54th Massachusetts

On this day in 1863, the 54th Massachusetts infantry attacked the Confederates at Fort Wagner in South Carolina.  Although it was a Confederate victory, the attack must have scared the Rebels something awful.  


The 54th Massachusetts was one of the very first all-black regiments in the United States Army.  Their leader was white abolitionist Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.  The idea behind the formation of a black regiment was to help bring about Union victory.  Blacks were slaves in the South, so arming free blacks in the North was seen as encouraging slaves to rise up against their masters.  Given how slaves were treated, it makes sense that blacks wanted to do so.  Except that in this case, forming a regiment meant that the men were trained as soldiers.
Because the regiment was an all-black one, the soldiers were paid three dollars less than white soldiers.  Shaw encouraged his men to take no pay because of that.  

When the regiment attacked Fort Wagner, Shaw was killed as he told his men to keep going forward.  The men fought bravely, but had to retreat in the end.  After the battle the Confederate soldiers stripped Shaw's body naked and put him on display for a couple of days. Then buried him at the bottom of a pit and piled the bodies of other soldiers from his regiment on top of him as way to insult him.  When his father asked what became of him, and Confederate soldier said, "We buried him with his niggers."  This proved to be an Insult Backfire as Shaw's father replied that his son would have been honored to be buried alongside his men.  


The 54th Massachusetts proved to the nation that blacks could fight just as well as white soldiers.  More black regiments were formed after that.  Lincoln credited these black soldiers for their part in helping turn the tide of the war in favor of the Union.  Fort Wagner was never taken, but it was abandoned by the Confederates a few months later after repeated bombardment from Union warships.