54th
Storyboard Text
- 54th Massachusetts Monument
- The 54th Massachusetts accomplishments were they captured Beaufort South Carolina, but the site of a growing experiments post-slavery, known as the Port Royal Experiment. The regiment paraded through the streets of Beaufort, where onlookers included soldiers in the 1st and 2nd South Carolina Volunteers, two all-Black regiments organized in the Sea Islands the previous year. These actions affected the Civil War by this was the first war that all African Americans fought in, and weakened from battle and march, Shaw and the 54th readily accepted the opportunity to lead the assault on Battery Wagner, the strategic stronghold guarding Charleston Harbor, on July 18. Knowing this battle would prove vital to shaping public opinion about the use of Black soldiers. These accomplishments were important because though clearly a military defeat, the 54th Regiment's heroic assault on Battery Wagner proved both a powerful political and symbolic victory. Through their actions, the 54th helped convince a skeptical public and military that Black men could and would fight bravely. Frederick Douglass wrote, after the 54th "had distinguished itself with so much credit in the hour of trial, the desire to send more such troops to the front became pretty general."
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