Picture of The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment
The 54th Massachusetts at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863
Depiction of the attack on Fort Wagner in the painting The Old Flag Never Touched the Ground
After the Civil War broke out, abolitionists like Frederick Douglass argued that the enlistment of black soldiers would help the North win the war and would be a huge step in the fight for equal rights: “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S.; let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket,” Douglass said, “and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.” However, what President Lincoln was afraid of was that arming the African Americans, mostlycomposed of former or escaped slaves, would make the loyal border states want to quit. If this situation happens, then there wouldn’t even a slight chance for the Union to win the war.
After two years of bloody war along with the lack of white volunteer soldiers, the Union Army badly needed soldiers. This was when President Lincoln started to think about enlisting African American Soldiers. After the announcing and the proceeding of Second Confiscation and Militia Act of July 17, 1862, which authorized the president “to employ as many persons of African descent as he may deem necessary and proper for the suppression of this rebellion…in such manner as he may judge best for the public welfare”, some African Americansbegin to form infantry units of their own. After President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which was effective on January 1, 1863, black soldiers were officially allowed to participate in the war. Even since that, the United States Colored Troops started to form.
One example of the African American regiment fought in wars was 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. It was one of the first official African American units in the United States during the Civil War. Authorized in March 1863 by the Governor of Massachusetts, John A. Andrew, 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment was trained at Camp Meigs in Readville near Boston, where they received considerable moral support from abolitionists in Massachusetts, including Ralph Waldo Emerson. The regiment's first battlefield action took place in a skirmish with Confederate troops on James Island, South Carolina, on July 16. The regiment stopped a Confederate assault, losing 42 men in the process. The one battle that helped this regiment made its name was on July 18, 1863, when it led an assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina. 272 of the 600 men were "killed, wounded or captured." This battle helped the soldiers of 54th gain the cognition of the public, in which they were widely acclaimed for their valor during the battle. This event helped promote the further enlistment of African American troops, which was a key point that President Lincoln once mentioned as helping to win the wars.
By the time the Civil War ended in 1865, about 180,000 black men had served as soldiers in the U.S. Army. This was about 10 percent of the total Union fighting force. About 90,000 of them were former slaves from the Confederate states. About half of the rest were from the loyal border states, and the rest were free African Americans from the North.