Patrick honors abolitionist governor

Howard Manly

His college friends at Bowdoin described him as having a “strong noble impulse.”

They didn’t know just how strong or how noble the impulse was that was imbedded in John Andrew.

As the 25th governor of Massachusetts, Andrew is given credit for providing soldiers for the Union Army during the Civil War. But that is only part of the reason that Deval Patrick, the state’s first African American governor, decided to hang Andrew’s portrait in his office in the State House.

It was Andrew who led the fight to have black soldiers in the Army. It was Andrew who pushed for both the 54th and 55th regiments.

But Andrew didn’t do it alone.

Andrew was a Republican back in the glory days when that party stood for abolition and equality for all. One of his friends was Lewis Hayden.

In 1858, Hayden and other abolitionists convinced Andrew to run for state representative. He won a seat, and then became governor two years later by one of the largest margins at that time.

By 1861, blacks wanted to fight for the nation and put an end to slavery. Despite their willingness to enlist, blacks endured all sorts of legislative obstructions and were particularly incensed that they were denied the right to bear arms or receive equal pay.

All of that changed on Thanksgiving Day 1862, when Andrew came to dinner at the Haydens’ home on Southac Street. By the time Andrew left, he had agreed to seek permission to create a regiment of black soldiers as soon as the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on Jan. 1, 1863.

On Jan. 26, 1863, Andrew met with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in Washington, D.C., to review a draft of the order authorizing the governor to raise a “corps of infantry for the volunteer service.”

At the bottom of Stanton’s draft, Andrew wrote, “…and may include persons of African descent, organized into separate corps.”

Stanton then signed the amended order enabling Andrew to recruit men for the 54th Regiment.

Because Massachusetts had a relatively small African American population, recruiters fanned out across the North to fill the ranks of the 54th. Hayden was one of the recruiters, as were Frederick Douglass of Rochester, N.Y., Charles Lenox Remond of Salem, Henry Highland Garnet of New York, John Mercer Langston of Ohio, Martin Delaney of Illinois and T. Morris Chester of Pennsylvania.

By Feb. 21, 1863, nearly two years after the confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter off the coast of Charlestown, S.C., scores of men were undergoing training at Camp Meigs in Readville, Mass., now Hyde Park in Boston.

The original 1,007 recruits came from 15 Northern states, four Border states and five Confederate states.

One of the recruits was William H. Carney. Born enslaved in Norfolk, Va., Carney came to New Bedford in 1856 after his father purchased his freedom. Carney is known as the brave soldier who rescued the flag at the bloody battle of Fort Wagner.

Despite his wounds, Carney returned the flag to the remnants of the 54th without allowing it to touch the ground. For this heroic service, the sergeant became he first African American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

He is depicted walking behind Robert Gould Shaw’s horse on the renowned sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens’ monument to the 54th. Carney act of patriotism also prompted Rosamond and James Weldon Johnson to write their song, “Boys the Old Flag Never Touched the Ground.”

Though Andrew is given much deserved credit, the creation of the black regiments was the result of men like Hayden.

Born in enslaved in Lexington, Ky., the self-emancipated Hayden became one of the leaders of the abolitionist movement in the 1850s. As a young man, Hayden experienced all of the horrors of slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” included an account of Hayden’s life in “The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” which she wrote to defend her novel against widespread criticism from slavery supporters that her work was wholly false.

After fleeing to Canada on the Underground Railroad, Hayden eventually moved to Detroit and then New Bedford. Hayden and his family moved to Boston in 1849. Hayden opened a clothing store and boarding house and his home became a major station on the Underground Railroad.

In 1853, the African American community honored Cassius M. Clay, a white Kentucky statesman from a prominent slaveholding family. Clay had defied family tradition and local custom when he freed all of his slaves. When he came to Boston, Hayden was on hand.

Hayden had endured the sale of his wife and cousin by Clay’s cousin, Henry Clay, the avowed slaveholder and U.S. senator.

Hayden was president of the celebration.

There’s no telling how Hayden would have reacted to the election of the state’s first African American governor. But in honoring Andrew, Patrick also honors the abolitionist movement and men like Hayden.

“Gov. Andrew was a well-respected and courageous leader who displayed bold leadership during his tenure in office,” Patrick said in a statement. “At a time of great divide in America, he demonstrated a willingness to change the status quo and encouraged others to do the same. I am proud to display his portrait in my office, and I hope that I may govern with the same compassion and foresight that he demonstrated.”