actions could have continued for decades. In addition to the risk of losing his life, George faced another risk. As a free person of color, he was among 3000 persons in this City sandwiched between a white society and a slave society of about 30,000 each. For most of the war, free persons of color, supported the Confederacy with financial donations and service. Three sailors on the Confederate rams guarding the harbor were free persons of color from his community. How would his decision to fight for the Union affect his status in Charleston? If George Gregory had any doubts about enlisting, Martin Delaney erased them all.

George Gregory, then 20 years old, enlisted in the 104th regiment of the USCT and was sent to Beaufort for training. George Gregory was the only free person of color from Charleston known to have joined the Union Forces. The vast majority of his regiment were newly freed slaves. His abilities to read and write were soon recognized and George was promoted to the position of First Sergeant, the highest noncommissioned rank in the Army. No other enlisted person carries near the responsibility and authority of the First Sergeant. He held that rank when the unit assembled in Mt. Pleasant to be mustered out of the service in February of 1866.

The turmoil that George lived through did not end with the war and it is fair to say that when U.S. soldiers left the South in 1877, the experiment of Reconstruction was over. With it ended the promise of justice. The betrayal of Reconstruction meant that America had not realized the ideal that Abraham Lincoln had invoked in 1858 when he declared "I believe the declaration that `all men are created equal' is the great fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest." George quietly returned to the community and became a citizen, a husband and a stepfather who encouraged his step son that the key to success was seated in education. The house that George Gregory built still stands at 2 Desportes Court in Charleston.