How did the North in the Civil War react to the Massachusetts 54th Regiment and the brave soldiers in it?

Question

Also, how did they feel about the 37,000 African American soldiers who died in the Army of Freedom?

Answer 1

Mostly with contempt.Most people did not think that coloured troops could fight and they would run.Officers in the army did not look upon commanding coloured troops as an advancement so officers who took up the offer to command them were looked down upon.As of the number who died with ambivalence.

Answer 2

You have asked a question that defies a simple answer from the distance of close to 150 years.
Oficially it would seem that they were initially accepted because of the need for manpower.
Once the regiment was formed, and others like it, they showed, by their tenacity and bravery, their spirit.
The New York Draft riots were directed toward some Blacks but the bravery of the 54th helped to assauge such anger in other sectors.
They did help to dispel doubt within the Army about the fighting ability of Black soldiers.
They also were instrumental by their actions to acheive equal treatment for all enlisted Black soldiers.
How did the North feel? Ten years after the war ended a group in Boston began an effort to raise a memorial to the Regiment.
Memorial Day, 1897 saw the dedication of the Memorial in a prominent location on Boston Common.

Answer 3

One can start with the fact that African-American soldiers during the Civil War were paid less than white soldiers. This speaks volumes because it means that BOTH the politicians and the army leadership felt that African-American soldiers were "worth less" than white soldiers. Do not assume that the North was fighting to free the slaves. They were not. That was an invention of Lincoln to win support from Britain and also to change the language of the war. At the beginning of the war the objective of the North was "to preserve the Union" and nothing more, or less. Going beyond this, however, one might suggest that most Northerners were saying to themselves, secretly if not out loud, "it's about time" they (African-Americans) were involved in freeing their own people. Too many of "our people" (whites) have died, now let them die.

Answer 4

nicely, there are dissimilar solutions: there have been incredibly some "54th Regiments" in the process the Civil conflict. a million. 54th Massachusetts which grow to be a area of the "US colored Infantry." It grow to be no longer the 1st regiment of blacks to serve interior the U. S. military in the process the Civil conflict. They did their scuffling with in Georgia, North Carolina and that i think Alabama. on an identical time as the movie Glory is an inspiring movie, the irony is that the 54th Massachusetts suffered greater casualties AFTER the attack on ft. Wagner (that's the top results of the movie). 2. 54th new york Infantry. oftentimes made out of German human beings, fought at many engagements as area of Howard's 11th Corps. they have have been given a monument of their call at Gettysburg. 3. 54th Illinois. They have been captured almost of their entirety whilst they have been hit by 3x their six of accomplice forces merely east of Memphis. 4. 54th Indiana. heavily in contact interior the Western Theatre and took part interior the sieges of Vicksburg, Jackson and New Orleans plus additionally incredibly some prisoner info. 5. 54th Pennsylvania fought heavily interior the Valley marketing campaign (in Virginia and what's now West Virginia). 6. 54th North Carolina. almost a million/2 of the regiment grow to be taken prisoner at Rappohanick. yet something of the regiment grow to be in contact in Monocacy (which if Lew Wallace hadn't achieved this sort of reliable pastime, might have allowed Jubal Early to catch Washington DC with Lincoln in it) and grow to be a area of the renounce at Appomattax. 7. 54th Virginia. unique for a Virginia regiment, they fought no battles in Virginia yet have been in contact in over 40 different engagements in Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and North Carolina.