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THE CHARGING OF FORT WAGNER: AN INTENDED HONOR OR AN INTENDED SACRIFICE OF LIFE
PETER AUERBACH


"..lest I should indirectly give a new impulse to war. The only regiment I ever looked upon
during the war was the 54th Massachusetts on its departure for the South.  I can never
forget the scene as Colonel Shaw rode at the head of his men.  The very flower of grace and
chivalry, he seemed to me beautiful and awful, as an angel of God come down to lead the host
of freedom to victory."

-John Greenleaf Whittier


On July 18, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts infantry, a Union regiment comprised of black
soldiers and commanded by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, led an attack on Fort Wagner, a
Confederate stockade blocking the entrance to Charleston, Virginia.  To some, this was
considered a tremendous honor to the black soldiers who risked their lives that night.
Others felt that it was an excuse for racist commanding officers to sacrifice the lives of
black soldiers in order to save those of whites.  In an attempt to answer this question,
three author's points of view will be examined-Peter Burchard, Zak Mettger and Luis Emilio.
These three authors virtually agree on almost every factual aspect pertaining to the history
of this regiment except for the question: why was the 54th was sent to lead the charge on
Fort Wagner? On September 15, 1862, Robert Gould Shaw, who, at that time, was a captain of a
detachment of troops in McClennan's army, arrived at Antietam Creek, in Sharpsburg,
Maryland.  Two days later, Shaw was part of the bloodiest battle in the Civil War.  Shaw's
unit was lucky and only lost 5 men. Shaw, himself, only received neck wound inflicted by a
gun shot from out of range.  Though this battle was a important victory for the North,
Shaw's life was affected more than he could have imagined.  Coming off of a solid victory,
Lincoln saw it fit to use his power as commander in chief of the United States Army to pass
the Emancipation Proclamation, an order to free the slaves in the rebelling states as a war
measure.  Now, runaway slaves would be enlisted in the army and dubbed as contraband.  Five
months later, in February of 1863, Shaw's father received a letter from the governor of
Massachusetts, John Andrews, requesting that his son command the 54th Massachusetts
Infantry, a unit to be entirely made up of black troops.  When he first heard this news,
Shaw refused the offer, but after reconsideration and a word with his commanding officer, he
accepted.  The next month, Shaw arrived at the Readville barracks where the troops were to
be recruited, and where he spent the next two months training the newly enlisted troops for
battle.  On May 28, the Massachusetts 54th Infantry marched through the streets of Boston
where they were greeted by scores of people cheering for them.  Five days later, they
traveled by boat to Georgia, where the regiment teamed up with a unit of contraband soldiers
under the command of General James Montgomery.  The 54th's first call to action was
considered a shameful day for the regiment.  It accompanied Montgomery's forces on what was
supposed to be expedition to forage for necessary military supplies.  When the two regiments
came upon the town of Darien, Georgia, Montgomery ordered his troops to plunder the town and
take everything they could carry. As it turned out, he was illegally shipping all of the
plundered goods as personal luggage back to the North where they would be sold for
tremendous profit.  The town was defenseless and there were no Confederate troops near the
isolated area, but Montgomery ordered  his troops to open fire on the buildings and destroy
the town.  When Montgomery ordered Shaw to have his men set torches and fire the town, Shaw
refused.  It wasn't until Montgomery threatened to have Shaw court-martialed and take away
his troops that Shaw obeyed this order.  After this incident, Shaw began to write the
governor of Massachusetts asking to have his troops reassigned to an area where they would
be able to join other soldiers in the field of battle, as opposed to being relegated to
degrading labor such as burying the dead.  On July 8, Shaw's letters were answered, and he
was ordered to have his troops pack blankets, their necessary war materials, and a day's
worth of rations.  They were going to South Carolina, in the midst of the war where they
would be based on James Island.  Seven days later, the regiment entered their first real
battle.  Here, they defeated a group of Confederate troops, and at the same time, saved the
lives of many men in the 10th Connecticut Infantry by diverting Confederate fire. The very
next day, the 54th traveled to Morris Island where they were assigned to lead the charge on
Fort Wagner, the primary defense of Charleston.  At 6:30 p.m. on July 18, 1863,  without
sleeping or eating for the previous two days, the 54th made their daring charge.  Although
they fought with tremendous inspiration and bravery, they were defeated and suffered
heavily, losing almost half of their force.  Among the dead lay Colonel Shaw, who was buried
with his own troops.  Approximately a month after the charge, Congress passed an order
declaring that black and white troops were equal and that black troops were to be put into
action as soon as possible. Peter Burchard, author of One Gallant Charge, praises the
regiment to a higher level than any of the other authors. His factual portrayal of Robert
Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts infantry's history is subjective and makes a strong
argument that the Union army did, in fact, have respect for the men of the 54th.  His
secondary argument is the belief that the regiment was not sent to lead the charge on Fort
Wagner in order to be sacrificed for the white soldiers that would follow. Though this idea
is not dealt with directly in the text of his book, in his personal note at the end,
Burchard addresses the issue. Burchard begins by recounting Shaw's life and the history of
the Civil War to the time of the enlistment of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry.  Shaw is
referred to as a hero to the men he commands and is credited with being one of the chief
factors contributing to the valor, bravery, and skill of the 54th.  Burchard recalls many
instances of Shaw's outstanding bravery and leadership; the most powerful being when Shaw
volunteers to carry the national flag should the flag bearer fall.  Pointing to he man with
the national flag, Strong asked, "If this man should fall, who will lift the flag and carry
on?" Shaw was standing close to Strong.  He took a cigar from between his teeth.  "I will,"
he said.1

Most of Burchard's writing that deals with battle emphasizes the bravery of  Shaw's regiment
Rather than reciting military statistics.  In his portrayal of the 54th's first battle on
James island, Burchard recounts seven instances of bravery enacted by its individuals.  For
example, he describes one act whereby an outnumbered company of the regiment held their
position and continually drew the fire of charging Confederate soldiers in an effort to save
the men of the 10th Connecticut Regiment, who were cornered in a dangerous position with
nowhere to run.2 In his personal note at the end of the book, Burchard discusses his own
feelings and expresses what he feels are the important topics dealing with the history of
the 54th Massachusetts. He focuses on the fact that the commanding officers, in planning the
attack on Fort Wagner, did not choose "Negro" troops over white troops to lead the attack
because of  beliefs that  "Negro" troops were expendable. "There is no evidence that the
Negroes of the Fifty-Fourth were chosen to lead the attack on Fort Wagner because they were
thought of as black cannon fodder."3
 Burchard's final argument associates the regiments bravery and actions during the charging
 of Fort Wagner with Congress' order to declare "Negro" soldiers equal to whites.  He quotes
 the order in its references to the regiment and asserts that the men of the 54th
 contributed to the "justice which would now be sought for all United States Negroes under
 arms."4
Zak Mettger, author of Till Victory Is Won, wrote about the 54th with more subjectivity than
any of the other authors.  The main emphasis of his book is the idea that the African
American soldier in the Union Army was treated unjustly due to the color of his skin.  He
focuses on the differences between the tasks of white and black soldiers and tries to prove
that in the field of battle, black soldiers fought with more skill and bravery than their
white counterparts. The first and foremost difference between black and white soldiers
described in Mettger's writing was the difference in pay.  He illustrates the frustration of
the enlisted black man caused by the fact that his white counterpart would sometimes earn as
much as twice or three times as much money per month..5 Mettger describes the 54th's
protests about the lower wage.  When they were finally paid, after a five month delay, the
men of the 54th demonstrated their dissatisfaction by even then, refusing to accept anything
short of the proper wage.  When John Andrews, announced that the State Legislature had voted
to pay the black troops three dollars a month extra, a bonus that would make the white and
black troops receive equal pay, a number of soldiers in the 54th were angered.  These
soldiers felt as if the governor had "advertised them to the world as holding out for money
and not for principle-that we sink our manhood in consideration for a few more dollars...".6
Mettger explains that the black men were not upset about the fact that they had less money,
but they were upset because they were not being treated equally. In his description of the
54th regiment, Mettger focused on the charge at Fort Wagner, where it earned its place in
American history. He gives a detailed description of the battle itself and places a lot of
emphasis on the 54th's rigorous trip from James Island, a journey that Mettger holds
responsible for the regiment's tremendous fatigue.  Although Mettger credits the charge of
Fort Wagner as an honor for the black soldiers, he claims that is was in no way intended to
be one.7  He claims that the officers involved with planning of the attack selected the
black troops to lead the charge because of racist opinions and the fact that black troops
were considered to be expendable. "In deciding the battle strategy, the General in charge,
Truman Seymour, had told other officers: "I guess we will let Strong lead and put those
d-----d niggers from Massachusetts in the advance; we may as well get rid of them, one time
as another."8

The final point of view comes from Luis E. Emilio, a company leader in Shaw's infantry.
Having been the leader of a group of these soldiers, he gives the most gripping and
insightful account of the history of the 54th.   Emilio goes into detail about the feelings
of the soldiers in the regiment. He describes the high morale of the men and their ability
to relax even after a day of intense training or degrading work.  His explanation for this
is the idea that their long hours of slavery they must have taught them to relax their mind
quickly.  This is not good reasoning, however.  It leads one to question the validity of
Emilio's writing, as the 54th Massachusetts infantry was composed mostly of free blacks born
in the North, not freed slaves.  Emilio delivers the longest and most informative
description of the siege of Fort Wagner. He blames the failure of the siege on the lethargy
of the white troops that were supposed to follow the 54th and "poor generalship" on the part
of Truman Seymour.9  He says that no more men than the amount in single regiment of the
Union Army occupied an area of the fort at the same time. Moreover, these were men of all
different regiments who did not have any organization.  This, combined with the fact that
they did not know the base nearly so well as the Confederates, put them in dangerous
position where they were unable to attack under the heavy fire of their ensconced
opposition, a situation that forced the Union Army to retreat. The three authors all agree
that the 54th Infantry was, indeed, a brave regiment, but each of them drew this conclusion
from different pieces of evidence. Having been in battle with the regiment, Emilio is able
to describe the terror the men were faced with, and even goes so far as to give examples of
the fears the men had before the siege. He recalls that right before the men were to charge
the fort, they were holding each others hands in order to comfort each other. 10  Emilio
describes the charge with great detail and commends the bravery of the soldiers when they
continued to advance through the sand dunes toward the fort even after suffering tremendous
casualties.  He recalls that once inside the fort, (the regiment was only in a remote
section of the stockade for a short period of time) the men of the 54th displayed great
courage by facing off with a larger, better armed, and better protected Confederate Army.
This stand-off was short lived, however, and the regiment was forced to retreat because of,
what Emilio claims, a lack of reinforcements for which he blames the slowness of the white
units. Burchard refers to Emilio's description of the battle in his discussion of the siege
of Fort Wagner, but uses the battle on James Island to give the most examples of the
regiment's bravery. Mettger does not use battles to describe the bravery of the
fifty-fourth.  Instead, he says that the regiment was brave just in signing up for the army.
 He indicates that they knew that they would be treated unjustly but enrolled anyway, and
thus, their action showed their courage and desire to fight.  The views of Mettger and
Burchard contradict both in fact and in opinion on the question of why the 54th was sent to
lead the charge on Fort Wagner.  While Burchard claims that there is no evidence that the
commanding officers were influenced by the fact the 54th regiment was composed of black
soldiers, soldiers that could be sacrificed for whites, Mettger claims the exact opposite.
He argues that the black troops were sent to fight because they were considered expendable
and claims Truman Seymour specifically said he might as well "get rid of" the African
American troops. If true, that would certainly defend Mettger's contention. Emilio's writing
agrees with Burchard's and disagrees with Mettger's.  Emilio states that General Strong had
asked Shaw if the 54th would want the honor of leading the charge on Fort Wagner.  However,
Emilio has the least credibility due to his erroneous reference to the men in his regiment
as being former slaves. Therefore, Emilio's argument about why the 54th was sent to lead the
attack becomes less compelling in the controversy. The contradiction on the validity of the
Seymour's quote can also lead one to the conclusion that the three authors have different
ideas on the respect the Union army had for the black soldiers. Burchard and Emilio share
the opinion that the black troops earned the respect of the white officers after their
victory over the Confederates at James Island.  This idea, combined with their belief that
the officers planning the siege of Wagner had great respect for Shaw, would make their
argument question the validity Truman Seymour's alleged quote.  Mettger argues that the
Union officers would use the black soldiers for most tiring and degrading work, while giving
them the least respect.  Therefore, it is not surprising that he would believe that Truman
Seymour would make such a statement dealing with "getting rid of" the black troops. By the
evidence presented, I tend to favor the argument of Mettger over that of Burchard and
Emilio.  All of the historians agree that the black troops were treated unjustly. Therefore,
I conclude that the Union army was still treating them unjustly when they sent the 54th to
lead the attack on Fort Wagner.  Some may argue that the 54th's bravery on James Island
convinced the leading officers that they were, in fact, more than "black cannon fodder."
Yet, how could one act of bravery convince men, who have considered African Americans to be
an inferior race, to have respect for an entire people.    Bibliography: A Brave Black
Regiment, Luis F. Emilio, Bantam Domain 1992 Marching Toward Freedom, James M. McPherson,
1991 One Gallant Charge, Peter Burcard, St. Martin's Press, 1965 Till Victory Is Won: Black
Soldiers in the Civil War, Laing Communications Inc., 1994



1 Peter Burcard, One Gallant Charge, St. Martin's Press 1965,  p. 136
2 Ibid., p.123
3 Ibid., Author's note p. 1
4 Ibid., Authors note p. 3
5 Zak Mettger, Till Victory Is Won, Black Soldiers in the Civil War,   Laing Communications
Inc., 1994, p. 48 6 Ibid., p. 50 7 Ibid., p. 64 8 Ibid., p. 64 9 Luis F. Emilio, A Brave
Black Regiment, Bantam Domain, 1992, p. 92 10 Ibid., p. 85 11


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