Re-enactors sustain memory of 54th
Black regiment played key role in Civil War battle
By Paul Bowers
Video
Assault on Battery Wagner
The 54th Massachusetts Regiment, a re-enactment group representing the first all-black infantry, remembers fallen Union soldiers from the July 18, 1863, Assault on Battery Wagner.
The Post and Courier
Members of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment re-enactors Jules Washington (from left), his brother Joshua Washington and Terry James helped commemorate the famous Civil War battle that took place 146 years ago on Morris Island.
The Post and Courier
Re-enactors with the 54th Massachusetts Arnold Jenkins (right) and Joshua Washington (with flag) arrive at Morris Island for a commemoration ceremony Friday marking the anniversary of the famous Civil War battle.
Program today
A special program on the 54th Massachusetts Regiment will be held today at the Fort Moultrie Visitor Center:
1-4 p.m.: Living history with re-enactors.
2 p.m.: Presentation by park ranger Donel Singleton.
2:30 p.m.: Watch the battle scene from the film "Glory."
Cost: Free. The normal entrance fee of $3 is waived for the weekend. The site is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.
Where: Fort Moultrie, 1214 Middle St., Sullivan's Island.
More info: go to nps.gov/fosu or call 883-3123.
If you've seen the movie "Glory," you've seen Mel Reid. In the 1989 Civil War film in which Denzel Washington won his first Oscar, Reid played the part of an anonymous Union soldier in the first all-black infantry.
"I died a lot," said Reid, 50, remembering his role as an extra.
On Friday, he and 11 other re-enactors with the 54th Massachusetts Regiment traveled to Morris Island, the site of Battery Wagner, where the movie's final battle took place in real life on this date in 1863.
Garbed in wool replica uniforms, they held a brief memorial service on the beach at Morris Island, placing a wreath near the dunes and singing spirituals after saying a few words.
A small gathering of onlookers came across on boats, with the re-enactors carrying anachronistic digital cameras and camcorders.
Reid, a recent retiree from Washington, D.C., has been with the 54th since appearing in "Glory." He is a rare breed: By the unit's estimates, there are roughly 100 black Civil War re-enactors nationwide, representing the estimated 200,000 African-Americans who fought in the war.
"If we don't do it, they'll forget about it," Reid said.
The assault on Battery Wagner was a federal offensive and an experiment to see whether black troops were battleworthy.
The Confederates won the day and would hold the island for weeks afterward, but Union forces had gained a numerical advantage in the thousands of African-Americans who would soon join their cause.
Joe McGill, a private in today's 54th, summed up the battle and its ramifications during the ceremony.
"When those men did what they did, they proved not only to themselves that they were soldiers; they proved to the whole world that they were soldiers," said McGill, 47.
Marlene Lemon, 57, travels with the 54th to commemorate the women who supported their soldier-husbands and the Union cause.
Carrying a parasol as the wind whipped her period-appropriate dress, she talked about fundraising and her other role in preserving posterity: She is a history teacher at Rollings Middle School of the Arts in Summerville.
Members of the 54th see themselves as oral historians, telling the tales that textbooks sometimes gloss over.
"We were never taught this in high school," said Ernest Parks, 53, who graduated from James Island High School shortly after integration in 1968.
Joshua Washington, 66, represented a specific soldier on Friday: Sgt. William Carney, the first African-American Medal of Honor recipient.
"Sir, Old Glory never touched the ground," Washington said, echoing the report of the flagbearer who was immortalized in symbolic imagery after he held the flag aloft for the entire length of the bloody July 18 assault.
"I don't know how many would do that now, give up their freedom," Washington said. Many members of the original 54th were newly freed slaves who voluntarily surrendered many freedoms to join the Army.
As the sesquicentennial anniversary of the assault approaches in 2013, today's 54th is gearing up to leave a lasting imprint on Charleston's historical consciousness.
An immediate concern is getting a memorial installed on Morris Island. There are no signs commemorating the battle, and the mass grave where Col. Quincey Gilmore and his men were buried remains unmarked.
The 54th also has a lodge that is nearing completion on Sol Legare Island, where members of the regiment camped in military tents Thursday night.
On the boat ride back to Folly Beach, the 54th passed around a hardened leather fragment, debating whether it came from a soldier's boot sole.
Hard and stiff, it resembled most parts of the uniforms the men wore Friday: too rough for comfort, but durable enough for battle.
"It's a pretty tough life being a soldier," said Reid, turning to watch the wake sway the swamp grass. "But it beats slavery."
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ClemsonTi9er (anonymous) says...
I wonder what would happen if the P&C published an article about the many black Confederates who fought during the war. No folks, that was not a typo. I said black CONFEDERATES and FOUGHT.
It's really sad what happened to the 54th. Lincoln sure did have fun making sure the black soldier went to the front line as a shield for the rest of their army.
The Southern army was integrated while the Northern army was not (They had segregated black regiments). Sound like the history you learned in school??? Probably not because it is mainly revisionist history.
I wonder if these folks who re-enact the "glorious" charge have ever been taught the true causes of the war and what they really fought for???
Of those 200,000 black soldiers who fought during the War for Southern Independence, about half of those were black. I could go on.
Check out this website to learn the truth:
It's maintained by a former president of the N.C. NAACP. His name is H.K. Edgerton.
July 18, 2009 at 1:34 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
greyrider (anonymous) says...
Amen ClemsonTi9er!
I'll rephrase the opening line. If you saw the movie "Glory" and were PAYING ATTENTION, you saw that the Union did NOT consider blacks their equal and the black soldiers were not exactly welcomed by their white northern counterparts.
And how did you like that SUICIDE MISSION at the end?!
July 18, 2009 at 7:10 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
desspec (anonymous) says...
I'm waiting for the many posters who 'usually' say "That was 146 years ago; let it go, they lost!"
July 18, 2009 at 8:57 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
scottmcx (anonymous) says...
I commend these guys for remembering their soldiers, as we all should.
The fact that they were used as cannon fodder by the war criminal Lincoln is historically accurate and a clearly horrific act of murder.
It is also factual that the Union had segregated regiments of drafted, and some volunteer, black infantry led by white officers.
Southern units were segregated, blacks lived with and fought shoulder to shoulder with their white brothers in arms. Black commissioned officers served in Southern militia units. At least one blackman reached Sgt in the regular Confederate army.
July 18, 2009 at 10:02 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
scottmcx (anonymous) says...
Southern units were integrated..typo
July 18, 2009 at 10:29 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Brutus1 (anonymous) says...
Well done 54th.
July 18, 2009 at 1:13 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Jim_Isle (anonymous) says...
Amazing what you learn here. If Southern units in the War between the States were integrated, what happened after the war when the schools were segregated? Everybody just go home and say it didn't work out? Oh, that's right. There were few schools for blacks.
"Facts" on websites are someone's version of the facts. Even US forces in World War II were segregated and it's great that someone believes that a black man reached Sargeant in the regular Confederate army. Who were the men who served under him? Your great great grandpa? You think?
I think if we all grew up and recognized people are part of the human race we'd all be better off. Then the 54th could commemorate their battles while not having to read posts like this. After all, grave markers on the Normandy beaches don't differentiate between black and white dead. Neither should we.
July 18, 2009 at 1:33 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
scottmcx (anonymous) says...
When the North took the voting rights of all white Southeners and Carpetbaggers influenced the Southern Blacks, who held all the votes, to take advantage during so called "Reconstruction" the South backlashed. That caused Jim Crow and continued opression of the Blacks across the entire country. Read your history.
July 18, 2009 at 2:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
scottmcx (anonymous) says...
oppression
typo day
July 18, 2009 at 2:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Jim_Isle (anonymous) says...
It's tough to always get the keyboard to do it right, isn't it? Scott, I still think it's spelled Southerners.
I do read history. A lot of it. Wouldn't you agree though that many times people will latch on to a term like "Jim Crow" or "Sunni" or "Tory" to describe the entire sequence of events that went on after as though one term could encompass all? We did not live through the period we're talking about, but I believe it needs more than one term to describe those events after the war.
Any war.
July 18, 2009 at 2:31 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
pgarten (anonymous) says...
Colonel Quincy Gilmore was not buried in a mass grave on Morris Island. It was Colonel Robert Shaw. After the war, Colonel Gilmore became the first District Commander of the Charleston District Corps of Engineers. His mission was to clear the harbor channels of vessels sunk during the civil war so ships carrying commerce could enter the port and help the economy start to recover.
July 18, 2009 at 4:39 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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