54th massachusetts biography channel

Overview

The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment was the first military unit consisting of Black soldiers to be raised in the North during the Civil War.

Prior to 1863, no concerted effort was made to recruit Black troops as Union soldiers. The adoption of the Emancipation Proclamation in December of 1862 provided the impetus for the recruitment of free Black men as soldiers and, at a time when state governors were responsible for the raising of regiments for federal service, Massachusetts was the first to respond with the formation of the Fifty-fourth Regiment.

The formation of the regiment was a matter of controversy and public attention from its inception.

Questions were raised as to Black men's ability to fight in the "white man's war." Although Massachusetts governor John A. Andrew believed that Black men were capable of leadership, others felt that commissioning them as officers was simply too controversial; Andrew needed all the support he