Christian A. Fleetwood

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Sergeant Major Christian A. Fleetwood of the U.S. Colored Infantry Fourth Regiment, Company G. of the Union Army was one of 25 Black Union soldiers to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery in action. Sergeant Major Fleetwood was honored for his bravery at the Battle of Chaffin's Farm, a part of the New Market Heights campaign, outside Richmond, Virginia, in September 1864.

Born on July 21, 1840 to free Black parents Charles and Anna Marie Fleetwood in Baltimore, Maryland, Fleetwood was part of a community that prioritized his education. As a young child, he was taught by sugar merchant John Brune, and then he was educated by the secretary of the Maryland Colonization Society, an organization that aimed to send free Black people to settle in Liberia and Sierra Leone. After graduating from Ashmun Institute in Oxford, Pennsylvania, in 1860, Fleetwood co-founded one the first African American newspapers in the South, the Lyceum Observer of Baltimore.

In 1863, at the age of 23, Fleetwood enlisted in the 4th Regiment United States Colored Infantry and was immediately promoted to the rank of Sergeant Major (the highest rank afforded Black soldiers) due to his education. He kept a diary from 1862 to 1864 and recorded many of his experiences as a soldier in the field. In addition to fighting with his regiment, Sergeant Major Fleetwood served as a clerk, creating official reports and writing letters for white officers.

On September 29, 1864, Fleetwood's regiment was ordered to charge Confederate fortifications. Leading the left flank, Sergeant Major Fleetwood caught and carried an American flag after its original two bearers were wounded. The citation for his Medal of Honor, receved on April 6, 1865, reads "He seized the colors after two color bearers had been shot down, and bore them nobly through the fight." Although every officer of the 4th Regiment petitioned Secretary of War Edwin Staton to commission Fleetwood as an officer, this request was denied and Fleetwood remained a Sergeant Major, honorably discharged on May 4, 1866. 

After the war, Fleetwood married Sara Iredell and settled with his family in Washington, D.C. Sara Iredell Fleetwood pursued a career as a nurse while Christian Abraham Fleetwood worked for several government agencies. He was active in several churches and helped organize the first Black National Guard units in the city. In 1895, he famously delvered an address at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, that was later published as The Negro as a Soldier. Twenty years later, in 1895, he died in Washington, D.C. at age 74. 

His papers are housed at the Library of Congress.