Men of Color to Arms

In the 1860 Unites States census there were one thousand nine hundred and seventy three negro males in Massachusetts.

You probably have heard of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. They trained in Readsville. They fought and died at Fort Wagner in Chesapeake Bay during our Civil War. There was a movie that starred Matthew Broderick. It was called Glory.  It just did not make sense that he should play the white colonel of the 54th, Robert Gould Shaw. All I could think of was his role as Ferris Bueller. "Danke schoen, darling danka shane."  "Bueller? Bueller?"

Although the Infantry was raised in Boston, many of the men volunteered from different states, especially Pennsylvania and Ohio. More black men came from New Bedford than signed up from Boston. White infantry men were paid $14 per month. But black men were only paid $11 per month, and they had to pay for their uniforms. Most blacks were freed men but there were also some runaways.

Check out Augustus Saint-Gaudens huge bronze relief on Tremont Street, on the north side of the Boston Common. Two hundred black men were still alive but were not chosen for the negro faces in the relief. Boston men were who were not veterans. It was unveiled in 1897. It is quite beautiful.

The most stunning fact to me in Douglas R. Egerton's book Thunder at the Gates  is the fact that there were FOUR MILLION slaves in the South at the start of the Civil war. Well, George had 347 at Mount Vernon alone. Jefferson had a bunch. In the song “Ben McCulloch" Steve Earle sings, as a Texas southern white infantryman, “I don’t know what I'm fightin' for, I ain’t never owned a slave."

The last veteran of the 54th died in 1940.