'Glory': Civil War fight by black troops recalled

SULLIVANS ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Dozens of Civil War re-enactors gathered Thursday to commemorate the 150th anniversary of a famed attack by the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry — a battle in South Carolina that showed the world black soldiers could fight and was chronicled in the movie ‘‘Glory.’’

Re-enactors portraying members of the black Union regiment as well as Confederate counterparts defending Battery Wagner in Charleston Harbor planned to travel Thursday afternoon by boat to Morris Island, site of the battle, to lay a wreath and fire a salute.

Speeches and Civil War period music also were planned on nearby Sullivans Island — an inhabited barrier island near the harbor entrance — about the time of the evening attack 150 years ago. Luminaries were to be lit by nightfall in memory of the dead....