On April 18, 1861, the Pennsylvania soldiers known to history as the “First Defenders” faced a bloody riot on the streets of Baltimore, Maryland. These volunteer citizen-soldiers were racing to defend the United States Capitol in the aftermath of a rebel assault on Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina just a week earlier. The Civil War had begun.
Among the ranks of the First Defenders was a 65-year-old Black man named Nicholas Biddle. Wearing the uniform of the Washington Artillerists of Pottsville, Biddle had marched to war with his neighbors to defend the United States from attack.
According to historian John Hoptak, it is believed that Biddle was born into slavery in Delaware in 1796. He likely settled in Philadelphia after his escape and moved to Schuylkill County sometime in the 1840s. By the outbreak of the Civil War, Biddle was well-known in the community and associated himself with two militia companies in the Schuylkill County seat.
The sight of Nicholas Biddle, a Black man, in uniform and marching to war for the Union set an angry mob of 2,000 pro-secessionist, pro-slavery Baltimore residents into a rage that day in April 1861. A torrent of verbal abuse against the soldiers of Pennsylvania was followed by a cascade of bricks pried loose from the city streets.
Nick Biddle was on the receiving end of much of this makeshift weaponry. A brick struck him in the head, leaving him bloodied and dazed. He was picked up by his comrades, along with other wounded Pennsylvanians, and carried to the train that carried the soldiers to the nation’s capital at Washington.
Biddle’s story quickly became well-known across the country, as he became one of the Civil War’s first casualties. That an African American was among the first to shed blood in defense of the United States of America was a signal of the fight for freedom to come. Though Black enlistment in the United States Army was not permitted until 1863, by war’s end more than 180,000 African Americans followed Biddle’s lead and served in the US forces.
Biddle survived his awful wounds from April 1861. He returned to Pottsville where he lived until his death in August 1876 at the age of 80.
Biddle was buried at the Bethel AME Church in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.
Special thanks to historian John Hoptak for all his incredible research into Biddle and his remarkable story.
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