The early recruiting patterns between the Union Army and Navy were very different, as a result the Navy became integrated much earlier than the Army. So it seems likely that the first Black person to die in the line of duty during the Civil War would have been in the Navy.

On a recent trip to Hilton Head Island I came across the sign shown below. The bottom portion talks about William H. Fitzhugh, an escaped slave, who joined the Union Navy.

It is shown in more detail below. The sailor depicted is not William Fitzhugh.

The Official Records of the Union Navy name the eight men killed at the Battle of Port Royal, shown below. All were from the Navy as the Army did not land ashore until the battle was over. See the link for details on the battle from a previous post.

The eight men were buried with full military honors in a cemetery at Bay Point. They were: the Wabash– Thomas Jackson, coxswain-captain of a gun; the Susquehanna – John P. Clark (ordinary seaman) and William Price Jr (coal heaver); the Pawnee– John Kelly (ordinary seaman) and W. H. Fitzhugh (first-class boy); Mohican– John M. Whittemore (third assistant engineer); the Bienville– Pat. McGuigan and Alex. Chambers. The burial sites for six of the men are known and shown below with images from the findagrave website. The first five are buried in section 6 of the Beaufort National Cemetery in Beaufort, SC.. Their grave numbers are listed on the headstones.

The sixth is buried in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the Mount Auburn Cemetery.

The image below was taken of the Bay Point Cemetery during the Civil War by Timothy O’Sullivan and appears in the Library of Congress; the screen captures were taken from the 91 MB TIFF file. The title of the picture is- Hilton Head, South Carolina. Graves of sailors killed during the bombardment of November 7, 1861. The file states the picture was taken in 1861 but that appears to be an error as will be shown in an enlargement of another headstone in the cemetery below.

As can be seen in the picture below G. W. Collins buried in the cemetery died in March of 1862.

Of the eight men who died one was Black, William H. Fitzhugh who served as a first-class boy on the USS Pawnee. His death is described below in an article entitled- “They called us bluejackets“: The Transformation of Self-emancipated Slaves from Contrabands of War to Fighting Sailors in the South Atlantic Blocking Squadron during the Civil War by Lisa Y. King, Ph.D., published in Volume 1, Issue 1, of the International Journal of Naval History, a part of page 1 is shown below.

William H. Fitzhugh was a slave who escaped to freedom at Fort Monroe. Dr. King hypothesizes that Fitzhugh might be the first Black casualty in the Civil War from the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron but I think he may be the first Black person killed in the line of duty in the entire Civil War. If you have any evidence to the contrary please leave it in the comments.