Leather, brass, and wood trunk. Exterior stenciled: "Lieut. F.E. Rogers. / 54th Mass. Regt." 

Frederick E. Rogers was 18 years old when he originally enlisted on 24 March 1862 as a private into Company D of the 13th Massachusetts Infantry. The 13th saw heavy action with the Army of the Potomac throughout the Eastern Theater, fighting in several major battles including Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg.

On 3 May 1864, Rogers was promoted to Second Lieutenant and commissioned into Company A of the famed 54th Massachusetts Infantry, organized in March 1863 by Robert Gould Shaw, the son of a notable Boston abolitionist. Composed primarily of free northern Blacks, including two sons of iconic abolitionist Frederick Douglass, the regiment carried the expectations of an enslaved race on their shoulders. Men like Harper and Richardson rose to the occasion. Colonel Shaw (played by Matthew Broderick in Glory) was killed during the regiment’s historic charge at Battery Wagner in South Carolina and was buried in a mass grave with his fallen troops. Intended as an insult, it became an eternal honor. Rogers was wounded in one of their last actions at Eppes' Bridge, South Carolina, on 7 April 1865.

A great Civil War trunk. 

Note: This lot cannot be packaged and shipped in-house. Successful bidders winning items marked as being packaged and shipped by a third-party service are responsible for paying the third party directly. We are happy to offer complimentary drop-off service to local third-party packing/shipping companies in Columbus, Ohio.

[Militaria, Relics, Accouterment, Equipment, Uniforms] [Civil War, Union, Confederate] [African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation]