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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00824 8079
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
http://www.archive.org/details/historyoffiftyfo00emil
HISTORY
OF THE
FIFTY-FOURTH REGIMENT
OF
Massachusetts Volunteer 3 infantry,
1863-1865.
BY
LUIS F. EMILIO.
BOSTON: THE BOSTON BOOK COMPANY. 1891.
1
1758027
A Brave Black Regiment.
1
I know not where, in all human history, to any given thousand men in arms there has been committed a work at once so proud, so precious, " so full of hope and glory. -. Gov. JOHN A. ANDREW.
The regiment whose bayone's pricked the name of Colonel Shaw into the roll of immortal honor. --- THEODORE TILTON ..
Right in the van, On the red rampart's suitpery swell With heart that beat a charge, he fell Forward, as fits a man ; But the high soul turns on to light men's feet Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
:
" The old flag never touched the ground, boys." SERGT. WILLIAM H. CARNEY, of Co. C. WITH THE FLAG HE SAVED AT WAGNER.
Copyright, 1891, LUIS F. EMILIO. 34959
xe
University Press : JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
Dawes 8349 .486
Emilio, Luis Frenollosa; b. IS44.
History of the Fifty-fourth regiment of Massachusetts volunteer infantry, 1863-1865. By Luis F. Emilio. Bos- ton, The Boston book co., 1891.
xvi, 410 p. front., port., maps (partly fold. ) 22om. Cover-title : A brave black regiment.
SHELF CARD
1. Massachusetts infantry. 54th reg't, 1863-1865. 2. U. S .- Hist .- Civil war-Regimental histories-Mass. inf .- 54th. 2-14897
186342
. Library of Common :
FR19 5 54th
:
PREFACE.
-
TH HIS record has grown out of the researches and material gathered for the preparation of papers read before the officers of the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Infantry and other veteran associations at reunions in recent years, as well as newspaper articles. It is founded upon the compiler's daily record of events, his letters of the period, contemporaneous records, and the very full journal of Lieut. John Ritchie, as well as a briefer one of Capt. Lewis Reed. To both these officers grateful acknowledgments are rendered. Thanks are also due to Lieut .- Cols. H. N. Hooker and George Pope for valuable records. Sergt .- Major John H. Wilson, and Sergts. William H. Carney and Charles W. Lenox have furnished important particulars. Mention should be made of Capt.
vi
PREFACE.
William C. Manning, Twenty-third U. S. Infantry, whose field notes were most thankfully received. Throughout the compilation Gen: A. S. Hartwell, Col. N. P. Hallowell, and Capt. Charles C. Soule, all of the Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Infantry, have manifested unflagging interest.
L. F. E.
No. 6 EAST 58TH STREET,
NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 22, 1890.
.
-
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
TT is twenty-six years since our Civil War ended, - nearly the span of a generation of men. There has been alınost a surfeit of war literature. Every new book issued to-day on war topics ought to be able to give good reason for its existence.
Although this volume is only a regimental history, the peculiar circumstances of the organization, character, repre- sentative position, and soldierly conduct of the regiment whose story is told, seem to give the history a sufficiently wide and permanent interest to warrant its publication, even at so late a day.
It will be sure to interest the surviving members of the regiment whose life it chronicles. To them it should be said that the author has spent many years in gradually collecting material for this record, and in arranging it methodically. What he here presents is the condensed digest of a great mass of print and manuscript carefully collated with the government records and with other regi- mental histories. He has not been willing to publish his material until this work of collection, arrangement, and collation could be thoroughly accomplished.
To the present generation of the race from which the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteers was recruited. the
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PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
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history of the regiment should have peculiar interest. The author's treatment of the subject is simple and straightforward, with hardly a word of eulogy; and yet the plain narrative of the soldierly achievements of this black regiment is better evidence of the manly qualities of the race than volumes of rhetoric and panegyric could convey.
For those veterans who served in the Department of the South, the maps of this volume, and the author's minute account of actions and operations not elsewhere fully de- scribed, will have more than transient interest and value.
For the general public, - for the surviving soldiers of other regiments, white and black, and for the younger men to whom the story of the Civil War is history, -this book should also have great significance and interest. The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts was a typical regiment - it might almost be called the typical regiment - of our army. It illustrated the patriotism of the period as well as any organization in the service. It required of its mem- bers even more resolution and courage at enlistment than white regiments ; because at the time of its formation the chances seemed to be that black soldiers and their officers, if captured, would not be treated according to the usages of civilized war, but would be massacred as at Fort Pillow. Facing this risk at the outset, the men of the Fifty-fourth proved their courage in so many battles and with such serious losses as to earn a place among the three hundred fighting regiments chronicled in Fox's " Regimental Losses in the American Civil War."
But while the men of the Fifty-fourth shared the cour- age and patriotism which characterized all our citizen soldiery, they also represented more conspicuously, per-
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PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
haps, than any other colored regiment the political policy of emancipation into which the war forced us, and the in- teresting military experience embodied in the organization, from a mob of freed slaves, of a disciplined and effective army of two hundred thousand men. Though it was not absolutely the first black regiment in the field, and though there were others which saw severe service, the early dis- tinction won in the assault on Wagner, together with the gallant death of Colonel Shaw on the ramparts, and his burial with his black soldiers where they fell, created a wider and stronger interest in the Fifty-fourth than any other colored regiment was fortunate enough to attract.
It was also the lot of the Fifty-fourth to bear the brunt of the struggle against the bitter injustice of inferior pay to which black troops were subjected, and the further struggle to secure for the enlisted men who earned it by intelligence and bravery, the right to rise from the ranks and serve as officers.
The following editorial from the New York " Tribune," of Sept. 8, 1865, apparently from the pen of Horace Greeley, bears contemporaneous testimony to the repu- tation of the regiment : -
" The Fifty-fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers was welcomed back to Boston on Saturday. There was a pub- lic reception, a review by the Governor and Council at the State House, another on the Common by the mayor, an address to his officers and men by Colonel Hallowell ; and then the regi- ment was disbanded. The demonstrations of respect were rather more than have usually been awarded to returning regi- ments, even in Massachusetts, which cherishes her soldiers with an unforgetting affection. They were so honored in this case, we presume, because the regiment is a representative one.
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
1
X There were regiments from that State which had seen more fighting than this, though none which had done any better fight- ing when occasion offered ; none which had a higher reputation for discipline, patient endurance, and impetuous valor. But the true reason why Massachusetts singled out this regiment for peculiar honor is because this was the first colored regiment organized in the North, and was that one on whose good con- duct depended for a long time the success of the whole experi- ment of arming black citizens in defence of the Republic. It is not too much to say that if this Massachusetts Fifty-fourth had faltered when its trial came, two hundred thousand colored troops for whom it was a pioneer would never have been put into the field, or would not have been put in for another year, which would have been equivalent to protracting the war into 1866. But it did not falter. It made Fort Wagner such a name to the colored race as Bunker Hill has been for ninety years to the white Yankees, - albeit black men fought side by side with white in the trenches on that 17th of June.
"To this Massachusetts Fifty-fourth was set the stupendous task to convince the white race that colored troops would fight, - and not only that they would fight, but that they could be made, in every sense of the word, soldiers. It is not easy to recall at this day the state of public opinion on that point, - the contemptuous disbelief in the courage of an enslaved race, or rather of a race with a colored skin. Nobody pretends now that the negro won't fight. Anglo-Saxon prejudice takes an- other shape, - and says he won't work, and don't know how to vote ; but in the spring of 1863, when this regiment marched down State Street in Boston, though it was greeted with cheers and borne on by the hopes of the loyal city which had trusted the fame and lives of its noblest white sons to lead their black comrades, yet that procession was the scoff of every Demo- cratic journal in America, and even friends feared half as much as they hoped. Many a white regiment had shown the white feather in its first battle ; but for this black band to waver once
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PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
was to fall forever, and to carry down with it, perhaps, the fortunes of the Republic. It had to wait months for an oppor- tunity. It was sent to a department which was sinking under the prestige of almost uninterrupted defeats. The general who commanded the department, the general who commanded the division, and the general who commanded the brigade to which this regiment found itself consigned, - neither of them believed in the negro. When the hour came for it to go into action, there was probably no officer in the field outside of its own ranks who did not expect it - and there were many who de- sired it - to fail. When it started across that fatal beach which led to the parapet of Wagner, it started to do what had not been successfully attempted by white troops on either side during the war. It passed through such an ordeal successfully ; it came out not merely with credit, but an imperishable fame.
" The ordinary chances of battle were not all which the Mas- sachusetts Fifty-fourth had to encounter. The hesitating policy of our government permitted the Rebels to confront every black soldier with the threat of death or slavery if he were taken pris- oner. If he escaped the bullet and the knife, he came back to camp to learn that the country for which he had braved that double peril intended to cheat him out of the pay on which his wife and children depended for support. We trust Mr. Secre- tary Stanton is by this time heartily ashamed of the dishonesty which marked his dealings with the black troops, - but we are not going into that question. We said then, and we reiterate now, that the refusal of pay to the colored soldiers was a swindle and a scandal, so utterly without excuse that it might well have seemed to them as if intended to provoke a mutiny. Few white regiments would have borne it for a month ; the blacks maintained their fidelity in spite of it for a year and a half. When the Fifty-fourth was offered a compromise, the men replied with one voice : 'No. We need the money you offer ; our families are starving because the government does not pay us what it promised ; but we demand to be recognized as
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PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
soldiers of the Republic, entitled to the same rights which white soldiers have. Until you grant that, we will not touch a dol- lar.' It was a sublimer heroism, a loftier sentiment of honor, than that which inspired them at Wagner. They would not mutiny because of injustice. but they would not surrender one iota of their claim to equal rights. Eventually they compelled the government to acknowledge their claim, and were paid in full by a special act of Congress.
" The name of Col. Robert G. Shaw is forever linked with that of the regiment which he first commanded, and which he inspired with so much of his own gentle and noble spirit as to make it a perpetual legacy to the men who fought under and loved him. His death at Wagner did as much perhaps for his soldiers as his life afterwards could have done. Colonel Hal- lowell, who succeeded him, proved the faithful and intelligent friend of the regiment. Its other officers, with no exception that we know of, were devoted and capable. They are en- titled to a share of the renown which belongs to the regi- ment, - they would be unworthy of it if they did not esteem that their highest testimonial."
Because the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts occupied this prominent position, the publishers deem it proper that the history of its services which Captain Emilio has compiled should be put into print. They have given the volume a title the author was too modest to suggest, but which the record fully justifies, -" A Brave Black Regiment."
CONTENTS.
CHALTER
PAGE
I.
RECRUITING
1
II. READVILLE CAMP
19
III. THE SEA ISLANDS
35
IV. DESCENT ON JAMES ISLAND
51
V. THE GREATER ASSAULT ON WAGNER
67
VI. SIEGE OF WAGNER
105
VII. BOMBARDMENT OF CHARLESTON
128
VIII. OLUSTEE
148
IX. MORRIS ISLAND
186
X. ATTACK ON JAMES ISLAND
199
XI.
SIEGE OF CHARLESTON
217
XII. HONEY HILL .
236
XIII. OPERATIONS ABOUT POCOTALIGO
254
XIV.
CHARLESTON AND SAVANNAH
277
XV.
POTTER'S RAID
289
XVI.
FINAL SERVICE
310
ROSTER
327
INDEX
393
----
1
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Ampey, Isom (Co. K) 128 Appleton, Maj. J. W. M. 48 Appleton, Capt. Thomas L. 144
Arnum, Charles H. (Co. E) 176
Bowman, Sergt. Thomas (Co. I) 128
Bridge, Capt. Watson W. . . 144
Bridgham, Ass't-Surg. Charles B. 136
Bridgham, Lieut. Thomas S. 280
Briggs, Surg. Charles E. 136
Brown, Abraham (Co. E)
176
Carney, Sergt. William H. (Co. C) . . . . Frontispiece Chipman, Capt. Charles G. 232
Conant, Lieut. John H. 272
Cotton, Sergt. Asa (Co. K) . 176 Cousens, Capt. Joseph E. 144
Duren, Lieut. Charles M. 280
Edmands, Lieut. Benjamin B. . 272
Emerson, Capt. Edward B. 184
Emilio, Capt. Luis F. 192
Freeland, Milo J. (Co. A) . 176
Gomes, Richard (Co. H) 256
Goosberry, John (Mus Co. E) 32
Grace, Capt. James W. . 232
Hallett, Lient. Charles O. 280
Hallowell, Col. Edward N. 16
Harrison, Chaplain Samuel 8
Helinan, Corp. Preston (Co. E) 208
. Higginson, Capt. Francis L. 232
Homans, Cupt. William H. . 184
Hooper, Lieut .- Col. Henry N. . 48
Howard. Capt. Willard 192
PAGE
Jackson, Sergt. Moses (Co. E) . 208
James, Capt. Garth W. . 192
Jewett, Lieut. Charles, Jr. 280
Jewett, Capt. R. H. L. 184
Johnston, Lieut. Alexander 288
Jones, Capt. Edward L. . 232 Jones, Robert J. (Co. I) . 32
Joy, Capt. Charles F. 184
Kelly, James A. (Co. E) . 208
Knowles, Lieut. Alfred H. 288 Lee, Com'y Sergt. Arthur B. . 256 Lee, Harrison (Co. D) 256 Lenox, Color Sergt. Charles W.
(Co. A) . 176
Leonard, Lieut. Andrew W. . 272
Lipscomb, Corp. George (Co.I) 128
Littlefield, Lieut. Henry W. . 288 McDermott, Lieut. William . 280
Moore, Miles (Mus. Co. H) 32
Netson, William J. (Principal
Mus. Co. K) 32
Newell, Capt. Robert R. 184
Partridge, Capt. David A. 144
Pease, Ass't-Surg. Giles M. . 64
Pope, Lieut .- Col. George 48
Pratt, Lieut. James A. 272
Radzinsky, Ass't-Surg. Louis D. 136
Reed, Capt. Lewis . 144
Ritchie, Quartermaster John . 136
Rogers, Lieut. Frederick E. 288
Rolls, Sergt. Jeremiah (Co. I) . 128
Russel, Capt. Cabot J. 96
,
Axvi
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
PAGE
Shaw, Col. Robert G. . .
1
Simms, Corp. Abram C. (Co. I) 128 Simpkins, Capt. William H. 96
Smith, Charles A. (Co. C) 256
Smith, Capt. Orin E. . 192
Spear, Lieut. Daniel G. . 288
Stevens, Lieut. Edward L. 96
Stewart, Sergt. Henry (Co. E) 32
Stone, Surg. Lincoln R.
64
Swails, Lieut. Stephen A. 8
Tomlinson, Lieut. Ezekiel G. .
280
Treadwell, Ass't-Surg. Joshua B. 64 Tucker, Capt. Charles E. 184
Vogelsang, Lieut. Peter . 8 Walton, Maj. James MI. . 48
Weaver, George (Co. K) 208
Webster, Lieut. Frederick H. 96
Welch, Lieut. Frank M. . 8
Whitney, Lieut. William L. 272
Willard (Mann), Capt. Samuel 144 Wilson, Sergt .- Major John II. 128
Wilson, Joseph T. (Co. C) . . 256
LIST OF MAPS.
PAGE
James Island .
56
Fort Wagner. - Charge of 54th Mass.
80
Plan of Siege Operations against Fort Wagner 112 Plan of Battle of Olustee, Fla. 160
Charleston, S. C. - Lines of Attack and Defence
224
Approach to Honey Hill 240 Battle of Honey Hill 248
Action at Boykin's Mills . 304 Field of Operations of 54th Mass. Regiment End
COLONEL ROBERT G. SHAW.
---
FIFTY-FOURTH
MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRY.
CHAPTER I.
RECRUITING.
A T the close of the year 1862, the military situation was discouraging to the supporters of the Federal Government. We had been repulsed at Fredericksburg and at Vicksburg, and at tremendous cost had fought the battle of Stone River. Some sixty-five thousand troops would be discharged during the ensuing summer and fall. Volunteering was at a standstill. On the other hand, the Confederates, having filled their ranks, were never better fitted for conflict. Politically, the opposition had grown for- midable, while the so-called "peace-faction " was strong, and active for mediation.
In consequence of the situation, the arming of negroes. first determined upon in October, 1862, was fully adopted as a military measure; and President Lincoln, on Jan. 1, 1863, issued the Emancipation Proclamation. In September, 1862, General Butler began organizing the Louisiana Native Guards from frec negroes. General Saxton, in the Department of the South, formed the First South Carolina from contrabands in October of the same year. Col. James Williams, in the summer of 1862,
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2
FIFTY-FOURTH MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRY.
1
recruited the First Kansas Colored. After these regi- ments next came, in order of organization, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, which was the first raised in the Northern States east of the Mississippi River. Thenceforward the recruiting of colored troops, North and South, was rapidly pushed. As a result of the measure, 167 organizations of all arms, embracing 186,097 enlisted men of African descent, were mustered into the United States service.
John A. Andrew, the war Governor of Massachusetts, very early advocated the enlistment of colored men to aid in suppressing the Rebellion. The General Government having at last adopted this policy, he visited Washing- ton in January, 1863, and as the result of a conference with Secretary Stanton, received the following order, under which the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was organized : -
WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CITY, Jan. 26, 1863.
Ordered : That Governor Andrew of Massachusetts is all- thorized, until further orders, to raise such number of vol- unteers, companies of artillery for duty in the forts of Massa- chusetts and elsewhere, and such corps of infantry for the volunteer military service as he may find convenient, such volunteers to be enlisted for three years, or until sooner dis- charged, and may include persons of African descent, organized into special corps. He will make the usual needful requisitions on the appropriate staff bureaus and officers, for the proper transportation, organization, supplies, subsistence, arms and equipments of such volunteers.
EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
With this document the Governor at once returned to Boston, anxious to begin recruiting under it before the
S
RECRUITING.
Government could reconsider the matter. One of his first steps was to transmit the following letter, outlining his plans : -
BOSTON, Jan. 30, 1863. FRANCIS G. SHAW, Esq., Staten Island, N. Y.
DEAR SIR, - As you may have seen by the newspapers, I am about to raise a colored regiment in Massachusetts. This I cannot but regard as perhaps the most important corps to be organized during the whole war, in view of what must be the composition of our new levies ; and therefore I am very anxious to organize it judiciously, in order that it may be a model for all future colored regiments. I am desirous to have for its officers - particularly for its field-officers - young men of military ex- perience, of firm antislavery principles, ambitious, superior to a vulgar contempt for color, and having faith in the capacity of colored men for military service. Such officers must neces- sarily be gentlemen of the highest tone and honor ; and I shall look for them in those circles of educated antislavery society which, next to the colored race itself, have the greatest interest in this experiment.
Reviewing the young men of the character I have described, now in the Massachusetts service, it occurs to me to offer the colonelcy to your son, Captain Shaw, of the Second Massachu- setts Infantry, and the lieutenant-coloneley to Captain Hal- lowell of the Twentieth Massachusetts Infantry, the son of Mr. Morris L. Hallowell of Philadelphia. With my deep con- viction of the importance of this undertaking, in view of the fact that it will be the first colored regiment to be raised in the free States, and that its success or its failure will go far to elevate or depress the estimation in which the character of the colored Americans will be held throughout the world, the com- mand of such a regiment seems to me to be a high object of ambition for any officer. How much your son may have re- flected upon such a subject I do not know, nor have I any information of his disposition for such a task except what I
4
FIFTY-FOURTHI MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRY.
have derived from his general character and reputation ; nor should I wish him to undertake it unless he could enter upon it with a full sense of its importance, with an earnest determi- nation for its success, and with the assent and sympathy and support of the opinions of his immediate family.
I therefore enelose you the letter in which I make him the offer of this commission ; and I will be obliged to you if you will forward it to him, accompanying it with any expression to him of your own views, and if you will also write to me upon the subject. My mind is drawn towards Captain Shaw by many considerations. I am sure he would attract the support, sympathy, and active co-operation of many among his imme- diate family relatives. The more ardent, faithful, and true Republicans and friends of liberty would recognize in him a scion from a tree whose fruit and leaves have always con- tributed to the strength and healing of our generation. So it is with Captain Hallowell. His father is a Quaker gentleman of Philadelphia, two of whose sons are officers in our army. and another is a merchant in Boston. Their house in Phila- delphia is a hospital and home for Massachusetts officers ; and the family are full of good works ; and he was the adviser and confidant of our soldiery when sick or on duty in that city. I need not add that young Captain Hallowell is a gallant and fine fellow, true as steel to the cause of humanity. as well as to the flag of the country.
I wish to engage the field-officers, and then get their aid in selecting those of the line. I have offers from Oliver T. Beard of Brooklyn, N. Y., late Lieutenant-Colonel of the Forty- eighth New York Volunteers, who says he can already furnish six hundred men; and from others wishing to furnish men from New York and from Connectient ; but I do not wish to start the regiment under a stranger to Massachusetts. If in any way, by suggestion or otherwise, you can aid the purpose which is the burden of this letter, I shall receive your co-opera- tion with the heartiest gratitude.
5
RECRUITING.
I do not wish the office to go begging ; and if the offer is refused, I would prefer it being kept reasonably private. Hoping to hear from you immediately on receiving this letter, I am, with high regard,
Your obedient servant and friend,
JOHN A. ANDREW.
Francis G. Shaw himself took the formal proffer to his son, then in Virginia. After due deliberation, Captain Shaw, on February 6, telegraphed his acceptance.
Robert Gould Shaw was the grandson of Robert G. Shaw of Boston. His father, prominently identified with the Abolitionists, died in 1882, mourned as one of the best and noblest of men. His mother, Sarah Blake Sturgis, imparted to her only son the rare and high traits of mind and heart she possessed.
He was born Oct. 10, 1837, in Boston, was carefully educated at home and abroad in his earlier years, and admitted to Harvard College in August, 1856, but discon- tinued his course there in his third year. After a short business career, on April 19, 1861, he marched with his regiment, the Seventh New York National Guard, to the relief of Washington. He applied for and received a commission as second lieutenant in the Second Massachu- setts Infantry ; and after serving with his company and on the staff of Gen. George H. Gordon, he was promoted to a captaincy. Colonel Shaw was of medium height, with light hair and fair complexion, of pleasing aspect and composed in his manners. His bearing was graceful, as became a soldier and gentleman. His family connections were of the highest social standing, character, and influ- ence. He married Miss Haggerty, of New York City, on May 2, 1853.
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