Thomas Carney had to wait 250 years, but he’s finally getting his monument.
Carney, one of the few Black soldiers to hold the rank of corporal in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, is just one of the approximately 150 Black Maryland patriots who will be honored with a new memorial at the State House.
The state Board of Public Works approved two allocations totaling $402,462 for the monument during its Wednesday meeting, according to public records: $311,500 to sculptor Branly Cadet, and $90,962 to Campion Hruby Landscape Architects, which will develop a site on the southeast lawn of the State House and near the original 18th century entrance to the building.
“Carney was one of many Maryland African Americans who enlisted and served in integrated units during the Revolutionary War,” according to a description of the expenditure request in the public records, “a minority of whom were enslaved people. The existence and contributions of these patriots have been largely unknown in Maryland’s public history.”
The board’s agenda credited the idea for the monument to Stephen Xavier Lee, a Baltimore native, artist and author of “The Story of Mr. Thomas Carney — A Maryland Patriot of the American Revolutionary War.”
The project was developed by four state agencies — The State House Trust, the Maryland Commission on Artistic Property, the Maryland Department of General Services and the Maryland Public Art Commission — that in June 2024, put out a nationwide call for submissions.
Four semi-finalists were identified, and eventually the Oakland, California-based Cadet was selected. He has previously created sculptures of such famous folk as baseball great Jackie Robinson for Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, and former U.S. Rep Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., which stands outside the New York state office building bearing the civil rights activist’s name in Harlem.
Carney is one of the rare Black soldiers who fought for American independence whose story has been preserved for posterity.
According to the Washington-based American Battlefield Trust, Carney was among the soldiers who endured — and survived — the brutal winter of 1777-78 in the Continental Army encampment in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
An obituary written shortly after Carney died in 1828 at age 74, described the corporal’s heroics on the battlefield during the Siege of Ninety Six, during which he saved an officer’s life.
“His captain, (the late Major General Benson) received a dangerous wound,” the obituary reads.
“Though Benson was considerably above the common size, [Carney] carried him on his shoulders some considerable distance, to the place at which the surgeon was stationed; … At length, overcome by excessive fatigue and heat, as he laid the almost lifeless body of Benson at the feet of the surgeon, he fainted.”
In addition to the relatively well-known Carney, the new monument will also pay tribute to the Black Revolutionary War soldiers whose names — and stories — have been lost.
“Their legacy is but one of the omitted chapters in the heritage of early Maryland’s extensive Black community,” the meeting agenda reads. “The purpose of the proposed monument is to honor these unsung patriots who were members of the Continental Army community and to expand public understanding of the people who contributed to the fight for American independence.”
The monument is expected to be completed in time for the nationwide celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026.
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