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The '54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry', an infantry regiment that fought in the American Civil War, was one of the first official black units in the United States armed forces.^[1] An earlier regiment of black freedmen, the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, had fought alongside George Washington in the Revolutionary War.

Contents

History

Legacy

Total strength and casualties

Significant members of the regiment

See also

Notes

Further reading

External links

History

The regiment, organized in March 1863 by the Governor of Massachusetts, John A. Andrew, and commanded by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, sprang to life after the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton decided white officers would be in charge of all "colored" units, and Colonel Shaw was hand-picked by Governor John A. Andrew himself. The rest of the officers were painstakingly evaluated by Shaw. The soldiers were recruited by white abolitionists (including Shaw's parents). These recruiters included J. Appleton^[2], also the first man commissioned in the regiment, whose recruiting efforts included posting a notice in the ''Boston Journal''^[3] and holding a recruiting rally^[4]. This recruitment group was later known as "The Black Committee". The 54th Massachusetts was composed of primarily free men. A number of the recruits were from states other than Massachusetts, with several coming from Pennsylvania and New York. Two of the recruits were sons of famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Soon afterwards, a second black regiment, the 55th Massachusetts, was organized and began training.
The 54th left Boston to fight for the Union on May 28, 1863. It started off performing only manual labor. The regiment gained notoriety in a raid on the town of Darien, Georgia, after being ordered to loot and burn the town by Col. James Montgomery. The 54th's participation in this raid was minimal and reluctant. Colonel Shaw initially objected to what he called a "Satanic action", but was forced to capitulate when Montgomery threatened to imprison Shaw and put the 54th directly under his own command. Montgomery's regiment was allowed to break ranks and loot at will, whereas Shaw's men were orderly and only took those supplies that would be useful at camp.
The regiment's first action took place in a skirmish with Confederate troops on James Island, South Carolina, on July 16. The regiment repulsed a Confederate assault, losing 42 men in the process.
The regiment gained international fame on July 18, 1863, when it spearheaded an assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina. Of the six hundred men that stormed Fort Wagner, one hundred and sixteen, including Colonel Shaw, were killed. Another hundred and fifty-six were wounded or captured^[5]. Although the Union was not able to take and hold the fort, the 54th was widely acclaimed for its valor, and the event helped encourage the further enlistment and mobilization of African-American troops, a key development that President Abraham Lincoln once noted as helping to secure the final victory. Decades later, Sergeant William Harvey Carney was awarded the Medal of Honor, for grabbing the US flag as the flag bearer fell, carrying the flag to the enemy ramparts and back, and saying "Boys, the old flag never touched the ground!" While other African-Americans had since been granted the award, Carney's is the earliest action for which the Medal of Honor was awarded to an African-American.

Ironically, during the week leading up to the 54th's heroic sacrifice near Charleston, simmering racial strife climaxed in the New York Draft Riots. African-Americans on the city's waterfront and Lower East Side were beaten, tortured, and lynched by white mobs angered over conscription for the Union war effort. These mobs directed their animosity toward blacks because they felt the Civil War was caused by them. However, the bravery of the 54th would help to assuage anger of this kind.
Later in the war, the 54th fought a rear-guard action covering the Union retreat at the Battle of Olustee. As part of an all-black brigade under Col. Alfred S. Hartwell, they unsuccessfully attacked entrenched Confederate militia at the November 1864 Battle of Honey Hill. In mid-April 1865, they fought at the Battle of Boykin's Mill, a small affair in South Carolina that proved to be one of the last engagements of the war.

Legacy

The regiment was disbanded after the Civil War, but retains a strong legacy. A monument, constructed 1884 – 1897 by Augustus Saint-Gaudens on the Boston Common, is part of the Boston Black Heritage Trail. A famous composition by Charles Ives, "Col. Shaw and his Colored Regiment," the opening movement of ''Three Places in New England'', is based both on the monument and the regiment.
Colonel Shaw and his men also feature prominently in Robert Lowell's Civil War Centennial poem ''For the Union Dead'' (1964); some of the most powerful lines appearing in this stanza:
: Shaw's father wanted a monument
: where his son's body was thrown
: and lost with his 'others.'

A Northern officer had asked for the return of Shaw's body but was informed by the Confederate command, "We buried him with his niggers."^[6] Shaw's father wrote in response that he was proud that Robert, a fierce fighter for equality, had been buried in that manner. "We hold that a soldier's most appropriate burial-place is on the field where he has fallen" (Ibid.) As a recognition and honor, at the end of the Civil War, the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, and the 33rd Colored Regiment were mustered out at the Battery Wagner site of the mass burial of the 54th Massachusetts.
More recently, the story of the unit was depicted in the 1989 Academy Award winning film ''Glory'' starring Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Cary Elwes, and Andre Braugher. The film re-established the now-popular image of the combat role African-Americans played in the Civil War, and the unit, often represented in historical battle reenactments, now has the nickname ''The Glory Regiment''.
Years after the film was made, it came to light that the word Glory was used by one of the men of the regiment. First Sergeant Robert John Simmons, of B Company, was a twenty-six year old Bermudian clerk, probably from St. George's, believed to have joined the 54th on 12 March, 1863. (Many black and white Bermudians fought for the Union, mostly in the U.S. Navy. Many more profiteered from the war by smuggling arms to the South.) Simmons was introduced to Frances George Shaw, father of Col. Shaw, by William Wells Brown, who described him as "a young man of more than ordinary abilities who had learned the science of war in the British Army". In his book, ''The Negro in the American Rebellion'', Brown said that "Frances George Shaw remarked at the time that Simmons would make a 'valuable soldier'. Col. Shaw also had a high opinion of him". Sgt. Simmons was mentioned in an 1863 article of the ''Weekly Columbus Enquirer'', which described him as "a brave man and of good education. He was wounded and captured. Taken to Charleston, his bearing impressed even his captors. After suffering amputation of the arm, he died there." The newspaper also described him as saying that he fought "for glory". Simmons, who has been specially mentioned among the enlisted men of the 54th, and who had been awarded a private medal, died in August 1863, following the attack on Fort Wagner.^[7]

Total strength and casualties

The 54th Massachusetts suffered at least 116 officers and enlisted men who were killed in action or who died of their wounds and 1 officer and 160 enlisted men who died of disease, for a total of 270 fatalities.^[8]

Significant members of the regiment

★ Colonel Robert Gould Shaw

★ Stephen Atkins Swails

★ William Harvey Carney

See also

★ List of Massachusetts Civil War Units

★ Massachusetts in the American Civil War

Notes

1. The 1st South Carolina Volunteers, recruited from freed slaves, was the first Union Army regiment organized with African-American soldiers. The 54th Massachusetts was the first such regiment recruited from a Northern state.
2. Burchard, Peter. One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965): 77-78
3. the text reads: "To Colored Men: Wanted. Good men for the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers of African descent, Col. Robert G. Shaw (commanding). 0 bounty at expiration of term of service. Pay per month, and State aid for families. All necessary information can be obtained at the office, corner Cambridge and North Russell Streets."
4. held in Joy Street Church and in which speakers Edward L. Pierce and Wendell Phillips encouraged free blacks to enlist for the regiment
5. According to 54th Mass casualty list
6. McPherson, James M. Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. 104
7. Mark E. Mitchell Collection of African American History.
8. http://www.civilwararchive.com/Unreghst/unmainf5.htm#54th The Civil War Archive website after Dyer, Frederick Henry. 'A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion'. 3 vols. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1959.

Further reading

★ Emilio, Luis F., ''A Brave Black Regiment: A History of the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry: 1863-1865'' (Boston: The Boston Book Company, 1891).

★ Cox, Clinton, ''Undying Glory: The story of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment''.

★ ed. Duncan, Russell, ''Blue-eyed Child of Fortune: the Civil War Letters of Robert Gould Shaw'', (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press)

★ Glory a movie about Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, and the 54th infantry

External links

★ Mr. Lincoln and Freedom: Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry

★ 54th Mass casualty list