Louden Langley

Louden Langley served in the Civil War and was a Reconstruction Era politician in South Caroli

NPS/R. Condon

Quick Facts

Significance:

Civil War Soldier, Reconstruction Era Politician, Lighthouse Keeper

Place of Birth:

Huntington, Vermont

Date of Birth:

ca 1838

Place of Death:

Beaufort County, South Carolina

Date of Death:

June 28, 1881

Place of Burial:

Section 62, Grave 8647

Cemetery Name:

Beaufort National Cemetery

"I am no advocate of war, I mean an unjust war; and as bad as I hate war, I hate tyrants and tyranny worse…Yes, I go further, and I say, that every nation has a God-given right to rebel against any laws, unjust laws, that the tyrants may deem fit to make and enforce." Louden Langley – January 1854

Louden Langley was born free in Huntington, Vermont in the late 1830s. As a teenager, his family opened their home to people escaping enslavement along the Underground Railroad after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. Even as a teenager, he was keenly aware of the injustices of slavery, writing in 1854 to a local paper that slavery was a tyranny that people had a God-given right to rebel against through war, if necessary. Less than a decade later, he got his chance. 

In December 1863, Langley enlisted in the United States Army. He hoped to join the 1st South Carolina Volunteers – a regiment comprised mostly of formerly enslaved men from along the coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. But an administrative error found him assigned to the famous 54th Massachusetts Infantry. In the Spring of 1864, he wrote a letter to the governor of Vermont, complaining about the inequality in pay between Black and White soldiers, as well as reported on the aftermath of the Battle of Olustee. In April 1864, the recruiting error was corrected and Langley transferred to the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, although by this point the regiment had been redesignated as the 33rd United States Colored Troops. Langley served the rest of the war as the regiment’s Sergeant Major, the highest ranking enlist man in the unit. He mustered out in 1866 but did not return home to New England, opting instead to remain in Beaufort County, South Carolina.

After the Civil War, Langley became active in the region’s Reconstruction era political scene. Alongside Robert Smalls, Langley represented the District of Beaufort during the 1868 South Carolina Constitutional Convention in Charleston, where among other actions, he argued for a free, equal, and compulsory education for the people of his adopted state. Likewise, Langley served as the School Commissioner of Beaufort County in years following the convention. By 1879, however, many African American office holders in South Carolina, including Langley, had been cast out of public office by white legislators and violent factions of their supporters. 

In 1880 Langley settled his family on St. Helena Island while he worked as an assistant keeper at the Hunting Island lighthouse – today a major destination for visitors to Hunting Island State Park near Beaufort. He passed away the following year at age 43, and rests today in Beaufort National Cemetery - buried alongside so many others who fought for the hopes and promises of Reconstruction.