Clinton Cox

Excerpt:

"On May 28th, the men of the 54th arrived in Boston, where they would embark for the South.

"Cheering spectators lined the route, waving a sea of flags. People jammed balconies and windows watching the 54th march forth, in the words of one man, 'to blot out with their own blood the sin of the nation.'

"Colonel Robert Gould Shaw led the way astride his horse, leading the regiment through winding narrow streets to Boston Common. There they halted for a review by the governor and his staff. Then, after a brief rest, they resumed their march toward Battery Wharf.

"'Vast crowds lined the streets where the regiment was to pass, and the Common was crowded with an immense number of people such as only the Fourth of July or some rare event causes to assemble,' one paper reported.

"All the while the long column of troops passed by, rifles glinting in the sun. The men marched over ground stained by the blood of Crispus Attucks, a black man who was the first American killed by the British in the American Revolution. They marched through streets where, 11 years before, United States soldiers dragged a fugitive slave past silent throngs to a ship that would take him back to slavery.

"That slave, Thomas Sims, eventually returned to Boston as a free man and stood in the crowd that day watching the 54th march by.

"Thunderous applause and shouts marked the soldiers' every step. Flags and handkerchiefs waved wherever the men appeared, and many of the soldiers' wives and sweethearts ran beside them.

"That night poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, an ardent abolitionist, wrote in his diary: 'Saw the first regiment of blacks march through Beacon Street. An imposing sight, with something wild and strange about it, like a dream. At last the North consents to let the Negro fight for freedom."



"If our youth are to know anything about blacks in history, Undying Glory must have its place in the American history class."