The Negro in The American Rebellion

The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment. – Col. Shaw. – March to the Island. – Preparation. – Speeches. – The Attack. – Storm of Shot, Shell, and Canister. – Heroism of Officers and Men. – Death of Col. Shaw. – The Color-sergeant. – The Retreat. – “Buried with his Niggers.” – Comments.

On the 16th of July, the Fifty-fourth Regiment (colored), Col. R. G. Shaw, was attacked by the enemy, on James Island, in which a fight of two hours’ duration took place, the Rebels largely outnumbering the Union forces. The Fifty-fourth, however, drove the enemy before them in confusion. The loss to our men was fourteen killed and eighteen wounded. During the same day, Col. Shaw received orders from Gen. Gillmore to evacuate the island. Preparations began at dusk. The night was dark and stormy, and made the movement both difficult and dangerous. The march was from James Island to Cole Island, across marshes, streams, and dikes, and part of the way upon narrow foot-bridges, along which it was necessary to proceed in single-file. The whole force reached Cole Island the next morning, July 17, and rested during the day on the beach opposite the south end of Folly Island. About ten o’clock in the evening, the colonel of the Fifty-fourth received orders directing him to report, with his command, to Gen. George C. Strong, at Morris Island, to whose brigade the regiment was transferred.

From eleven o’clock of Friday evening until four o’clock of Saturday, they were being put on the transport, “The Gen. Hunter,” in a boat which took about fifty at a time. There they breakfasted on the same fare, and had no other food before entering into the assault on Fort Wagner in the evening.

“The Gen. Hunter” left Cole Island for Folly Island at six, a.m.; and the troops landed at Pawnee Lauding about nine and a half, a.m., and thence marched to the point opposite Morris Island, reaching there about two o’clock in the afternoon. They were transported in a steamer across the inlet, and at four, p.m., began their march for Fort Wagner. They reached Brigadier-Gen. Strong’s quarters, about midway on the island, about six or six and a half o’clock, where they halted for five minutes.

Gen. Strong expressed a great desire to give them food and stimulants; but it was too late, as they had to lead the charge. They had been without tents during the pelting rains of Thursday and Friday nights. Gen. Strong had been impressed with the high character of the regiment and its officers; and he wished to assign them the post where the most severe work was to be done and the highest honor was to be won.

The march across Folly and Morris Islands was over a sandy road, and was very wearisome. The regiment went through the centre of the island, and not along the beach, where the marching was easier.

When they had come within six hundred yards of Fort Wagner, they formed in line of battle, the colonel heading the first, and the major the second battalion. This was within musket-shot of the enemy. There was little firing from the enemy; a solid shot falling between the battalions, and another falling to the right, but no musketry. At this point, the regiment, together with the next supporting regiment, the Sixth Connecticut, Ninth Maine, and others, remained half an hour. The regiment was addressed by Gen. Strong and by Col. Shaw. Then, at seven and a half or seven and three-quarters o’clock, the order for the charge was given. The regiment advanced at quick time, changed to double-quick when at some distance on.

The intervening distance between the place where the line was formed and the fort was run over in a few minutes.

When about one hundred yards from the fort, the rebel musketry opened with such terrible effect, that, for an instant, the first battalion hesitated, – but only for an instant; for Col. Shaw, springing to the front and waving his sword, shouted, “Forward, my brave boys!” and with another cheer and a shout they rushed through the ditch, gained the parapet on the right, and were soon engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with the enemy. Col. Shaw was one of the first to scale the walls. He stood erect to urge forward his men, and, while shouting for them to press on, was shot dead, and fell into the fort. His body was found, with twenty of his men lying dead around him; two lying on his own body.

The Fifty-fourth did well and nobly; only the fall of Col. Shaw prevented them from entering the fort. They moved up as gallantly as any troops could, and, with their enthusiasm, they deserved a better fate.

Sergeant-major Lewis H. Douglass, son of Frederick Douglass, the celebrated orator, sprang upon the parapet close behind Col. Shaw, and cried out, “Come, boys, come, let’s fight for God and Governor Andrew.” This brave young man was the last to leave the parapet. Before the regiment reached the parapet, the color-sergeant was wounded; and, while in the act of falling, the colors were seized by Sergt. William H. Carney, who bore them up, and mounted the parapet, where he, too, received three severe wounds. But, on orders being given to retire, the color-bearer, though almost disabled, still held the emblem of liberty in the air, and followed his regiment by the aid of his comrades, and succeeded in reaching the hospital, where he fell exhausted and almost lifeless on the floor, saying, “The old flag never touched the ground, boys.” Capt. Lewis F. Emilio, the junior captain, – all of his superiors having been killed or wounded, – took command, and brought the regiment into camp. In this battle, the total loss in officers and men, killed and wounded, was two hundred and sixty-one.

When John Brown was led out of the Charlestown jail, on his way to execution, he paused a moment, it will be remembered, in the passage-way, and, taking a little colored child in his arms, kissed and blessed it. The dying blessing of the martyr will descend from generation to generation; and a whole race will cherish for ages the memory of that simple caress, which, degrading as it seemed to the slaveholders around him, was as sublime and as touching a lesson, and as sure to do its work in the world’s history, as that of Him who said, “Suffer little children to come unto me.”

When inquiry was made at Fort Wagner, under flag of truce, for the body of Col. Shaw of the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth, the answer was, “We have buried him with his niggers!” It is the custom of savages to outrage the dead, and it was only natural that the natives of South Carolina should attempt to heap insult upon the remains of the brave young soldier; but that wide grave on Morris Island will be to a whole race a holy sepulchre. No more fitting burial-place, no grander obsequies, could have been given to him who cried, as he led that splendid charge, “On, my brave boys!” than to give to him and to them one common grave. As they clustered around him in the fight: as they rallied always to the clear ring of his loved voice; as they would have laid down their lives, each and all of them, to save his; as they honored and reverenced him, and lavished on him all the strong affections of a warm-hearted and impulsive people: so when the fight was over, and he was found with the faithful dead piled up like a bulwark around him, the poor savages did the only one fitting thing to be done when they buried them together. Neither death nor the grave has divided the young martyr and hero from the race for which he died; and a whole people will remember in the coming centuries, when its new part is to be played in the world’s history, that “he was buried with his niggers!”

Only those who knew Col. Shaw can understand how fitting it seems, when the purpose of outrage is put aside and forgotten, that he should have been laid in a common grave with his black soldiers. The relations between colored troops and their officers – if these are good for any thing, and fit for their places – must need be, from the circumstances of the case, very close and peculiar. They were especially so with Col. Shaw and his regiment. His was one of those natures which attract first through the affections. Most gentle tempered, genial as a warm winter’s sun, sympathetic, full of kindliness, unselfish, unobtrusive, and gifted with a manly beauty and a noble bearing, he was sure to win the love, in a very marked degree, of men of a race peculiarly susceptible to influence from such traits of character as these. First, they loved him with a devotion which could hardly exist anywhere else than in the peculiar relation he held to them as commander of the first regiment of free colored men permitted to fling out a military banner in this country, – a banner that, so raised, meant to them so much! But, then, came closer ties; they found that this young man, with education and habits that would naturally lead him to choose a life of ease, with wealth at his command, with peculiarly happy social relations (one most tender one just formed), accepted the position offered him in consideration of his soldierly as well as moral fitness, because he recognized a solemn duty to the black man; because he was ready to throw down all that he had, all that he was, all that this world could give him, for the negro race! Beneath that gentle and courtly bearing which so won upon the colored people of Boston when the Fifty-fourth was in camp, beneath that kindly but unswerving discipline of the commanding officer, beneath that stern but always cool and cheerful courage of the leader in the fight, was a clear and deep conviction of a duty to the blacks. He hoped to lead them, as one of the roads to social equality, to fight their way to true freedom; and herein he saw his path of duty. Of the battle two days before that in which he fell, and in which his regiment, by their bravery, won the right to lead the attack on Fort Wagner, he said, “I wanted my men to fight by the side of whites, and they have done it;” thinking of others, not of himself; thinking of that great struggle for equality in which the race had now a chance to gain a step forward, and to which he was ready to devote his life. Could it have been for him to choose his last resting-place, he would, no doubt, have said, “Bury me with my men if I earn that distinction.”

One who was present, speaking of the incidents before the battle, says of Col. Shaw, —

“The last day with us, or, I may say, the ending of it, as we lay flat on the ground before the assault, his manner was more unbending than I had ever noticed before in the presence of his men. He sat on the ground, and was talking to the men very familiarly and kindly. He told them how the eyes of thousands would look upon the night’s work they were about to enter on; and he said, ‘Now, boys, I want you to be men!’ He would walk along the line, and speak words of cheer to his men.

“We could see that he was a man who had counted the cost of the undertaking before him; for his words were spoken ominously, his lips were compressed, and now and then there was visible a slight twitching of the corners of the month, like one bent on accomplishing or dying. One poor fellow, struck no doubt by the colonel’s determined bearing, exclaimed, as he was passing him, ‘Colonel, I will stay by you till I die;’ and he kept his word: he has never been seen since. For one so young, Col. Shaw showed a well-trained mind, and an ability of governing men not possessed by many older or more experienced men. In him the regiment has lost one of its best and most devoted friends. Col. Shaw was only about twenty-seven years of age, and was married a few weeks before he joined the army of the South.”

The following correspondence between the father of Col. Shaw and Gen. Gillmore needs no comment, but is characteristic of the family: —

“Brig-Gen. Gillmore, commanding Department of the South.

“Sir, – I take the liberty to address you, because I am informed that efforts are to be made to recover the body of my son, Col. Shaw, of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, which was buried at Fort Wagner. My object in writing is to say that such efforts are not authorized by me, or any of my family, and that they are not approved by us. We hold that a soldier’s most appropriate burial-place is on the field where he has fallen. I shall, therefore, be much obliged, general, if, in case the matter is brought to your cognizance, you will forbid the desecration of my son’s grave, and prevent the disturbance of his remains or of those buried with him. With most earnest wishes for your success, I am, sir, with respect and esteem,

“Your most obedient servant,

“FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW

“New York, Aug. 24,1863.

“Headquarters Department of the South, Morris Island, S.C., Sept. 5, 1863.

“F. G. Shaw, Esq., Clifton, Staten Island, N.Y.

Sir! I have just received your letter, expressing the disapprobation of yourself and family of any effort to recover the body of your son, the late Col. Shaw, of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteers, buried in Fort Wagner; and requesting me to forbid the desecration of his grave or disturbance of his remains.

“Had it been possible to obtain the body of Col. Shaw immediately after the battle in which he lost his life, I should have sent it to his friends, in deference to a sentiment which I know to be widely prevalent among the friends of those who fall in battle, although the practice is one to which my own judgment has never yielded assent.

“The views expressed in your letter are so congenial to the feelings of an officer, as to command not only my cordial sympathy, but my respect and admiration. Surely no resting-place for your son could be found more fitting than the scene where his courage and devotion were so conspicuously displayed.

“I beg to avail myself of this opportunity to express my deep sympathy for yourself and family in their great bereavement, and to assure you that on no authority less than your own shall your son’s remains be disturbed.

“Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

“Q. A. GILLMORE,

“Brigadier-General commanding.”

The following address of the Military Governor of South Carolina to the people of color in the Department of the South pays a fit tribute to the memory of the lamented Col. Shaw: —

“Beaufort, S.C., July 27, 1863.

“To the Colored Soldiers and Freedmen in this Department.

“It is fitting that you should pay a last tribute of respect to the memory of the late Col. Robert Gould Shaw, Colonel of the Fifty-fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers. He commanded the first regiment of colored soldiers from a free State ever mustered into the United-States service.

“He fell at the head of his regiment, while leading a storming-party against a rebel stronghold. You should cherish in your inmost hearts the memory of one who did not hesitate to sacrifice all the attractions of a high social position, wealth and home, and his own noble life, for the sake of humanity; another martyr to your cause that death has added; still another hope for your race. The truths and principles for which he fought and died still live, and will be vindicated. On the spot where he fell, by the ditch into which his mangled and bleeding body was thrown, on the soil of South Carolina, I trust that you will honor yourselves and his glorious memory by appropriating the first proceeds of your labor as free men toward erecting an enduring monument to the hero, soldier, martyr, Robert Gould Shaw.

“R. SAXTON,

“Brigadier-General and Military Governor.”

We are glad to be able to say, that the noble proposition of Gen. Saxton met with success.

Col. Shaw was singularly fortunate in being surrounded by officers, like himself, young, brave, and enthusiastic. Major Hallowed, the next in command, was wounded while urging forward his men. Adjutant G. W. James, Capts. S. Willard, J. W. M. Appleton, E. L.

Jones, G. Pope, W. H. Simpkins, C. J. Russell, and C. E. Tucker, and Lieuts. O. E. Smith, W. H. Homan, R. H. Jewett, and J. A. Pratt, – were severely wounded. A large proportion of the non-commissioned officers fell in the engagement or were badly wounded. Among these was Sergt. R. J. Simmons, a young man of more than ordinary ability, who had learned the science of war in the British army. The writer enlisted him in the city of New York, and introduced him to Francis George Shaw, Esq., who remarked at the time that Simmons would make “a valuable soldier’.” Col. Shaw, also, had a high opinion of him. He died of his wounds in the enemy’s hospital at Charleston, from bad treatment. The heroic act of Sergt. Carney, to which we have already alluded, called forth the following correspondence, which needs no comments, from the Adjutant-General’s Report of the State of Massachusetts for the year 1865: —

“New York, 596 Broadway, Boom 10, Dec. 13, 1865..

“To Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, Boston.

“Sir, – Will you be pleased to give me the name of some officer of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts colored regiment, so that I can obtain information concerning the famous assault that regiment made on Fort Wagner? I wish to learn the facts relating to the wounded color-bearer, who, though wounded severely, bore the flag heroically while crawling from the parapet to his retreating or repulsed regiment. It would make a splendid subject for a. statuette.

“Respectfully,

“T. H. BARTLETT,

“Sculptor.”

I immediately forwarded the letter to Col. Hallowell, with a request that he would furnish me with all the facts relating to the incident which he possessed. The following is Col. Hallowell’s reply: —

“Boston, Dec. 18, 1865.

“William Schouler, Adjutant-General.

“Dear Sir, – Your letter of the 15th to my brother, enclosing one from Mr. Bartlett, and requesting me to furnish a statement of facts relating to Sergt. Carney, of the Fifty-fourth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, is received. The following statement is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, correct; but you must remember it is made up principally from hearsay, no one person having seen every incident, except the sergeant. During the assault upon Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, the sergeant carrying the national colors of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteers fell; but, before the colors reached the ground, Sergt. Carney, of Company C, grasped them, and bore them to the parapet of the fort; where he received wounds in both legs, in the breast, and in the right arm: he, however, refused to give up his trust. When the regiment retired from the fort, Sergt. Carney, by the aid of his comrades, succeeded in reaching the hospital, still holding on to the flag, where he fell, exhausted and almost lifeless, on the floor, saying, ‘The old flag never touched the ground, boys.’ At the time the above happened, I was not in a condition to verify the truth of the statements made to me; but they come to me from very reliable parties, and from very different people; so, after a close cross-examination of the sergeant (who was known as a truthful man), I have concluded that the statement I have made is substantially correct.

“Sergt. Carney was an African, of, I should think, full blood; of very limited education, but very intelligent; bright face, lips and nose (comparatively) finely cut, head rather round, skin very dark, height about five feet eight inches, not very athletic or muscular; had lived in New Bedford, Mass., for many years. Hoping this will be of service to Mr. Bartlett, I have the honor to be, very respectfully,

“Your obedient servant,

“E. N. HALLOWELL,

“Late Colonel, &c.”