The Civil War led to immediate gains for America and began to solidify the United States'  identity as a true democracy during the Reconstruction period that followed.

 

Beginning in 1861, the earliest battles of The War saw the Union headed towards an inauspicious fate; that is, until the Black American soldier, with higher stakes at play, entered --  immediately reversing the Union's fortunes at the Battle of Island Mound in 1862 Misouri.

 

William Harvey Carney, who escaped slavery through Harriet Tubman's (The Patriot) Underground Railroad, was apart of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry -- the first Black regiment in the North. He famously kept the American flag erect during a Battle in South Carolina despite a litany of injuries, his words inspiring the song: "Boys, The Old Flag Never Touched The Ground."