ALBANY, N.Y. – The Union’s first Black hero of the Civil War wasn’t one of the African-American soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, famously depicted in the 1989 film “Glory,” but rather a merchant ship’s cook who took up arms to prevent being sold into slavery after a Confederate raider captured his vessel.
At least that’s the reckoning of some historians and a pair of Upstate New York-based documentary producers who have included William Tillman’s story in their new film on the short-but-prolific wartime record of the brig Jefferson Davis, a Southern privateer that seized several Union ships in the opening months of the war.
“He certainly ranks among the top half-dozen African-American heroes of the Civil War as far as I’m concerned,” said Gerald Henig, professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay, in the San Francisco Bay area.
“This is a guy who falls between the cracks,” said Joe Zarzynski, a retired history teacher from Wilton, N.Y., and co-producer of the documentary film released earlier this year. “We have our pantheon of heroes for the Civil War, and this guy should be there.”
“Search for the Jefferson Davis: Trader, Slaver, Raider,” released in March, tells the story of a merchant ship-turned-slaver-turned-privateer that was renamed after the president of the Confederacy. Based in Charleston, S.C., the “Jeff Davis” captured nine Union commercial ships in the summer of 1861 before running aground off St. Augustine, Fla., that August.
The film, produced by Peter Pepe’s Glens Falls-based Pepe Productions, focuses on the efforts by marine archaeologists to identify a wreck found off St. Augustine that could be the Confederate privateer. The documentary includes a re-enactment of Tillman’s heroics after the capture of his ship by the Davis 150 years ago Thursday about 150 miles off Sandy Hook, N.J.
Tillman was a 27-year-old steward and cook aboard the S.J. Waring, a 300-ton schooner built in Port Jefferson, N.Y., in 1853 and based out of Brookhaven on Long Island. The Waring was the third vessel the Davis had seized since starting its raid on Union shipping in the Atlantic. Five members of the rebel ship’s crew were put aboard the Waring to sail the captured schooner to a Southern port.
