145 years later, brave men of Mass. 54th remembered

Re-enactors pay tribute to black Civil War regiment

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The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry re-enactment group held its annual memorial on Morris Island, commemorating the history-making attack by an all-black regiment 145 years ago during the Civil War. Watch »

When the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry re-enactors marched off the pontoon boat onto the sand of Morris Island on Friday, Joshua Washington carried the flag. He knew what it meant. He knew who had charged Battery Wagner with that flag 145 years ago.

The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was making history by getting slaughtered. William Harvey Carney was already down when he saw the man in front of him, the flag bearer, drop to the Morris Island sand with a gunshot wound. Carney grabbed the flag before it touched the ground. He got up and charged again at Battery Wagner.

The 54th regiment re-enactment group held its annual memorial on the island where the regiment's bloody attack on Confederate troops took place, 145 years to the day after it happened.

Six hundred black, freedmen volunteers led the Union charge, a signal honor they were given with the command to prove their worth. Nearly half died, were wounded or were captured.

Stepping foot in the sand each anniversary gives the re-enactors a rare sense of place.

"You can feel hallowed ground," said Washington, of Charleston.

Shot in the thigh, Carney kept crawling on his knees, screaming for the regiment to keep going. He would end up shot in the head, the chest, the other leg and an arm. He'd find himself huddled behind a wall as Confederate soldiers raked fire over the top, and the retreating regiment abandoned him. Carney was a 23-year-old

freedman from Virginia. He had volunteered for this — one of the first all black infantry units — and the Civil War.

Morris Island is the low-slung barrier island beyond Fort Sumter to the southeast, at the mouth of Charleston Harbor. The eight men in blue marched the beach in formation, accompanied by a group of women in period dress and parasols. For about 70 people who came to take part, re-enactor Ernest Parks, of James Island, told a tale of cannon fire and carnage, in the quavering voice of a young man at war.

When Carney finally staggered back to his lines, he wouldn't let a soldier from another regiment take the flag, saying only a soldier from the 54th should carry it. When a soldier from his camp grabbed it to cheers, Carney dropped to the ground, passed out. He became the first African-American soldier to win the Medal of Honor.

"I only did my duty," he would say later. "The old flag never touched the ground."

The battle would begin the year-and-a-half Siege of Charleston that left the city little more than rubble. A century and a half later, Fort Sumter flew for the memorial the Second National Confederate flag that flew over the fort in sight of the men that day.

John Winthrop stepped gingerly to the dunes and laid a wreath.

Winthrop is a Massachusetts-born descendent of Robert Gould Shaw, the white colonel who reluctantly took command of the 54th. He almost cried, Winthrop said.

"I was thinking of the consequence of these people, paving the way for African-Americans in the military. I found it very moving," he said.

Then his voice changed and he said as much to himself as anyone else, "I'd like to come out here again."

The eight men in blue stood and fired rifles in salute. Washington stood straight up and still with the flag.

"It makes me feel good, I'll tell you that" he said. "It's an honor."

Reach Bo Petersen at 745-5852 or bpetersen@postandcourier.com.