Service of the 54th The Battle for Fort Wagner

Item contributed by Massachusetts Historical Society

Invented by Captain Robert Parker Parrot, the Parrot rifle was a muzzle-loading cannon used extensively by the Union in the Civil War. Named after Colonel Brayton, the Parrot rifle pictured here is a 300-pound gun used on Morris Island.1

This photograph is included in Captain Luis Emilio’s collection of photographs related to the regiment, now at the Massachusetts Historical Society. 

1. Douglas Egerton, Thunder At the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments That Redeemed America (Philadelphia, PA: Basic Books, 2016);  Luis F. Emilio, A Brave Black Regiment: History of The Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 1863-1865 (Boston: The Boston Book Company, 1864).  See also the National Park Service article on Robert Parrott and a photograph of the first Parrott gun from the Library of Congress.




About item:

Photograph, circa 1863-1864, 5.5 cm x 8.5 cm.
From the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment photographs.
Photo. 72.85.

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