The 55th Massachusetts Regiment: The 54th's Companion in the Civil War

Often overshadowed by its companion, the 54th Massachusetts, the 55th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment was also made up of African American soldiers from across the United States and beyond. In the Civil War it fought notably on Morris Island and at Honey Hill in South Carolina, and the courage of its men, with the 54th's, helped persuade political and military leaders to enlist Black soldiers in large numbers.

Forming the regiment

Soon after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, abolitionist Governor John Andrew called for an African American regiment. By May so many men had volunteered for the 54th that he created a second one, the 55th.

Regimental return of the 55th Massachusetts Infantry, 1863, recording where its soldiers were born. Massachusetts Archives.

Only 22 of its enlistees came from Massachusetts. Free-born recruits came from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and elsewhere, and some from as far as Valparaíso, Chile. The 55th also had more documented freedom seekers than the 54th, some of whom had escaped on the Underground Railroad: historian Douglas Egerton estimates about 25% of its soldiers had been enslaved, and the Springfield Republican reported that newly escaped slaves made up a large share of recruits. Many had fled north from Virginia's border regions when the war began, and six gave Georgia as their birthplace, among them Theodore Clarke, who had escaped from Savannah.

Col. Norwood Hallowell, the regiment's first commander. Massachusetts Historical Society.

Andrew chose Col. Norwood P. Hallowell, an abolitionist Quaker from Philadelphia who defied his church's pacifism to take command. Lt. George Garrison, son of the abolitionist editor William Lloyd Garrison, was another officer, and James Monroe Trotter, father of the Boston Black publisher William Monroe Trotter, enlisted as a private and rose to second lieutenant. Hallowell trained the regiment at Readville, south of Boston, from May 1863, and it paraded through Boston to receive its colours on July 20, 1863, two days after the 54th's assault on Fort Wagner.

Fort Wagner and the Carolina coast

After days of violent storms at sea, the 55th camped on the North Carolina coast, where word came of the 54th's failed assault. The men expected the same fate; Garrison wrote to his mother that if the fort had not fallen by the time they arrived, "we shall have our turn at and with little better success."

Its first combat came on the very ground where so many of the 54th had fallen. Under constant fire, the 55th and other regiments dug trenches ever closer to Fort Wagner to force its surrender without another assault, and after a 58-day siege the Confederates abandoned it on September 7, 1863; the 55th entered as it fell. The men also helped emplace the "Swamp Angel", a 16,500 lb gun on Morris Island used to shell Charleston across the harbour.

Over the next twelve months the regiment moved between South Carolina and Florida. It went to northern Florida early in 1864, missing the Battle of Olustee but serving for months around Jacksonville on picket and fatigue duty and on expeditions, then returned in April to skirmish on the islands around Charleston.

Honey Hill, November 30, 1864

Plan of the Battle of Honey Hill, November 30, 1864, showing the 55th in exposed positions beside the main road. Library of Congress.

Late in 1864 the regiment joined the campaign to cut the Charleston and Savannah Railroad and force Charleston's surrender, and the Confederates built earthworks to protect the line. At Honey Hill, as the 55th advanced up the only road toward a battery on the hill, with impassable marsh on both sides, volleys of grapeshot, canister and rifle fire cut many men down. Trotter wrote afterwards:

"it was like rushing into the very mouth of death going up this road facing 7 pieces of death dealing cannon….all of us knew this."

The Liberator reported that the regiment held steady under very hot fire, but the Confederate artillery forced the Union regiments off the field, and the battle was a defeat. Still, the 55th won great respect: "The heavy loss of the 55th," the Liberator wrote, "shows how nobly they contested the ground."

Into Charleston

On February 21, 1865, the 55th was among the first regiments to enter captured Charleston, where crowds of newly freed African Americans cheered them. Lt. Charles Fox recalled Black citizens pouring into the streets, and a soldier at the head of the column carrying a great banner with the word Liberty.

"Marching on!" The 55th Massachusetts singing "John Brown's March" in the streets of Charleston, February 21, 1865. Harper's Weekly, March 18, 1865. Library of Congress.

The regiment served on occupation duty in South Carolina until September 1865, then mustered out on Gallops Island in Boston Harbor. Landing at Commercial Wharf, it marched through downtown Boston between crowds of supporters, the Liberator praising the firm, solid tread of its ranks, and drilled on Boston Common before the men went their separate ways.

Legacy

Like the 54th, the 55th helped win over a sceptical public and reluctant leaders to recruiting Black soldiers. In the Liberator's words, its veterans had shown "that colored men can fight when urged by the same incentives as the white man." By the war's end, more than 180,000 African Americans had taken up arms for the United States.

Sources

• National Park Service, Boston African American National Historic Site, "55th Massachusetts Regiment." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/55th-massachusetts-regiment.htm
• Its sources include Douglas Egerton, Thunder at the Gates: The Black Regiments That Redeemed America (2016); Charles B. Fox, Record of the Service of the Fifty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (1868); Noah Andre Trudeau, Voices of the 55th (1996); and The Liberator, 1864–1865.