Whether it’s Hispanic Heritage Month or the Puerto Rican Day Parade, chances are, you’ve heard, “¡Que bonita bandera es la bandera Puertorriqueña!” Meaning what a beautiful flag the Puerto Rican flag is. Vibrant energy surrounds the Hispanic community, from the subtle taste of sazón, the vivacious language and the musical instruments that tell stories without words. Meade.Ĭontinue on to Al Dia News to read the full article. Lee on the forces of Union Major General George G. The story goes that during the battle, De Castro separated from his unit amid Pickett’s Charge - ordered by Confederate General Robert E. The 19th Massachusetts fought in a number of historic battles throughout the Civil War, including the Second Manassas, Antietam and Fredericksburg.īut it was at the Battle of Gettysburg that De Castro would earn his Medal of Honor. In other words, De Castro was the flag-bearer every time the regiment went into battle, and it is where his heroism would be best remembered.
He was initially a private in the 19th Massachusetts Infantry, but rose to a corporal over time and became a color-bearer for his regiment. “Older boys, like Joseph, were often confined to dark, dirty cells for weeks at a time with only bread and water for sustenance,” wrote Richardson.ĭe Castro was released after the investigation and only three months after the start of the Civil War, he joined the Union Army on July 12, 1861. His time at the Westboro Reform School was also likely filled with more trauma, as an 1860 investigation of the facility in the summer of that year revealed the cruel treatment of boys in the institution’s care. “He apparently became a handful,” wrote Historian Darlene Richardson in a Facebook post about his life on the VA Boston Healthcare System page. This had a profound effect on the adolescent, as the next time he appears in records, it is as an inmate of the State Reform School in Westboro, near Worcester, MA in 1860, at 16. Not much is known of his early life, but his father passed away of tuberculosis in 1858, when De Castro was 14. 14, 1844 outside of Boston, Massachusetts. In the case of Joseph De Castro, the son of a Spanish father and American mother from Maine and the first Hispanic to ever win a Medal of Honor, he enlisted in the Union Army’s volunteer forces at 16 years old.
It is estimated that up to approximately 10,000 Hispanics served throughout the course of the American Civil War.įrom Mexican-Americans in the South and West, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and immigrants from Spain and Portugal, they found themselves on either side of the battle.
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