PGON MARCH 10, 1863, PRIVATE ALEXANDER HILL—age 32, height 5′10″, complexion brown—enlisted in Company A of the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry. On July 18 his regiment lost more than a hundred men in a courageous attack repulsed by Confederates at Fort Wagner, a forbidding bastion on Morris Island that shielded nearby Charleston, South Carolina. Private Hill survived but was shot in the left hand and right hip. Hospitalized briefly, he was wounded again near Charleston in August 1864 while attacking a battery called the Swamp Angel. He suffered a severed Achilles tendon and lost full use of his left hand.
Hill was discharged for physical disability on July 12, 1865. He was denied admission to the U.S. Army Reserve Corps, according to his discharge paper, “because soldiers of his color are not allowed in it.” Like other black troops who had served their country, his status as an American went unacknowledged and his contributions unrecognized. The unofficial badge above was his way of affirming that he had served with honor. PG
PROUD EMBLEM This pin lists major battles in which Alexander Hill took part and shows an American flag flying over a fort like those he fought to secure for the Union. Such badges were made commercially and purchased after the war by veterans or groups honoring them.