The Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment was the first regiment consisting of black soldiers to be raised in the North during the Civil War. The close-knit unit had to overcome many obstacles in order to fight in a "white man's war. " The regiment was able to prove themselves over time but it was no easy task. The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln, proclaimed the freedom of enslaved people in the ten states still rebellious. The Emancipation Proclamation did not itself outlaw slavery, however it was an important turning point within the war. The racist attitudes of many people left whites with low expectations for the black soldiers. This did not stop the determined regiment from fighting, however, and only added to their motivation to fight. The actions of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment influenced many other infantries to integrate, and proved to the Union and the Confederacy the power of brotherhood on the battlefield. .
Fighting in a war was something that blacks wanted to do even before the Fifty-Fourth Regiment. In a letter from William A. Jones, an Ohioan African-American, to Simon Cameron, the Secretary of War, we are able to see his true desire to fight. Jones wrote about how Ohio was a free state and how its population was filled with blacks willing to fight but laws that were put in place did not allow it. Since Ohio was a free state, blacks from all over fled to Ohio right at the start of the Civil War. In the letter, Jones is pleading for the Secretary of War to give blacks the nod to fight. Blacks were not allowed to fight at the time this letter was written, however Jones' voice that he uses in the letter makes it clear that he is desperate to fight. .
The Governor of Massachusetts liked the idea of forming an all-black regiment and issued the Civil War's first call for black soldiers in February of 1863. The small number of blacks located in Massachusetts was not enough to form a regiment but people used other ways of informing the public.