By Jacque Day
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-954642.mp3
Grand Rivers, Ky. – In January 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded Andrew Jackson Smith the Medal of Honor. Smith served in the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, and is one of only 25 African Americans to earn the honor for service in the Civil War. Jacque Day brings us this story of a local man who transcended slavery and prejudice to emerge as an example of American heroism.
Acknowledgments
Includes interviews with Kentucky historian and professor Berry Craig, and Andrew and Esther Bowman, grandson and granddaughter-in-law of Andrew Jackson Smith.
Special thanks to Shara Parish, the late Ray Parish, and Professor David Nickell, of Between the Rivers.
TRANSCRIPT
Andrew Jackson Smith rests on a hilltop of Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Lyon County, in the area once known as Between the Rivers, overlooking the area near Grand Rivers where he was born a slave and died a successful landowner. A nearby stretch of the Trace bears his name, and a historical marker, also nearby, tells us that Smith was "Posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2001 for gallantry for saving regimental colors..."
Parts of Smith's life are the stuff of Hollywood: racing through Confederate territory in the cold rain to join the northern Army, capturing an enemy horse. Yet Smith's grandson, Andrew Smith Bowman of Indianapolis, says he was in his mid-forties before he began to learn his grandfather's story when his mother began to talk about him. "My mother is a very good storyteller... sometimes you would think that her stories were... she would enhance the truth."
Bowman's son, also named Andrew, took on the topic for a Black History Month project. "My son and I came down to Grand Rivers and we went looking around at different places, trying to uncover some history about his great grandfather. And we went to the courthouse and looked at some of the records and we took some of the stories that my mother was giving us. [Jacque: Did you find out that a lot of what she told you was factual?] Yes."
Bowman and his son embarked on their quest about a decade before Edward Zwick's film Glory illuminated the famed Massachusetts 54th. "For many years after the Civil War, the contribution of African-Americans to Union victory was largely ignored. They were the war's forgotten soldiers."
Berry Craig is a history professor at West Kentucky Community and Technical College. His book Hidden History of Kentucky in the Civil War contains an entry about Smith.
Smith's service to the Union Army began long before he enlisted as a soldier, back here in the remote area of Between the Rivers. "Smith and another slave decided to enlist in the Union army after they heard that their masters had planned to join the Confederates and take them along. Now the closest federal troops were at Smithland, 25 miles from where Smith and the other slave lived. Cold, icy rain made the journey more dangerous. When they reached Smithland, it was still dark, and they were afraid of being mistaken for rebels. So they waited until daylight, to approach the Union troops."
Andrew Bowman's wife, Esther, continues. "They took him in and he became a servant to Maj. John Warner who was from Clinton, Illinois. And at the Battle of Shiloh, Maj. Warner told Andy that if he should fall, or if his horse should fall, to bring him another horse."
Berry Craig: "The rebels shot two horses from under Warner. He was unhurt but he rode back into combat astride a Confederate horse that Smith managed to capture. Now minutes later, Smith suffered a head wound that almost killed him. A spent rifle bullet struck him in the left temple, and ended up lodged in his forehead between skin and bone."
Andrew Bowman says the slug was removed at a field hospital. "The surgeon looked at him and said, You know Andy, you're probably the luckiest man I've ever seen. Or you've got the hardest head. [Laugh] Of course, his mother always said the latter was true."
Smith was recuperating in Warner's hometown of Clinton, Illinois when news reached him of the Emancipation Proclamation. Esther Bowman: "At that time, in order to join you had to say that you were free. And he said that he was from Clinton, Illinois. He did not say he was from Kentucky."
Andrew Bowman: "He was signed up for the 54th Massachussetts, which was being formed. He then got his train fare to get to Reeseville, Massachusetts, and by the time he got there, the 54th Massachusetts was full. And then he was assigned to a new unit that was being formed called the 55th Massachusetts."
The 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments were part of the Union force that attacked the Confederates at Honey Hill, South Carolina, in November 1864. Rebel fire killed and wounded half of the officers and a third of the enlisted men in Smith's thousand-man regiment. Smith was then a corporal in the color-bearing unit. "When the battle began, you kept your eye on those flags. And when the flag went forward, you went forward. And when the flag went back, you went back. Those sergeants who carried those flags were extremely important, and as you might expect, were prime targets."
Andrew Bowman: "And they got within 150 yards or so of the fort when he was hit with an exploding shell. Andrew picked up the flag and began to carry it for the rest of the battle."
Berry Craig: "Later, he saved the blue 55th Massachusetts regimental flag when the sergeant carrying it was wounded. And after the battle, Smith was promoted to sergeant for preserving the two flags."
Andrew Jackson Smith returned to Kentucky, which he called the "land of beautiful women." He lived a long life, and in his life amassed about a thousand acres of land. After 137 years, Smith's family accepted the Medal of Honor, the longest delay for any recipient, black or white. In the same ceremony, President Bill Clinton also awarded the medal to Theodore Roosevelt. Of the day, Smith's granddaughter-in-law Esther Bowman recalls Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, in which he said: "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood." She says, on that day, a part of Dr. King's dream came true.