55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry: A Second “Brave Black Regiment”

This is part of my series of scrapbooks on Black regiments that served in the Civil War. While they are each focused on a single regiment, they are not intended as regimental histories. They collect information, links, and illustrations to help bring the experiences of the men of these units to modern readers. Sources are in brackets [,,,].

The 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was the second regiment of Black troops created by Massachusetts. It was the sister regiment of the 54th Massachusetts whose early months were depicted in the movie “Glory.” Some of the officers who would later serve in the 55th had seen previous service in the 54th. At one point, the commanders of the 54th and 55th were brothers from Philadelphia. These were true sister regiments.

In July of 1862, Congress passed the Second Militia Act, which allowed black men to perform limited service in the army. Congress did not place black recruits on an equal field with whites. While the lowest-ranking white soldier was paid $13 per months (about $300 today) black men were to be paid only $10 and three dollars of that was deducted every month to pay for their uniforms! Blacks were to risk their lives for $7 a month, or about $170 in today’s money. [The Militia Act of 1862; Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America by Douglas R. Egerton published by Basic Books (2016) pp. 50-52 hereinafter “Egerton”.]

On New Year’s Day, 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. While that executive order is remembered today for freeing the slaves in the rebellious states of the Confederacy, it also authorized the recruitment of Blacks into the army as soldiers. A week earlier, on Christmas Eve, Confederate President Jefferson Davis had promised that black men caught in Union uniforms would be enslaved and that the white officers leading them would be executed as “criminals deserving death” for inciting a slave revolt. [Proclamation by the Confederate President December 24, 1862;  Douglas R. Egerton pp. 60-65. In his December 24 Proclamation, Jefferson Davis described the Emancipation Proclamation as an attempt to incite a violent uprising of slaves in the Confederacy. He wrote; “the President of the United States has by public and official declaration signified… his approval of the effort to excite servile war within the Confederacy…”]

The following year, the anti-Emancipation Democratic New York Journal of Commerce declared that, “The only motive for adopting the black soldier system was the fanatical idea of negro equality…and the determination of the radicals to do everything possible to raise the negro to the social and political level of the white.” While this social revolution was not “the only motive” for enlisting blacks, abolitionists thought that black enlistment would not only speed the successful conclusion of the war, but that it would also place the American people in the debt of African Americans for saving the Union, ensuring the expansion of rights for African Americans. [Egerton pp. 3-4.]

Massachusetts Governor John Andrew wanted to use black enlistment as a means of defending the Emancipation Proclamation. The Proclamation took away private property, slaves, from their masters without due process. The Emancipation Proclamation was legally justified, according to Lincoln, as a measure to win the war. By immediately recruiting black soldiers, Andrew believed, according to one of his advisers, he would “silence all doubts as to the legality of the Act of Emancipation by taking it out of the civil acts & making it a purely military one.” In other words, once black soldiers were in the field, there could be no reversing of the Proclamation. [Lincoln’s Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union by Louis P. Masur published by Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (2012); Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America by Allen C. Guelzo published by Simon & Schuster (2006); Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory (Nathan I Huggins Lectures) by Harold Holzer published by Harvard University Press (February 2012); The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by Eric Foner published by Norton (2010) pp. 240-247; Egerton p. 66.]

Governor Andrew was also a firm anti-slavery man. On January 26, 1863, he received authorization from Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to begin recruiting black men for segregated regiments to be officered by whites. Andrew protested, insisting that black officers be named to staff the new units. He was not able to alter the racial prejudices embedded in the Federal policies allowing the establishment of the first black regiments and as such, all of the officers for the new regiments were to be white. [Egerton p. 66.]

Gov. Andrew began organizing two black infantry regiments, the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Volunteers. He insisted that these units be led by battle-tested young officers from abolitionist families. The 54th was commanded by Robert Gould Shaw from Staten Island while Norwood Penrose (Pen) Hallowell commanded the 55th Massachusetts. [Egerton]

Pen Hallowell came from a Philadelphia Quaker family. Quakers opposed slavery, but they were also pacifists and many of them did not vote. His brother Edward Needles (Ned) Hallowell wrote to him in 1858 that he felt that he had to break with his religion on its anti-political stance. He reminded Pen that Quakers were required to pay taxes and that this act gave them responsibility for how those taxes were used. He told his brother that he was “bound to vote to protect” enslaved blacks. [Egerton pp. 29-30.]

Both Pen and Ned Hallowell were abolitionists in their student years and the entire Hallowell family was active in opposing the Fugitive Slave Law. In 1859, the brothers showed their willingness to risk their lives when they helped hide a Virginia runaway slave named Daniel Dangerfield from a Philadelphia mob. The two young Quakers hid him in a tomb and armed themselves to protect the black man when they drove him out of town to safety. Pen accepted the risky duty of commanding black soldiers knowing that white officers in black regiments risked being executed if captured. His brother Ned joined the 54th Massachusetts to serve under Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. [Egerton pp. 30-31.]

The presentation of the colors of the 55th involved a ceremony tying the State of Ohio to the regiment. Ohio not only represented the largest contingent of men in the regiment, but there were actually ten times as many soldiers from the Buckeye State as from Massachusetts. The flag of the 55th was a present from the Black women of Ohio. The following is from Record of the Services of the 55th Colored Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry by Charles Fox p. 4 hereinafter “The Record”.

Here are the birthplaces of the men of the 55th:

Here is the table of occupations of the men of the 55th Mass:

You will note that 247 had been slaves.

Based in Orangeburg, South Carolina, the men of the regiment helped construct a school with some acting as teachers. Lieutenant  James Monroe Trotter of the 55th, one of the army’s first Black officers, devoted himself to visiting local plantations “to see that they were treating properly the colored people.” Egerton (p. 295).

William Dupree of the 55th:

Nicholas Said, the former African slave had lived in Europe, Africa, Canada, and the United States:

The memorial to the 54th, 55th Mass and 5th Mass Cavalry in Beaufort, South Carolina.

Here is a link to The Record of the Services of the 55th Colored Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry by Charles Fox published by 55th Regimental Association (1868)

https://archive.org/stream/recordofserviceo00foxc_0#page/n7/mode/1up

Here is a video discussion of the life of Medal of Honor recipient Andrew Smith:

Here is an article from the New York Times Disunion Blog on the 55th Mass and the liberation of Charleston. When Freedom Came to Charleston By BLAIN ROBERTS and ETHAN J. KYTLE FEBRUARY 19, 2015 published by The New York Times http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/when-freedom-came-to-charleston/