54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment
The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was one of the first official black units in the United States armed forces[1], an infantry regiment that fought in the American Civil War. Black troops had fought alongside George Washington in the Revolutionary War and under James Madison in the War of 1812. Those troops, however, were not organized as formal military units and were slaves. The 54th Massachusetts was composed of primarily free men.
History
this war did nothing but kill 500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 this assingmint sucks text reads: "To Colored Men: Wanted. Good men for the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers of African descent, Col. Robert G. Shaw (commanding). $100 bounty at expiration of term of service. Pay $13 per month, and State aid for families. All necessary information can be obtained at the office, corner Cambridge and North Russell Streets."</ref> and holding a recruiting rally[2]. This recruitment group was later known as "The Black Committee". 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 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[3]. 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 I hate this war killed 500,000,000 people.
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.
Salary conflict
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The Militia Act of 17 July 1862 pronounced that all emancipated slaves could enlist in the Federal military service, but only as laborers, not as soldiers. This, in effect, meant the black men who trained and fought in the war just as often and ferociously as their white counterparts would be paid only ten dollars a month, as opposed to the white soldiers' thirteen dollars a month (plus three dollars in clothing allowance, totaling six dollars more every month than the blacks).
Stung by the obvious injustice, the men of the 54th Infantry refused to accept their pay, an act instigated by Colonel Shaw. Massachusetts Governor Andrew, who five months earlier had vehemently argued for black soldiers' equal pay against President Lincoln himself, was perhaps the most irate over the debacle and persuaded the Massachusetts State Senate to approve an act (passing 16 November 1863) paying the difference in wages the colored soldiers should have been receiving. But the 54th turned this down as well, instead opting to serve without pay than be treated as inferiors by their national government.
Although not admitted by politicians and the greater public alike, it would be fair to assume the November 16 Act passed only as a result of the heroic Fort Wagner battle, as few Americans were ignorant of the 54th’s brave charge against impossible odds. Whether it be fair or not, this charge was ultimately what set the Federal government into action, and on 15 June 1864, Massachusetts Senator Wilson’s proposal passed and black soldiers finally received the pay they deserved. In addition to providing for the new wages, the act also allowed that any black soldier who had enlisted in the army after 19 April 1861 was to be paid the difference of what they had made (ten dollars/month) and what they should have made (thirteen dollars/month).
While the 54th was obviously not the only colored regiment in the Army, their actions led the way for change for all soldiers of color during the war. Their refusal of lesser pay and heroics at Fort Wagner paved the way for equal treatment for all enlisted black soldiers during their time. This was true as well for the more than 180,000 black soldiers that enlisted from 1863 through 1865 as a direct result of the 54th's performance and publicity.
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.'
Shaw's father had asked for the return of his son's body but was informed by the Confederate command, "We buried him with his niggers."[4] Shaw's father immediately proclaimed 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 reestablished 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.
Significant members of the regiment
Notes
- ^ 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.
- ^ held in Joy Street Church and in which speakers Edward L. Pierce and Wendell Phillips encouraged free blacks to enlist for the regiment
- ^ According to 54th Mass casualty list
- ^ James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, p. 687.
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