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Even before blacks were officially recognized as federal soldiers, many slaves like Nick Biddle escaped and joined Union lines. In 1861, he wore a uniform, traveled with his employee’s company to Baltimore to help protect Washington, D.C., after the surrender of Fort Sumter. Once there, he was set upon by a pro-Confederate mob, attacked with slurs and a brick that hit him in the head so severely it exposed his skull. Some consider him the first man wounded in the Civil War.
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