During the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Sol-Legare Island was the site of several camps, artillery positions, and battles. On July 16, 1863, one of America's first African American Army regiments, the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, organized in the North and led by Union Gen. Alfred Terry, fought there as 5,200 Federal troops occupied the island. The 54th waged a gallant battle and lost 14 men, with 17 wounded and 12 missing, in a struggle presented as part of winning freedom for enslaved Africans held in bondage there and on plantations throughout the South.
