A Brave Black Regiment

*Illustrated

Luis F. Emilio was born on December 22, 1844. Only 16 when the Civil War broke out, he lied and said he was 18, allowing him to enlist in Company F of the 23rd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He moved up the ranks and was promoted to Sergeant by September 1862. 

Shortly after the Battle of Antietam that same month, President Lincoln ordered the Emancipation Proclamation. Moreover, the Union was beginning the process of enlisting blacks to fight. One of the black regiments being trained was the 54th Massachusetts, and Emilio was among the group of original officers of the 54th selected.

Emilio became the Captain of Company E of the regiment, but after the 54th Massachusetts’ first action at the Battle of Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863, Emilio became the regiment’s acting commander, since Robert Gould Shaw and so many other officers were killed during the daring assault. Emilio continued to fight with the 54th until nearly the end of the war. 

In the mid-1880s, Emilio began writing his own account of the 54th Massachusetts during the war, and the first edition of A Brave Black Regiment was published in 1891.