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"Fighting For Freedom...oh wait."

I spent many years researching the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry. They were the first black units authorized by Lincoln to be formed in the north. In my research, I tracked down some of the descendants of the men who served, both white officers and black soldiers. One soldier named Andrew Jason Smith had been born a slave in Kentucky. His father was the plantation owner, also named Smith. When Andrew and another slave heard that their master was going to take them with them when they returned to the war, they ran away. Andrew eventually met up with an Ohio regiment. The Colonel on the unit made him his cook/servant. At the Battle of Shiloh, the Colonel told Andrew to get his horse, and remove it from the battlefield. In doing so, Andrew got hit in the head with a spent bullet. It left a scar on his forehead the rest of his life.

The Colonel had been suffering from chronic diarrhea, and was put on medical leave. He returned home to Ohio to recuperate, and took Andrew with him. It was while Andrew was in Ohio that he heard of the recruitment of black soldiers in Boston. The Colonel got him a train ticket, and Andrew headed east. By the time he got there, the 54th Regiment was already filled, so he enlisted in the 55th, and remained with the unit throughout the war. Andrew went home to Kentucky and spent the rest of his life there. He was married twice. His first wife died, and they had no children. Later in life, he married a younger woman who gave him two daughters, Geneva and Caruth. Their mother died after her dress caught fire in the kitchen, and because the mother's family felt Andrew was too old to raise a baby, they took Caruth and raised her. Geneva remained with her father, but the girls stayed close all their lives.

I first came across information on Andrew Smith from a manuscript collection at Cornell University. The Assistant Surgeon Burt Greene Wilder of the 55th had been a professor at the college, and left all his papers to the school, as well as his brain. There was a photo of Andy in uniform, a photo of him as an older man, and a photo of his daughter Geneva. There were also letters from Andrew to Dr. Wilder. Since Andrew couldn't read or write, he would dictate his letters to Geneva, so the letters I read from Andrew to Dr. Wilder, were in Geneva's hand.

I managed to track down Andrew's grandson who still lives in Indianapolis. The first time we met was at the National Archives in Washington. I had made copies of all the documents and photos of Andrew Jackson Smith that I had found in the collection. It wasn't until I met Andy Bowman, that I discovered that Geneva and Caruth were still alive. Geneva was Andy Bowman's mother. She was living in Chicago at the time, and although I never met her in person, I did speak to her on the phone. She passed away a few years later. I did meet Caruth in person several times, and we carried on a correspondence until she passed at 104. She had been a teacher, had been married, but had no children, so her nephew Andy was very dear to her.

One of the things Caruth had wanted was to get her father The Medal of Honor. He had saved the Federal and State flags at the Battle of Honey Hill, S.C., on November 30, 1864, after both flag bearers had fallen. After the war, Dr. Wilder wrote the awards branch in Washington, but was told that the statute of limitations for Civil War Medals of Honor had expired. In my research, I had discovered the records that would offer evidence of Andrew's actions at Honey Hill. I originally wrote Colin Powell, who was then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he wrote me back, telling me that he would forward the documentation to the Awards Branch. They told me exactly the same thing they'd told Dr. Wilder all those years ago, that the statute of limitation had expired. It took several years, but after other people got involved with Andy Bowman, and after a Congressional vote, Andrew Smith was awarded the Medal of Honor by Bill Clinton in January 2001, just before he left office. Caruth was there that day with her nephew Andy, and his family to receive it. They were in good company, because Teddy Roosevelt was awarded the Medal of Honor the same day.