“Boundless” is the amazing sculpture honoring the United States Colored Troops at the Cameron Art Museum at 3201 South 17th St Wilmington, NC, 28412. I have never seen anything like this. Just off the back of a parking lot, hidden by a cluster of trees, is a squad of Black troops marching up a dirt road! According to the museum:
“In 2021, CAM installed a public sculpture, Boundless, by North Carolina artist Stephen Hayes, a work of art that connects deeply to the land the museum is steward of by telling the story of the brave United States Colored Troops soldiers who fought on this land for their own freedom and the freedom of their loved ones.”
If you enter the museum grounds, instead of going to the museum building, the United States Colored Troops memorial is in the back of the lot on the left side. You will see a sign saying “USCT.” That is where the sculpture is. While the museum has a charge to go inside, “Boundless” is completely free and there is ample free parking just one hundred feet from the sculpture.
The path to “Boundless” is flat and paved and it accommodates those, like me, with mobility issues.
As you come around the path you will see what looks like a squadron of Black troops from the Civil War. A color bearer holds his regimental flag from 1865. It is a real flag and the flag changes. Behind him is a drummer boy followed by nine privates.
The layout of the monument gives you the feeling that these may be actual troops.
The flag is that of the 5th United States Colored Infantry Regiment. That regiment was organized in Ohio and moved to Virginia in November of 1863. Later in 1863, the men were moved to North Carolina. The 5th came back to Virginia where it took part in the Battle of the Crater.
The regiment was then sent south to North Carolina to participate in the siege of Fort Fisher. When the fort fell, the 5th USCT advanced on Wilmington, the only port left to the Confederacy. February 22, 1865 the city was captured.
All of the men sculpted are descendants of 5th USCT or reenactors. Seven are USCT descendants and four USCT reenactors.
The soldiers are extremely realistic. Look at the knapsack and the blanket being carried by the drummer boy. On most traditional sculptures of the drummer boy, his knapsack would be a perfect rectangle and the blanket would be rolled into a circle. Here, these important tools of the trade are arranged in a way that suggests hard living by a boy.
We go to the privates. Each one is different. Each has a lot of detail in the face, kepi and rifle.
Look at the hands of the men as they march. They all have their left hand in slightly different positions.
The piney woods frames the soldiers.
While the front of the soldiers is highly realistic, the other side is a monumental scroll with the history of the Black regiments that participated in the liberation of Wilmington. There is also a list of the men enrolled in the regiments.
There are excerpts from letters on the reverse side. Here is one from a Black Sergeant Major; “Friends at home be cheerful, there is a brighter day coming for the colored man, and he must sacrifice home comforts and his blood if necessary, to speed the coming of that glorious day. I will close my letter in the language of the immortal [Patrick] Henry-‘Give me liberty, or give me death.'”
Here is part of the roster of the 1st Regiment United States Colored Infantry. As you may be able to tell, I was out photographing this monument during Hurricane Isaias. Here are the names from three regiments that fought on this ground in 1865 engraved on the monument.
In March of 1865 the 5th USCT joined in Sherman’s annihilating the Confederate Army of the Tennessee under Joseph Johnston. The regiment became part of the X Corps. It occupied Goldsboro, North Carolina and then helped in the capture of Raleigh. The unit continued to chase the Confederates to Bennett Place, where Johnston surrendered to Sherman.
Four men in the 5th USCT received the Medal of Honor. Almost a quarter of the men who served in the regiment died from wounds and disease during its two years of service.
For an amateur photographer like myself, the monument gives a lot of opportunities to photograph it.
North Carolina artist Stephen Hayes fashioned Boundless. It was unveiled November 13, 2021. Hayes says; “They’re moving forward. They’re in motion…Boundless is on the ground these soldiers actually marched on. I wanted it to be on the ground, not on a pedestal, so people could walk through it and experience it. They weren’t on horseback. How did their footsteps sound? What did they sing? What’s going on in this man’s head?” The artist says “Boundless talks about freeing people of being slaves and how we’re still fighting for that kind of freedom.”
According to the Cameron Museum, “Stephen Hayes is the winner of the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art. He teaches in the department of Art and Art History at Duke University. In February 1865, more than 1,800 United States Colored Troops fought for two consecutive days on the grounds of what is now Cameron Art Museum.”
The grounds for the art museum were donated so that the land where the Battle of Forks Road was fought marking one of the earliest victories for Black regiments in the Civil War. There are trails to areas where the battle was fought and reconstructed Confederate field works as show in the photo above.
Here is the 5th USCT advancing on the Confederate works.
The American Battlefield Trust has a good explanation of the Battle of Forks Road.
The entrance is marked “USCT PNC Park.” It is the largest park in the country devoted to the United States Colored Troops.
On the approach to the memorial are several explanatory plaques. This tells the story of the place of monuments in interpreting history.
Another plaque tells the story of how this historic site was preserved more than 150 years later.
Artist Stephen Hayes has become a local hero for making this large and involved monument.
The memorial honors the 1st, 5th and 37th United States Colored Troops regiments.
While we have been divided by race and civil war, many Americans stand together as friends.
In the middle of October of 2026 I was in Wilmington, North Carolina for my niece Jen’s wedding. Hurricane Isaias had made landfall the day before the nuptials and it rained all day when the wedding took place. Of course it was an outdoor wedding in the middle of a botanic garden set near the Cape Fear River. The next day I went to photograph several scenes connected to the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era in the pouring rain. Regular readers know that about 50% of the time I am photographing, the weather conditions are so bad that no one who is approaching seventy should even be out! So, Yes, it was raining.
There is a 24 minute video explaining the Civil War in Wilmington and the role of Black soldiers in the liberation of the city as well as the erection of the monument.
Here is a video of the dedication of the monument.
Here is the American Battlefields Trust video on the Battle of Forks Road.
All color photos taken by Pat Young except as otherwise noted.
