The 54th Massachusetts and "the right of Citizenship"

Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters US, let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.

                                                                                Frederick Douglass - March 23, 1863

Barely had the smoke cleared from the fields of Antietam than did Abraham Lincoln, on September 22, 1862, issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation; a document that was the death-knell of slavery. With the stoke of a pen Lincoln elevated the war to one of liberation.  In May of 1862 came the opportunity for African American men to enlist in the Union Army, and to many, demonstrate their citizenship.

Frederick Douglass, as the quote above attests, was a leading and vocal proponent of African American participation in the war to end slavery.

The first regularly recruited state infantry regiment was the 54^th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry; the unit depicted in the 1989 feature film “Glory”.  Frederick Douglass, along with Massachusetts governor John A Andrew, was instrumental in the formation of that regiment.  In March of 1863 Douglass wrote; The nucleus of this first regiment is now in camp at Readville, a short distance from Boston. I will undertake to forward to Boston all persons adjudged fit to be mustered into the regiment, who shall apply to me at any time within the next two weeks. Eventually one thousand men both free blacks and runaway slaves joined the regiment, some came from as far away as Canada to wear the blue uniform of a soldier of the Union.
                                                                                                     (photo: public domain)          

Abolitionist, and friend of Frederick Douglass, Gerrit Smith donated more than seven hundred dollars toward the expenses of recruiting men for the 54^th.  This was a culmination of Smith’s efforts as an abolitionist; indeed he was one of the “secret six” – a group of wealthy New England abolitionists who funded John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859.  Little could Smith or anyone else, save perhaps for Frederick Douglass, have envisioned the sight of African American men given the opportunity to don the uniform of their country and fight for family and friends still in bondage.

(photo: Library of Congress)

On May 28 1863 the men of the 54^th with “eagles on their buttons and muskets on their shoulders” paraded through the streets of Boston on their way to war.  They were cheered by thousands of well-wishers as they marched toward the transports which awaited them.

 

                                                                                              

In the ranks of the regiment were two of Douglass’s sons, Charles and Lewis who were among the first to enlist in the 54^th.

On July 16, 1863 the 54^th saw its first combat action on James Island South Carolina.  The men of Massachusetts blunted a Confederate attack and drove it back.  The 54^th suffered their first battle casualties of the war.

The men of the 54^th gained immortality for their July 18, 1863 assault against Battery Wagner on Morris Island at Charleston, South Carolina.  The regiment was the lead element of the Federal attack on the heavily defended Confederate strongpoint. 

 

 Although initially the 54^th made great gains, nearly sweeping the Confederate defenders from the parapets, the rebels quickly regained the initiative and thwarted the efforts of the 54^th, driving them back with heavy losses.  Of the nearly 600 men who participated 272 were casualties – killed, wounded, or captured.  

                                                                (image: National Park Service)

Among the dead was the regiment’s colonel, Robert Gould Shaw.  Shaw was buried in an unmarked trench with his fallen comrades by contemptuous Confederates.
(photo: Boston Athenaeum - public domain)

 

For his efforts at the battle of Fort Wagner Sergeant William Carney was awarded the Medal of Honor, the first African American to have that high honor bestowed upon him. 

(photo: Library of Congress)

 The valor of Carney and the men of the 54^th Massachusetts convinced the leadership of the Union Army that African American men could fight with distinction and paved the way for additional all-black units in the Army.  Eventually nearly 200,000 African American men would serve in the Union army and navy.

As Frederick Douglass predicted “The black man…earned the right of citizenship in the United 

States.”

                                (photo: Library of Congress)