What was the 55th massachusetts regiment
So many African American men volunteered to serve in the 54th and 55th Regiments that medical examinations had to become more thorough and selective which worked to produce strong and healthy regiments. The soldiers did, however, face discrimination in the amount of pay they received for their service. This pay discrimination caused many black soldiers and some of their white officers to protest, refusing to take any pay until the black soldiers were equally paid.
In June the U. Congress passed a bill to approve equal pay among all races. The 55th also saw action in battles once they returned to South Carolina. As the Union Army made headway on the Confederate forces throughout South Carolina early in , troops began to close in on Charleston.
Led by General William Tecumseh Sherman, Union soldiers took Columbia, the state capital, on February 18 which prompted the Confederate forces to burn their supplies in the city of Charleston and retreat inland.
When the Union troops finally reached Charleston on February 21, they met crowds of liberated slaves and free blacks who rejoiced at their arrival.
Although the 55th Massachusetts Infantry was not the first black Union unit to enter Charleston, symbolically important as the birthplace of the Civil War, they did arrive to the shouts and cheers of newly freed women, men, and children.
The also occupied Charleston through much of the summer of before finally returning to Massachusetts where they were marshaled out of service in Boston in September of Do you find this information helpful?
A small donation would help us keep this accessible to all. For this they deserve our unending respect and admiration. As well, the brave men of the regiment, both black and white, who fought side by side, and lived through the inequities of a discriminatory government, deserve to be remembered as the heroes they are.
Nothing less would be acceptable. Sergeant Nicholas Said b. Bornu Empire , d. Alabama was a translator of Arabic, Turkish, Russian, and French. Although no one in his ancestry was ever enslaved in the Americas, he elected to immigrate to the United States and to join the 55th Regiment.
Military Wiki Explore. Popular pages. Project maintenance. Register Don't have an account? Edit source History Talk 0. Bowen, James L Massachusetts in the War — OCLC Brown, William Wells Dyer, Frederick H A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. Egerton, Douglas R. Hall, Charles Winslow Regiments and Armories of Massachusetts. Boston, MA: W. Headley, Phineas Camp Higginson, Thomas Wentworth State Historian McPherson, James M.
ISBN Nason, George W. Schouler, William A History of Massachusetts in the Civil War. Boston, MA: E. Norwood, MA: Norwood Press. War Department, U. Washington, DC: U. Government Printing Office.
0コメント