History of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1865

First edition of this important history of the first African American regiment raised after the Emancipation Proclamation and the first to consist entirely of free Black volunteers from the North, by one of its white officers. The most renowned of the African American units to fight in the Civil War, the 54th was commanded by Boston abolitionist Robert Gould Shaw and included two of Frederick Douglass's sons. The regiment is remembered for assailing Fort Wagner (at the entrance of Charleston Harbor) in 1863-during which it lost the battle, and half of the regiment was killed or wounded. Weeks later, the regiment successfully captured the fort. The unit's success led to the creation of more Black Union regiments. The 54th's assault on Fort Wagner was the subject of the movie Glory (1989).

"To the present generation of the race from which the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts volunteers was recruited, the 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 achievement of this black regiment is better evidence of the manly qualities of the race than volumes of rhetoric and panegyric could convey" (Publisher's preface, p. ix).

REFERENCES: Afro-Americana 3486; Blockson 3033; Howe and Lewis 2616; Dornbusch MA-401; Kuryla Peter. "54th Regiment U.S. Military" at Britannica online.