New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1865-09-05
THE FIFTY-FOURTH mAssACHU-
SETS.

The Fity-fourth Regiment of Massachusetts,
Volunteers was welcomed back to Boston on
Saturday. There was public reception, re-
view by the Governor and Council at the
State House, another on the Common by
the Mayor, an address TO his officers and
men w Col. Hallowell, and then the
regiment was disbanded. The demonstra-
tons of respect were rather moro than have
usually been awarded ~ returning regiments,
even in Massachusetts,, which chershes her
soldiers with an unforgetting affection. They
were so paid in this case, we presume, because
the regiment is a representative one. There
were regiments from that State which had seen
more fighting than this, though none which had
done any better fighting when occasion Of
fered; none which had a higher reputation
for discipline, patient endurance, and inn
petuous yalOr. But the true reason why Mas
sachusetts singled out this regiment for peculiar
honor is because this was the first colorcd regi-
ment organized at the North, and was that one
on whose good conduct depended for long
time the success Of the whole experiment OF
arming black citizens in defense of the Repub-
lie. 1t is not too much to say that if this Mas
sachusetts Fiity-fourth had faltcred when its
trial came, Two Hundred Thousand colored troops
for whom it was a pioneer would never have
been put into the field, or would not have been
put in for another year, which would have been
equivalent to protracting the war into lo66. But
il did not falter. 1t made Fort Wagner such q
name to the colorcd race as Bunker Hill has
been for ninety years to the white Yankees
albeit black men fought side by side with white
in the trenches on that 18th of June.
To this Massachusetts, Fity-fourth was set
the stupendous task TO convince the white race
that colored troops would fight, and not only
that they would fight, but that they could be
made, in every sense Of tho word, SOL
diers. 1t is not easy TO recall at this
day the state of public opinion on that
pont-the cOntemptuous disbelief in the
courage of an enslaved race, or rather of a
race with colored skin. Nobody pretends
now that the negro won't fight. Anglo-Saxon
prejudice takes another shape, and says he
won't work, and don't know how to vote; but
in the Spring of 1868, when this regiment
marched down Safest, in Boston, though it
was greeted with cheers and borne on by the
hopes of the loyal city which had trusted
the fame and lives of its nobest white sons to
lead their black comrades, yet that procession
was the scott of every Democratic journal in
America, and even friends feared half as much
as they hoped. Many white regiment had
shown the white feather in its first battle, but
for this black band to waver once was to fall
forever and to carry down with it, perhaps,
the fortunes of its race, and for time the
fortunes of the Republic. 1t had TO
wait months for an opportunity. Ii was sent
to Department which was sinking under the
prestige of almost uninterrupted defeats. The
General who commanded the Department, the
General who commanded the Division, and the
General who commanded the Brigade to which
this regiment found itself consgncd-neither
of them believed in the negro. When the houl
came for it to go into action, there was probably
no officer in the field outside of its own
ranks who did not expect it--and there were
many who desired ito fail When it started
TO move across that fatal beach which led to
the parapet Of Wagner, it started to do what
had not been successfully attempted by white
troops on either side during the war. 1t passed
through such an ordeal successfully; it came
out Of such contest not merely with credit
but with impcrishabc fame.
! The ordinary chances Of battle were not all