After the capture of New Market Heights, Paine's brigades, along with Birney's wing, turned west and moved to join Ord for the advance on Richmond. Ord's troops captured Fort Harrison and managed to hold it against Confederate counterattacks, while elements of Paine's division were engaged north of Fort Harrison. Recognition and praise for the bravery displayed by the USCT during their assault at New Market Heights followed soon after the battle. General Benjamin Butler declared that the colored soldiers, by their coolness, steadiness, determined courage, and dash, had silenced doubters of their soldierly capacity. Butler commissioned a special silver medal, struck by Tiffany and Company, for the men who fought in the engagement; its Latin inscription translated as Freedom will be theirs by the sword. For their actions at New Market Heights, fourteen USCT soldiers and two of their white officers received the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor. Among them was Christian Fleetwood of Baltimore, Maryland, born to free parents, who had founded and run a newspaper before the war, enlisted in the 4th USCT, rose to sergeant major, seized the colors after two color bearers had been shot down, and carried them through the fight; he received the Medal of Honor in April 1865, served until May 1866, later worked for the Freedman's Bureau and War Department, and died in Washington, D.C., on September 28, 1914, with burial in Landover, Maryland. Also honored was Powhatan Beaty, born enslaved outside Richmond in 1837, who escaped to freedom, settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, enlisted in an Ohio unit that became the 5th USCT in June 1863, took command of his company after all its officers had been killed or wounded, and gallantly led it; after the war he returned to Cincinnati, became a renowned Shakespearean actor, and died there in 1916.
