The 54th Massachusetts Regiment: All For The Right To Be Free

The Declaration of Independence is one of the most beautiful documents written over the course of human history. The arguments the document presented to the world drew on the long traditions of both moral and political thought over the previous 1,775 years, from the ancient Greeks to the Enlightenment. Its arguments were moral arguments framed by recognized, universal, moral principles and were presented in the best traditions of the art of rhetoric. It was a logical presentation of the injustices of the English Parliament and the king toward the colonies and declared with consummate clarity the innate right of the colonies to claim their freedom under those recognized principles.

While The Declaration of Independence was a powerful and brilliant articulation of the innate rights of all human beings to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, it was blind to the paradox of the denial of those same rights to some 20% of the 2.5 million people who lived in the colonies at the time it was written. That 20% were enslaved peoples taken from Africa as chattel, who were denied the same claim to those universal and natural rights that the Founding Fathers (many of them slave owners themselves) laid claim to so powerfully and beautifully in that Declaration of Independence.

Photo: Flickr/Josh Hallett

Though slavery was brought before the Continental Congress as it was developing the Constitution of the United States after defeating the British and winning independence, the issue of slavery became so contentious that it was essentially “tabled” to be dealt with at a later date. Because slavery was not dealt with and was never considered as anything more than an “economic” issue, rather than a human issue, it would eventually become the cause of the bloodiest conflict in our American history, the Civil War.

For those held in slavery, the Civil War was a kind of second revolution, a second struggle for liberty, that is, their own release from the inherent injustice of slavery. For both the free and the still enslaved Black people, this second revolution was rooted in the very same principles that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were built upon.

Photo: YouTube/CHWMAAH

Their desires and demands for freedom were not a rejection of the principles of the American documents; rather, they were a recognition of them and a natural desire to enjoy those same beautiful and true principles themselves as human beings made by the same Creator. They understood (maybe more than most) the meaning of the words “All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” They and their ancestors had known those same desires to be free that all other Americans felt at the time of the Revolutionary War, but their understanding came from the depths and horrors of their existence as chattel slaves.

The Civil War could be claimed by the North in the beginning to be an effort to save the Union and by the South as a matter of States Rights. But beneath those “ideals,” it was clear that the issue that drove a wedge between them, and that was a foundation of the arguments for States’ Rights, was slavery. No one knew that better than the slaves themselves.

Photo: YouTube/CHWMAAH

In January of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was promulgated. One month after that, the governor of Massachusetts, who had been arguing to make enlistment into the Union Army open to Black people, ordered the formation of the all-Black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment, under the leadership of a white officer by the name of Cpt. Robert Gould Shaw. The largest majority of the regiment was made up of free Black men from all over the Northern states. A much smaller number of the regiment was made up of men who were escaped slaves.

Though they were promised to be paid at the same rate as all Union Army soldiers, $13.00 a month and clothing allowances, they never received this equal pay. Even though they, with the support of their commander Col. Robert Gould Shaw, protested their much lower pay and lack of clothing allowances, by refusing to take that lower pay for 18 months. Despite this injustice, they still trained and fought. Shaw even tore up his own paycheck in support of his men.

Photo: YouTube/CHWMAAH

In July of 1863, the 54th Massachusetts was ordered to South Carolina to participate in the Union efforts to take one of the most important and largest southern ports, Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston is where the first shots of the war were fired in the taking of Fort Sumter. On July 18, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts was chosen to lead the Union forces in the second attack of Ft. Wagner in Charleston harbor.

When the 54th was within 150 yards of the battlements of the well-defended fort, they began receiving cannon and rifle fire from the fort’s defenders. Their casualties were heavy, but they fought on, even reaching the parapets of the fort, where they fought valiantly against overwhelming odds in hand-to-hand combat until they were forced to retreat. They lost 40% of the regiment in the battle, and they lost their beloved commander, the 25-year-old, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, who was shot to death while leading his 54th Massachusetts Volunteers in the attack.

Photo: YouTube/CHWMAAH

At Ft. Wagner, the 54th proved their courage and their willingness to fight were equal to those of any other Union soldiers. One of their number, Sgt. William H. Carney, was awarded a Medal of Honor for his valor before the walls of Fort Wagner on the 18th of July, 1863. (That is another story to be told).

After this, many more free Black men and escaped or liberated slaves chose to serve in the Union Army, and many all-Black regiments were formed and fought with courage, determination, and distinction for the rest of the war.

Photo: YouTube/CHWMAAH

The 54th Massachusetts Regiment and the other regiments that were formed by freedmen and former slaves during the Civil War honored the original principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with their loyalty to those principles and with their lives. The issues of slavery that in many ways caused The Civil War, along with the Union victory over the Confederacy, and the determined and courageous efforts of tens of thousands of free and formerly enslaved Black men in the uniforms of the Union Army, would be rescinded with the addition of three new amendments to the Constitution after the war: the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, ending the institution of slavery forever, giving the right to vote to Black men, and giving full citizenship to the former slaves.

It is our duty to remember and to honor the 54th Massachusetts Regiment as part of our shared American history. Their service and their courage in battle to broaden the great and beautiful principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence make them a rich and important part of the fabric that makes this country the greatest experiment in human liberty and self-government in human history.

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