We continue covering the sesquicentennial of the Civil War Today marking the anniversary of a milestone this day in the history of the black liberation struggle in the United States; the battle of Fort Wagner, July 18th, 1863. Though black troops had seen action in the west earlier, notably when they fought at the battles if Island Mound in Missouri, Port Hudson, Louisiana and just the day before at the battle of Honey Springs in Indian Territory on July 17th, 1863, it wasn’t until this day 148 years that black troops were widely seen to have joined the war as combatants.
The 54th Massachusetts saw horrific combat on this day leading a doomed assault on a Confederate fort protecting Charleston, South Carolina, Fort Wagner. Dispelling the racist notion that blacks would not fight, they fought like people fighting for their lives and the lives of their families. They fought for their own future, the future of blacks in America and the future of freedom around the world. And they fought ferociously.
The Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts was a pioneering black regiment largely staffed by white abolitionists and composed of free blacks form the North as well as some escaped slaves from the south. It was the first black regiment raised in the north and one of the few to retain its state designation throughout the war. Some of those enlistees included noted black abolitionists and activists including the sons of Frederick Douglass. It was, if such a thing might be said, the ‘elite’ black unit of the Civil War.
Some 1,500 Union soldiers, black and white, were counted as casualties that day. Of the 54th, only 315 men remained after the battle. thirty were killed in action, fighting which saw the 54th reach the parapet of the fort and engage the enemy with their very hands. The dead included regimental leader and abolitionist Colonel Shaw as well as Captains Russel and Simpkins. These white officers were buried in a mass grave with the black enlisted men where they remained until a storm washed the burials out to sea. Twenty-four later died of wounds, fifteen were captured, and fifty-two were reported missing after the battle and never reported again.
Massachusetts was the citadel of the abolitionist movement and the raising of black troops enjoyed the active support of the state government, then held by the more radical, if not The radical, wing of the Republican Party and attracted people from all over the North; from my small town, Ypsilanti, Michigan as well. Around twelve men, impatient with the lack of progress in raising a regiment in Michigan, joined some of the first regiments in the country to be raised: the deservedly famous 54th and 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. In several contingents, and organized by a network of black Masonic lodges, the men left from Ypsilanti for Camp Meigs in Readville, Massachusetts in the Spring of 1863. After the 54th was full the 55th Massachusetts was formed and also served with distinction throughout the war, including at the battles of James Island and Honey Hill. Three units with Ypsilanti men; the 54th, 55th and the Michigan raised 102nd USCT, which included over seventy Ypsilantians, would all serve together in the same operations from South Carolina to Florida and there is ample evidence that the men related across the regimental boundaries, including at memorials for fallen comrades from Ypsilanti.
Mostly young, mostly without families and mostly working as laborers and living as borders these men all had pasts, all of them were from somewhere else. Some lied about their pasts, some concealed them. Some were undoubtedly escaped slaves, others were exiles from racist communities. Many knew each other, others were recent arrivals. Only months after they enlisted their regiment would be decimated at Fort Wagner, their service a badge of honor for the rest of their lives, if they lived. What went through the minds of these men as they headed by steamers down the coast to slavery’s shores, guns in their hands and freedom on their lips?
They included Elias Rouse, an escaped slave from Kentucky who joined Company K of the 54th and was wounded in the arm in the assault on Fort Wagner.He would later marry the widow, Mary, of another volunteer, John Gay of the 102nd United States Colored Troops, who died of disease and is buried in South Carolina. Elias is buried in Ypsilanti’s Highland Cemetery.
John Bird a farmhand originally from Ohio, who joined the 55th and died of disease on Morris Island, South Carolina in January.
Nelson Wilson, a young hotel worker claiming to be from Canada though he was from Kentucky, also possibly an escaped slave, joined the 55th and was promoted to Full Corporal and later moved to Saint Louis.
James Wood originally from Indiana would join the 55th and serve through the war moving to Detroit afterward where he became a cook.
Napoleon Hamilton, originally from Alabama, joined the 54th and was promoted for his role at Fort Wagner later to have his rank reduced for ‘carelessness’.
William Casey, originally from Virginia, joined the 55th at the age of 48, though he lied and said he was 40. He injured his back doing fatigue-duty and was assigned to regimental duties after that, discharged for disability at the very end of the war.
Charles August, a black smith originally from Delaware was captured during the assault and died in the notorious Andersonville prison in September of 1864.
John Leatherman, a merchant marine, joined the 54th and was either killed in the assault on Fort Wagner or was captured and later died at Andersonville (the records say both). The thought of an experience of a captured black soldier is terrifying. Very few of the men captured at Wagner survived.
Charles Scott, a day laborer, joined the 54th and died of wounds received in one of the very last battles of the war, Boykins Mills, South Carolina in April, 1865.
Others from Michigan who fought with these storied regiments include Armistead Williams, a 36 year old laborer from Detroit, who joined the 54th and was captured two days before the assault on Fort Wagner, dying in July, 1864 of typhoid fever.
William Brown, a 19 year old merchant marine from Detroit died at Folly Island, South Carolina in December, 1864. He joined Company E and was in the thick of the fight at Wagner.
William Griffin, a twenty year old blacksmith from Detroit, had joined the 55th and was killed in action at the battle of Honey Hill on November 30th, 1864.
Richard Richie, a farmer from Greenville, Michigan joined the 55th as well. Originally from Mississippi, he was killed at the battle of Honey Hill as well.
Alfred Harris, a 28 year old sailor from Detroit, joined the 54th and was declared missing, never to be seen again, following the assault on Wagner.
Henry Steward, a 23 year old farmer from Adrian, joined the 54th and was promoted to Sergeant. He died of wounds received during the assault on Wagner in September of 1863 in a hospital in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
John Stevens, a farmer from Pontiac was 23 when he joined the 54th. He died this day, 148 years ago fighting for the liberation of his enslaved race on the walls of Fort Wagner.
These are the names of only some of the veterans of the 54th and 55th. There were many who answered freedom’s call from Ypsilanti and headed south in a war of liberation with other black units, mainly with the Michigan raised 102nd USCT. So many of their stories are lost forever, whatever we might do to rescue their legacy is not worthy of their sacrifice, yet we must do it. Remember their names comrades, they are heroes.
Below is a letter from Frederick Douglass’s son Lewis to his sweetheart Amelia, whom he would later marry, in the days following the battle that gives a sense of the assault and the men who made it.
Long live the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts! Freedom will be taken by the sword!
MORRIS ISLAND. S. C. July 20
MY DEAR AMELIA: I have been in two fights, and am unhurt. I am about to go in another I believe to-night. Our men fought well on both occasions. The last was desperate we charged that terrible battery on Morris Island known as Fort Wagoner, and were repulsed with a loss of 3 killed and wounded. I escaped unhurt from amidst that perfect hail of shot and shell. It was terrible. I need not particularize the papers will give a better than I have time to give. My thoughts are with you often, you are as dear as ever, be good enough to remember it as I no doubt you will. As I said before we are on the eve of another fight and I am very busy and have just snatched a moment to write you. I must necessarily be brief. Should I fall in the next fight killed or wounded I hope to fall with my face to the foe.
If I survive I shall write you a long letter. DeForrest of your city is wounded George Washington is missing, Jacob Carter is missing, Chas Reason wounded Chas Whiting, Chas Creamer all wounded. The above are in hospital.
This regiment has established its reputation as a fighting regiment not a man flinched, though it was a trying time. Men fell all around me. A shell would explode and clear a space of twenty feet, our men would close up again, but it was no use we had to retreat, which was a very hazardous undertaking. How I got out of that fight alive I cannot tell, but I am here. My Dear girl I hope again to see you. I must bid you farewell should I be killed. Remember if I die I die in a good cause. I wish we had a hundred thousand colored troops we would put an end to this war. Good Bye to all Write soon Your own loving LEWIS