Opinion: Remembering Virginia's 'Forgotten 14'

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Opinion: Remembering Virginia’s ‘Forgotten 14’



Powhatan Beaty of the United States Colored Troops. (Image Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Opinion by A. Donald McEachin
Yesterday at 9:00 a.m. EDT

A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat, represents Virginia’s 4th Congressional District in the House of Representatives.

U.S. history is plagued with untold stories of forgotten heroes. Approximately 180,000 African Americans served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Known as United States Colored Troops (USCT), they were essential to Union victory, yet Americans remain largely unaware of their role during the war. There were more than 5,500 African American men who enlisted in my home state of Virginia, and thousands more were native Virginians who enlisted at locations outside the Old Dominion. Most Virginia USCTs were previously enslaved and had escaped by crossing Union lines in Tidewater and Northern Virginia, areas occupied by the Union Army for most of the war.

Despite their contributions to Virginia and our nation’s historical trajectory, their stories are largely missing from our history books. It is past time to give proper commemoration to the USCTs. Their stories, suppressed during the Jim Crow era, need to be told and made more widely known.

In January 2020, the Richmond City Council unanimously approved construction on the state capital’s famous Monument Avenue of a new monument honoring 14 African American Medal of Honor recipients, known as the “Forgotten 14,” for their role in the Battle of New Market Heights. That battle was an important Union victory over the Confederate forces defending Richmond and helped advance Union troops farther south. Today, unfortunately, the challenges of the past year and a half, including the coronavirus pandemic, the death of George Floyd, the removal of most of Richmond’s Confederate monuments and the uncertain future of Monument Avenue, have sidelined this effort.

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