Just beyond the Old Post Chapel entrance gate at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., stands an obelisk headstone bearing a detailed yet spartan inscription:
Commissioned surgeon of colored volunteers, April 4, 1863, with rank of Major. Commissioned regimental surgeon of the 7, Regiment U.S. Colored Troops, Octo 2, 1863. Brevetted Lieutenant Colonel U.S. Volunteers, March 13, 1865, “For Faithful and Meritorious Services.”
Beneath these impressive credentials—chiseled in bold letters—is the name AUGUSTA. To know the life, times, and military career of the man buried here is to better understand why Americans fought a civil war.
Alexander Thomas Augusta was born in 1825 to so-called “free persons of color” in Norfolk, Va. A naturally intelligent boy, he was curious about the world, hungry for knowledge and improvement, and, most important, driven by an unstoppable spirit.
But Augusta lived in an age of slavery and slave uprisings. He was six years old when Nat Turner staged his violent rebellion against slaveowners in nearby Southampton County, killing up to 65 people, 51 of whom were White. From then on,
