Robert Gould Shaw
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Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837 – July 18, 1863), was the white colonel in command of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, which entered the American Civil War in 1863.
Shaw was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a prominent abolitionist family; his parents (who lived off the inheritance left by Shaw's merchant grandfather) were Francis George and Sarah Blake Sturgis Shaw and he had four sisters: Anna, Josephine, Susannah and Ellen. He was a religious liberal and a Unitarian who moved with his family to a large estate adjacent to Brook Farm when he was five. In his teens, Shaw spent some years studying and traveling in Switzerland, Italy, Hanover, Norway, and Sweden. From 1856 until 1859, Shaw attended Harvard University, but he withdrew before graduating and instead went to work at his uncle's business. After Abraham Lincoln's election and the secession of several Southern states, Shaw joined the 7th New York Infantry Regiment and marched with it to the defense of Washington, D.C., in April 1861. The unit served only thirty days. In May 1861, Shaw joined the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry as first lieutenant. He served there for over two years, seeing action at the Battle of Antietam, and was promoted to captain. He was then recruited by Governor John Andrew to raise and command one of the first regiments of black troops of the Union. Although he was initially unenthusiastic about his assignment, the dedication of his men deeply impressed him and he grew to respect them as fine soldiers. Upon learning that black soldiers would receive less pay than white ones, he inspired his unit to boycott this inequality until it was rectified.
Shaw was promoted to Major on March 31, 1863 and Colonel on April 17, so he was in charge of the 54th when they were ordered to loot and then burn the city of Darien, Georgia, on June 11, much to Shaw's reluctance. The destruction of the undefended city of little strategic importance had been ordered by Colonel James Montgomery.
On May 2, 1863, Shaw married Anna Kneeland Haggerty (d. 1907) in the Church of the Ascension on Fifth Avenue and 10th Street in New York City. The service was performed by Rev. J. Cotton Smith.[[Citing sources citation needed]] They had decided to marry before the unit left Boston despite their parents' misgivings. They spent their brief honeymoon at the Haggerty farm in Lenox, Massachusetts.
Robert Shaw is well-known for the over 200 letters he wrote to his family and friends during the Civil War. They are currently located at the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Some may also be found in the book Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune, which includes most of his letters and a brief biography of Shaw.
Fall at Fort Wagner
The 54th was sent to Charleston, South Carolina, to take part in the operations against the Confederates stationed there. On July 18, 1863, along with two brigades of white troops, the 54th assaulted Confederate Battery Wagner. Shaw led his unit into battle and was killed (shot thrice through the heart) during the assault while he stood up on a parapet, waved his sword and yelled, "Forward, Fifty-Fourth!", as the unit had initially hesitated in the face of fierce Confederate fire. When the Confederate soldiers buried the dead, they stripped his body (which had fallen headlong into the sand beneath) and buried him with his men, intending it as an insult. However, Shaw's father proclaimed that he was proud that his son was buried in that manner and that Robert would have approved.
Memorials
In 1864, sculptor Edmonia Lewis created a bust of Shaw.
The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial was built in his memory on Beacon and Park Streets in Boston in 1897.
- There they march, warm-blooded champions of a better day for man. There on horseback among them, in his very habit as he lived, sits the blue-eyed child of fortune, upon whose happy youth every divinity had smiled. — Oration by William James at the exercises in the Boston Music Hall, May 31, 1897, upon the unveiling of the Shaw Monument.
Further reading
- Benson, Richard, Lay This Laurel : An album on the Saint-Gaudens memorial on Boston Common, honoring black and white men together, who served the Union cause with Robert Gould Shaw and died with him July 18, 1863, Eakins Press, 1973. ISBN 0871300362
- Duncan, Russell, ed., Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, University of Georgia Press, 1992. ISBN 0820314595
- Duncan, Russell, Where Death and Glory Meet : Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, University of Georgia Press, 1999. ISBN 0820321354
- Robert Lowell, For the Union Dead, Collected Poems, Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 2003, ISBN 0374126178
- Burchard, Peter One Gallant Rush - Robert Gould Shaw & His Brave Black Regiment, St. Martin's Press, 1965. ISBN 0312039034
- Emilio, Luis F., A Brave Black Regiment: The History of the 54th Massachusetts, 1863-1865, Da Capo Press, 1894. ISBN 0306806231
- The Master by Colm Toibin relates Wilkie James' (brother of Henry James) participation as an officer in the regiment.
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