From Slavery to the Congressional Medal of Honor: The Milton Holland Story (Mar 2, 2025)
by Scott Sosebee
The Congressional Medal of Honor (CMH) is the highest award that this nation bestows on its members of the military. In order to receive the CMH, by legislative decree, a member of the United States Armed Forces has to have exhibited “an act of valor that is above and beyond the call of duty,” and such an action has to be done while “risking their life.” To date, over 3500 Americans have received the CMH, and 76 of them were from the state of Texas. The first African American from Texas awarded the CMH was Milton Murray Holland, an enslaved person who was born in Austin in August 1844.
Like a number of enslaved Americans, Holland’s enslaver was also his father, Bird Holland, a Tennessee native who came to Texas through Galveston in 1837. He moved to Austin by 1840 and served in the Mexican War and, eventually (and ironically since his son would serve in the Union Army), in the Confederate Army, where he was killed at the Battle of Mansfield, Louisiana, in 1864. Bird Holland, despite his support of slavery and service in the Confederate Texas government and Confederate Army, fathered at least seven children with Matilda Rust (who he finally officially married in 1857), who was an enslaved woman owned by Bird Holland’s half-brother. One of those children was Milton Murray Holland, who, by Texas law, was considered a slave even though his “owner” was also his father.
Although Bird Holland, during his service in the Texas legislature and government and in the Confederate government and army, was a full supporter of the institution of slavery, when his son Milton was still not yet a teenager, he freed him and two of his brothers and sent them away to attend school at Albany Manual Labor Academy, a “trade school” in Ohio operated by free Blacks. Bird Holland likely did so to fulfill Texas law that stipulated that freed slaves had to leave the state. Holland studied how to make shoes at Albany and was also apprenticed to an Albany bootmaker, John J. Stots.
Milton Holland was working for Stots when the Civil War broke out in 1861, and he tried to enlist in the Union Army as soon as he turned 18 in 1862. However, he was initially rejected due to his race. Still determined to contribute to a war that could potentially free his mother and the remainder of his siblings in Texas, Milton became the personal assistant to Ohio politician Nelson Van Vorhes, who was commissioned as a first lieutenant in the Third Ohio Infantry. When President Lincoln issued an order in 1863 to allow African Americans to enlist in the Union Army, Milton Holland not only enlisted, but he organized a company of African Americans from Athens County, which would become part of the 5th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops. Holland and his fellow soldiers were officially mustered into the Union Army in June 1863. Within a year after his enlistment, Milton Holland became a sergeant-major, the highest rank available to African Americans at the time.
The 5th Regiment was sent to Virginia to participate in the eastern theater of the war, and in the fall of 1864, Holland and his fellow soldiers were part of the fighting going on between Richmond and Petersburg. The Battle of New Market Heights, part of that campaign, began on the night of September 28 when General Ulysses S. Grant, in a diversionary attempt to make Robert E. Lee’s Army move out of position, sent General Benjamin Butler across the James River to assault Richmond’s defenses. The 5th Regiment was a part of Major General David Birney’s 10th Corps, and it was given the difficult task of attacking the Confederate defenses stationed on the high ground above the New Market Road. The fighting was fierce and raged for two days. The Confederate defenses were well constructed, and casualties for the Union Army were high. Most of the White commanders of Holland’s regiment were either wounded or killed in the first attack, which led Milton Holland to take over leadership. With little regard for his life, Holland rallied the company and pressed them forward in the attack. They charged the Confederate batteries at great loss of life, but their intense bravery allowed a trapped Union unit to escape their predicament and return to the Union lines. The Confederate Army, after days of intense fighting, was able to repel the Union offensive, so the Battle of New Market Heights was chalked up as a win for the South.
General Butler recommended Holland for the CMH for his bravery in October 1864, and he received the honor on April 6, 1865. The citation for his honor reads thusly: “Took Command of Company C, after all the officers had been killed or wounded, and gallantly led it.” Butler had also recommended Holland for a Captain’s commission, but the War Department denied that request, citing his race as the reason. However, don’t look for Holland’s name on the official list of Texas CMH winners because even though he was born in Texas, he enlisted in Ohio and gave an Ohio residence.
After the Civil War, Holland returned to Ohio, where he married Virginia Dickey in October 1865. He resumed his career as a shoemaker, but in 1869, he moved to Washington D.C., where, through a friend, became a clerk in the Treasury Department. He would also begin to study at Howard University, where he obtained a law degree in 1872. He became a successful attorney and was one of the first Black attorneys in the nation to be admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court. During his later life, he would become the President of the Capital Savings Bank and an executive with the Industrial Building and Savings Company—both Black-owned businesses. He would go on to found and helm the Alpha Insurance Company, also in Washington, D.C., which was one of the few African American-owned firms of its kind in the nation.
He collapsed in his office at Alpha with a heart attack in May 1910. He was near death but was brought home for convalescence and treatment. It was not successful, and he succumbed to his ailment the next morning. He was sixty-five years old, and since he had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor he was buried with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery, a fitting honor for a national hero.
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.