"He told us kids, 'If you say you weren't scared, you weren't there.' "
Thanks for your comment. Your father was a hero. I was rereading some of my brother's letters from Vietnam (66-67), the other night. Before he got off the plane that took him there...he admitted to being scared too, and said "I hope the shit in my pants doesn't slow me down." As a kid, all he had wanted to do was be a soldier, so he enlisted during the war, and ended up in Nam. He said that no matter what happened to him over there, he would at least feel like he had done the right thing. He turned when he was over there...was the oldest man in his platoon. He died way too young at the age of 51 in 1995.
Regarding the 54th and 55th Mass. A lot of people don't know there was a sister regiment to the 54th. It was formed from the overflow of men who had showed up to enlist in the 54th. When Shaw and the 54th were storming Fort Wagner on Morris Island in July 1863, the 55th was leaving Boston for the South. They would end up in the same area of S.C., camped on Folly Island, S.C., and would fight together at different points in the war. I did several years of research on both units, but focused on the 55th, because it was mostly unknown. There was also a black unmounted Cavalry unit, the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry. Toward the end of the war, they were sent to serve at Point Lookout prison in Maryland.
