Robert Gould Shaw was a young Bostonian with impeccable
family connections, strongly abolitionist parents, and battle
experience. Born 10 October 1837, he was the only son of Francis
Gould and Sarah Sturgis Shaw. Socially conscious and deeply devoted
to intellectual and spiritual pursuits, the Shaws counted among
their friends and associates such thinkers, writers, and reformers
as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Lloyd Garrison,
and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
From 1856 until March 1859, Shaw attended Harvard
University, but he withdrew before receiving his degree, entering
his uncle's business in New York instead. After Lincoln's election
and the secession of several southern states, Shaw joined the
Seventh New York Regiment and marched with it to the defense
of Washington in April 1861. The unit served only thirty days,
but in the army Shaw at last found a vocation that commanded
his enthusiasm and respect. In May he joined the Second Massachusetts
Infantry as First Lieutenant.
During nearly two years of service in the Second,
in which he rose to the rank of captain, Shaw was wounded at
Antietam and saw some of his closest comrades fall in battle.
But his resolve grew only firmer with each fight. In February
1863, Francis Shaw personally delivered Governor John Andrew's
offer of command of the new Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Regiment
to his son Robert, then at Stafford Court House, Virginia. Not
certain he was "equal to the responsibility of such a position,"
and no doubt reluctant to leave the regiment to which he was
devoted, the younger Shaw at first declined the offer. But his
strong sense of duty prevailed. "Now," his mother wrote
after he had accepted the colonelcy, "I feel ready to die,
for I see you willing to give y[ou]r support to the cause of
truth that is lying crushed and bleeding."
Although Shaw supported the idea of blacks in the
military, his connection with African Americans had been more
theoretical than actual, and he seems, at first, to have been
surprised by the impressive soldiering abilities of his enlistees.
The men's accounts reveal that respect and understanding grew
steadily between this very demanding commander and his troops
during their weeks of training.
Massachusetts 54th
Governor Andrew recruited Robert Gould Shaw, son of prominent
Boston abolitionists and a captain in the 2nd Massachusetts regiment,
which had seen action at Antietam, to lead the new African American
troop, as military policy did not allow blacks to serve as officers.
Reaction from the South to black recruitment was swift.
The Confederate Congress issued a proclamation that African Americans
captured in uniform would be sold into slavery, and white officers
of such troops would be executed. Though not carried out, the
threat was a grave challenge to every recruit and officer of
the Massachusetts 54th.
1863 March - May
Training began as soon as recruits began arriving and continued
until the regiment sailed to its first post. On May 12, the 54th
reached its full number of 1,000 soldiers. At Colonel Shaw's
insistence his men were issued light blue infantry uniforms instead
of the darker blue worn by blacks doing support labor for the
army. On May 18, Shaw's regiment received a request from General
David Hunter, commander of the Department of the South, for their
regiment to proceed to Beaufort, South Carolina. On May 28 the
regiment marched from Readville through Boston and down to the
harbor. Their procession through Boston passed Shaw's family
home and the Boston State House amid crowds lining the streets.
1863 June
On June 3 one of the companies sailed to Hilton Head, South Carolina.
On June 10 some of the 54th troop were forced to loot and burn
the small town of Darien, Georgia, of no military import. Shaw
protested the burning and the degradation of the high purpose
of the regiment.
1863 July
Shaw achieved transfer of his troops to another command, insisting
upon the importance of black participation in active war theatres.
On July 8 the regiment was dispatched to James Island, near Charleston.
On July 16, companies of the 54th provided rear-guard support
to a company attacked by Confederates trying to recapture the
island; they held their line and were cited for bravery. The
regiment then went to Morris Island, at the northern end of which
stood Fort Wagner.
Fort Wagner was a large earth and sandbag fortification,
one of several guarding the strategic harbor of Charleston. Approachable
only along a narrow strip of shore and armed with large artillery,
the garrison was a massive, seemingly invincible bulwark.
On July 17-18, while the Union navy shelled Fort Wagner
from the sea, the men of the 54th traversed from James Island
to Cole's and then Folly Island toward Morris Island. They walked
on planks in the mud flats, boarded transport boats from the
edge of one island to the other, and, though tired and parched
after a night and day of travel, undertook responsibility for
an infantry attack on the fort.
The assault was to be at dusk. Shaw positioned himself
at the front of his regiment, not behind as was customary. At
3:00 p.m. they marched to within 1,000 yards of the battlement.
At 7:45 p.m. the regiment advanced to close range. As they stormed
the fort they were met with shelling. Many fell, but the troops
kept moving forward and up the fort's sloped, sandy walls. Shaw
was shot as he neared the top of the parapet. He pitched over
into the fort, dead. Of the 600 men, 281 were killed, wounded,
missing, or taken prisoner.
On July 19, a truce was declared. Shaw was stripped
and thrown into a ditch with his soldiers, contrary to ceremonial
burials usually provided for officers. Northern newspapers reported
on the trench burial. Recruitment in the North was stirred, and
Shaw's parents later rejected an offer to have their son's body
exhumed, writing that they could hope for "no holier place"
for it than "...surrounded by his brave and devoted soldiers."
Postscript
Fort Wagner was abandoned on September 6, 1863. Union troops
occupied the fort; Charleston had been exposed. The 54th went
on to Florida, distinguishing itself in the battle of Olustee
from which several men were taken to the infamous Confederate
prison at Andersonville, Georgia. Among them was Corporal James
Henry Gooding, who sent letters published in his hometown newspaper,
the New Bedford, Massachusetts "Mercury" before dying
at Andersonville in July of 1864. The 54th also fought at Honey
Hill, South Carolina (November 30, 1864) and at Boykins Mills
(April 18, 1865). On September 1, 1865, the regiment received
discharge papers and marched past the State House in Boston on
the very route they had taken when they departed for war.
The Massachusetts 54th had refused pay rather than
accept the $10 a month specified by the Militia Act (passed on
July 17, 1862) which deducted $3 from black soldiers' salaries
for clothing while also specifying an addition of $3 per month
to white soldiers' pay for a clothing allowance. The prejudicial
discrepancy was finally resolved by an act of Congress, which
authorized black troops to receive pay equal to their white counterparts.
By the end of the Civil War over 175,000 African Americans had
volunteered to serve the Union, accounting for 10% of the North's
army and navy. |
Captain Robert Gould Shaw