54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
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The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that participated in the American Civil War which was the first formal Army unit to be comprised of African-Americans.
This unit, organized by the governor of Massachusetts, John A. Andrew and commanded by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw after the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation, was created for the express purpose of proving that African-Americans could be good soldiers. Colonel Shaw was hand-picked by Andrew himself, and the rest of the officers were painstakingly evaluated by Shaw. The soldiers were recruited by white abolitionists (including Shaw's parents) and by prominent blacks such as Frederick Douglass. This recruitment group was later knows as "The Black Committee." The 54th left Boston, Massachusetts to fight for the Union on May 28, 1863.
The 54th started off in a manual labour role. When used in a raid against the Georgia town of Darien, they gained notoriety after being ordered to loot and fire the town by Colonel James Montgomery. The 54th's participation in this raid was minimal and reluctant. Shaw intially 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 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 nationwide fame on July 18, 1863 when it spearheaded an assault on Fort Wagner in Charleston, South Carolina. Half the unit's men were killed in the assault, including Colonel Shaw. Although the Union was not able to take and hold the exceptionally secure fort, the 54th regiment was widely acclaimed for its valor and the event helped encourage the further enlistment and mobilization of African Americans which Abraham Lincoln once noted was a key development that helped secure final victory in the Civil War. Decades later, William Harvey Carney, the flag bearer of the unit during that attack became the first African-American awarded the Medal of Honor.
Later in the war, the 54th fought a rear-guard action covering the Union retreat at the Battle of Olustee.
The unit was disbanded after the Civil War and was eventually largely forgotten, aside from the monument (1884 – 1897) by Augustus Saint-Gaudens on the Boston Common, and the famous composition by Charles Ives based both on the monument and the regiment ("Col. Shaw and his Colored Regiment", the opening movement of the Three Places in New England). More recently, the story of the unit was depicted in the 1989 Academy Award winning film Glory starring Matthew Broderick and Denzel Washington. The film reestablished the now-popular image of the combat role African-Americans played in the Civil War and the unit, often played in historical battle simulations, now has the nickname of The Glory Regiment.