Col. Robert Gould Shaw (USA)

Robert Gould Shaw

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/19467/robert_gould_shaw

He was the colonel in command of the all-black 54th Regiment, which entered the American Civil War in 1863. He is the principal subject of the 1989 film Glory. He was killed in a failed attempt to capture Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina.

Contents

• 1 Early life and career
• 2 Civil War
• 3 Marriage to Anne Kneeland Haggerty
• 4 Letters
• 5 Death at Fort Wagner
• 6 Memorials
• 7 See also
• 8 References
• 9 Notes
• 10 Further reading

Early life and career

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 Unitarian who moved with his family to a large estate in West Roxbury, 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. His family moved to Staten Island, New York, settling there among a community of literati and abolitionists, while Shaw attended the lower division of St. John's College, the equivalent of high school in the institution that became Fordham University. From 1856 until 1859, Shaw attended Harvard University, where he was a member of the Porcellian Club, but he withdrew before graduating.

Civil War

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 second lieutenant.

Shaw was approached by his father while in camp in late 1862 to take command of a new All-Black Regiment. At first he declined the offer, but after careful thought accepted the position. Shaw's letters clearly state that he was dubious about a free black unit succeeding, but the dedication of his men deeply impressed him, and he grew to respect them as fine soldiers. On learning that black soldiers would receive less pay than white ones, he inspired his unit to conduct a boycott until this inequality was rectified. The enlisted men of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry (and the sister 55th) refused pay until Congress granted them full back pay at the white pay rate in August, 1864.

Shaw was promoted to major on March 31, 1863, and to colonel on April 17.

Marriage to Anne Kneeland Haggerty

On May 2, 1863, Shaw married Annie Kneeland Haggerty (1835–1907) in New York City. 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.

Letters

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 in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. The book, Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune, includes most of his letters and a brief biography of Shaw. They are quoted liberally by Ken Burns in his documentary miniseries The Civil War. Peter Burchard also used these letters as the basis for his book One Gallant Rush, upon which the movie Glory was based.

Death at Fort Wagner

The Storming of Fort Wagner

The 54th Regiment 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. As the unit hesitated in the face of fierce Confederate fire, Shaw led his men into battle by shouting, "Forward, Fifty-Fourth Forward!" He mounted a parapet and urged his men forward, but was shot through the heart and he died almost instantly. According to the color Sgt of the 54th Mass, he was shot and killed trying to lead the unit forward and fell on the outside of the fort. This act was portrayed in the movie Glory.

The victorious Confederates buried him in a mass grave with many of his men, an act they intended as an insult.[1] Following the battle, commanding Confederate General Johnson Hagood returned the bodies of the other Union officers who had died, but left Shaw's where it was. Hagood informed a captured Union surgeon that "had he been in command of white troops, I should have given him an honorable burial; as it is, I shall bury him in the common trench with the negroes that fell with him."[2] Although efforts were made to recover Shaw's body (which had been stripped and robbed prior to burial), Shaw's father publicly proclaimed that he was proud to know that his son was interred with his troops, befitting his role as a soldier and a crusader for social justice. In a letter to the regimental surgeon, Lincoln Stone, Frank Shaw wrote:

We would not have his body removed from where it lies surrounded by his brave and devoted soldiers....We can imagine no holier place than that in which he lies, among his brave and devoted followers, nor wish for him better company – what a body-guard he has![3]

After Robert Shaw's death, his young wife, Annie, moved to Europe to live with her sister. She never remarried.

Memorials

• In 1864, sculptor Edmonia Lewis created a bust of Shaw.
  
• The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Stanford White, 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.

See images on the Wikipedia site.

Shaw memorial at Mount Auburn Cemetery

• Some drawings and plaster mock-ups also exist.[1] There is an additional casting of the Shaw Memorial at the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire.
• A monument to Shaw's memory was erected by his family in the family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An annual commemoration is held there on his birthday.

Entry for Shaw in Harvard University's Memorial Hall

• Shaw was also memorialized in the transept of Harvard University's Memorial Hall, which is dedicated to the students who perished in the American Civil War. Although he did not graduate, he is credited with the class of 1860.
• The story of Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts was dramatized in the 1989 movie Glory, with Shaw portrayed by Matthew Broderick.
• Shaw, the 54th regiment, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens' memorial are the subject of Charles Ives's piece Three Places in New England.
• The New England poet Robert Lowell referenced both Shaw and the Shaw Memorial in the poem For The Union Dead.
• Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote a poem entitled "Robert Gould Shaw," in which he states: "Since thou and those who with thee died for right/Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!"
• The African-American poet Benjamin Griffith Brawley wrote a memorial poem entitled "My Hero" [2] in praise of Robert Gould Shaw.
• The neighborhood of Shaw in Washington, DC,which grew out of freed slave encampments, bears his name. It is widely considered the pre-Harlem center of African-American intellectual and cultural life.

See also

• United States Army portal

American Civil War portal

• Ventfort Hall

References

• Dhalle, Kathy, A Biography of Robert Gould Shaw
• Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry history

Notes

1. ^ Hero Tales from American History by Henry Cabot Lodge, p. 109

2. ^ Seeking The One Great Remedy, Lorien Foote, 119

3. ^ Foote, 120

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 0-87130-036-2
• Duncan, Russell, ed., Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, University of Georgia Press, 1992. ISBN 0-8203-1459-5
• Duncan, Russell, Where Death and Glory Meet : Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, University of Georgia Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8203-2135-4
• Robert Lowell, For the Union Dead, Collected Poems, Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 2003, ISBN 0-374-12617-8
• Burchard, Peter One Gallant Rush — Robert Gould Shaw & His Brave Black Regiment, St. Martin's Press, 1965. ISBN 0-312-03903-4
• Emilio, Luis F., A Brave Black Regiment: The History of the 54th Massachusetts, 1863-1865, Da Capo Press, 1894. ISBN 0-306-80623-1
• The Master by Colm Toibin relates Wilkie James's (younger brother of Henry and William James ) participation as an officer in the regiment.

Persondata

NAME Shaw, Robert Gould

ALTERNATIVE NAMES

SHORT DESCRIPTION Union United States Army officer

DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1837

PLACE OF BIRTH Boston, Massachusetts

DATE OF DEATH July 18, 1863

PLACE OF DEATH Morris Island, South Carolina

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gould_Shaw"

Categories: Union Army officers | United States Army officers | American military personnel killed in the American Civil War | People of Massachusetts in the American Civil War | Freedom Trail | People from Boston, Massachusetts | 19th-century people | People from New York City | People from Staten Island | American Unitarians | 1837 births | 1863 deaths

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The story of Col. Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Mass Vol. Infantry was dramatized in the 1989 movie, "Glory", starring Matthew Broderick as Col. Shaw.

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1/10/2015 Following the line from Capen Family (1500s-1600s) down to Calvin Coolidge on famouskin.com. This is where I got birth, death, marriage, spouse and most other info while drilling down then following back up and then down again to connect President Grant and President Calvin Coolidge, even though I previously found Grant. I had seen a connection with Coolidge. That would Only be on the people that I made and copied this note on, then took it further to Col Robert Gould Shaw. Also note that the movie "Glory" was based on the story of Robert Gould Shaw and his all black regiment. CTC:

Following up with story from Wikipedia
Robert Gould Shaw

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the American Civil War Colonel. For his first cousin, the Massachusetts landowner, see Robert Gould Shaw II. For other persons with a similar name, see Robert Shaw.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2013) 

Robert Gould Shaw

Robert Gould Shaw.jpg
Shaw in May 1863

Born October 10, 1837 Boston, Massachusetts

Died July 18, 1863 (aged 25) Morris Island, South Carolina

Allegiance

United States of America 

Service/branch United States Union Army

Years of service 1861–1863

Rank Union army col rank insignia.jpg Colonel

Unit New York 7th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment

2nd Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 

Commands held

54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry 

Battles/wars

American Civil War: Battle of Antietam Battle of Grimball's Landing Second Battle of Fort Wagner

Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837 – July 18, 1863) was an American military officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. As Colonel, he commanded the all-black 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, which entered the war in 1863. He was killed in the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina.

Contents [hide] 1 Early life and education 2 American Civil War 2.1 Death at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner

3 Personal life 3.1 Marriage 3.2 Letters

4 Legacy 4.1 Memorials

5 Gallery 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

Early life and education[edit]

Shaw was born in Boston to abolitionists Francis George and Sarah Blake (Sturgis) Shaw, well-known Unitarian philanthropists and intellectuals. The Shaws had the benefit of a large inheritance left by Shaw's merchant grandfather and namesake Robert Gould Shaw (1775–1853), and Shaw himself would have been a member by primogeniture of the Society of the Cincinnati had he survived his father.[1] Shaw had four sisters—Anna, Josephine, Susannah and Ellen[citation needed].

When Shaw was five the family moved to a large estate in West Roxbury, adjacent to Brook Farm. In his teens he traveled and studied for some years in Europe. Later[when?] the family moved to Staten Island, New York, settling among a community of literati and abolitionists, while Shaw attended the lower division of St. John's College (comparable to a modern high school).

From 1856 until 1859 he attended Harvard University, joining the Porcellian Club, but withdrew before graduating.[citation needed]

American Civil War[edit]

Letter from Robert Gould Shaw to his father from Camp Andrew, May 1861 Early in the American Civil War, Shaw joined the 7th New York Militia and in April 1861 marched with it to the defense of Washington, D.C. In May 1861 he joined the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry as a second lieutenant, with which he fought in the First battle of Winchester, the Battles of Cedar Mountain, and Antietam.[citation needed]

Shaw was approached by his father while in camp in late 1862 to take command of a new All-Black Regiment. At first he declined the offer, but after careful thought, he accepted the position. Shaw's letters clearly state that he was dubious about a free black unit succeeding, but the dedication of his men deeply impressed him, and he grew to respect them as fine soldiers. On learning that black soldiers would receive less pay than white ones, he inspired his unit to conduct a boycott until this inequality was rectified. The enlisted men of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry (and the sister 55th) refused pay until Congress granted them full back pay at the white pay rate in August 1863.[citation needed]

Shaw was promoted to major on March 31, 1863, and to colonel on April 17.[citation needed]

On June 11, 1863, Shaw wrote about war crimes committed against the citizens of Darien, Georgia when the civilian population of women and children were fired upon, forced from their homes, their possessions looted, and the town burned. Shaw noted in a letter, "On the way up, Montgomery threw several shells among the plantation buildings, in what seemed to me a very brutal way; for he didn’t know how many women and children there might be." Shaw was initially ordered by Colonel James Montgomery to perform the burning but he refused. Shaw noted in a letter, "The reasons he gave me for destroying Darien were, that the Southerners must be made to feel that this was a real war, and that they were to be swept away by the hand of God, like the Jews of old. In theory it may seem all right to some, but when it comes to being made the instrument of the Lord’s vengeance, I myself don’t like it." He goes on to say, "We are outlawed, and therefore not bound by the rules of regular warfare; but that makes it nonetheless revolting to wreak our vengeance on the innocent and defenceless."[2]

Ironically, the original Scottish founders of Darien had signed the first Petition against the Introduction of Slavery in the colony of Georgia.

Death at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner[edit]

The Storming of Fort Wagner The 54th Regiment 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. As the unit hesitated in the face of fierce Confederate fire, Shaw led his men into battle by shouting, "Forward, Fifty-Fourth, forward!" He mounted a parapet and urged his men forward, but was shot through the chest three times and died almost instantly. According to the Colors Sergeant of the 54th, he was shot and killed while trying to lead the unit forward and fell on the outside of the fort.[citation needed]

The victorious Confederates buried him in a mass grave with many of his men, an act they intended as an insult.[3] Following the battle, commanding Confederate General Johnson Hagood returned the bodies of the other Union officers who had died, but left Shaw's where it was. Hagood informed a captured Union surgeon that "had he been in command of white troops, I should have given him an honorable burial; as it is, I shall bury him in the common trench with the niggers that fell with him."[4] Although the gesture was intended as an insult, it came to be seen as an honor by Shaw's friends and family that he was buried with his soldiers.

Efforts had been made to recover Shaw's body (which had been stripped and robbed prior to burial). However, his father publicly proclaimed that he was proud to know that his son was interred with his troops, befitting his role as a soldier and a crusader for emancipation.[5] In a letter to the regimental surgeon, Lincoln Stone, Frank Shaw wrote:

We would not have his body removed from where it lies surrounded by his brave and devoted soldiers....We can imagine no holier place than that in which he lies, among his brave and devoted followers, nor wish for him better company. – what a body-guard he has![6]

His remains, along with those of his men, have since been swept out to sea by Atlantic hurricanes.[citation needed]

Annie Haggerty Shaw, a widow at the age of 28, never remarried. She lived with her family in New York, Lenox, Massachusetts and abroad, a revered figure and in later years an invalid. She died in 1907 and is buried at the cemetery of Church-on-the Hill in Lenox.[7]

Personal life[edit]

Marriage[edit]

On May 2, 1863, Shaw married Anna Kneeland "Annie" Haggerty (1835–1907) in New York City. They decided to marry before the unit left Boston despite their parents' misgivings. They spent their brief honeymoon at the Haggerty place, Ventfort, in Lenox, Massachusetts.[8][citation needed]

Letters[edit]

Shaw is well known for the over 200 letters he wrote to his family and friends during the Civil War.[citation needed] They are currently located in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. Digital facsimiles of this collection are publicly available. The book, Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune, includes most of his letters and a brief biography of Shaw. Peter Burchard also used these letters as the basis for his book One Gallant Rush, which is one of the books upon which the film Glory was based.[citation needed]

Legacy[edit]

Memorials[edit]

Memorial to Shaw and the 54th Regiment at the National Gallery of Art

Entry for Shaw in Harvard University's Memorial Hall
Shaw memorial at Mount Auburn CemeteryIn 1864, sculptor Edmonia Lewis created a bust of Shaw. The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Stanford White, 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.[1] Some drawings and plaster mock-ups also exist.[9] A patinated plaster cast of a slightly different design for the Shaw Memorial is now on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C..[10] A monument to Shaw's memory was erected by his family in the plot at Moravian Cemetery in Staten Island, New York. An annual commemoration is held there on his birthday. Although he did not graduate, Shaw's name is listed on the tablets of honor in Harvard University's Memorial Transept. Elizabeth Gaskell was inspired by the life of Robert Gould Shaw to compose a text and poem in his honor, "Robert Gould Shaw", which appeared in Macmillan's Magazine (1864) and is available on The Gaskell Web. The story of Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts was dramatized in the 1989 film Glory, with Shaw portrayed by Matthew Broderick. Shaw, the 54th regiment, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens' memorial are one of the subjects of Charles Ives's composition for orchestra, Three Places in New England. The New England poet Robert Lowell referenced both Shaw and the Shaw Memorial in the poem "For the Union Dead" which Lowell published in his 1964 book of the same name. African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote a poem entitled "Robert Gould Shaw", in which he states: "Since thou and those who with thee died for right/Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!"[11] African-American poet Benjamin Griffith Brawley wrote a memorial poem entitled "My Hero"[12] in praise of Robert Gould Shaw. The neighborhood of Shaw, Washington, D.C., which grew out of freed slave encampments, bears his name.

1.^ Jump up to: a b Boston City Council (1897). Exercises at the dedication of the monument to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the Fifty-fourth regiment of the Massachusetts infantry (May 31, 1897). Boston: Municipal Printing Office. 2.Jump up ^ Shaw, Robert Gould. "Written in Glory:Letters from the Soldiers and Officers of the 54th Massachusetts". Retrieved 29 April 2013. 3.Jump up ^ Henry Cabot Lodge. Hero Tales from American History. p. 109. 4.Jump up ^ Foote 2003, p. 119 5.Jump up ^ Buescher, John. "Robert Gould Shaw." Teachinghistory.org. Accessed 12 July 2011. 6.Jump up ^ Foote 2003, p. 120 7.Jump up ^ A History of Ventfort Hall, Cornelia Brooke Gilder and Joan R. Olshansky. Ventfort Hall Association, Lenox, 2002. pp.6–7. 8.Jump up ^ Hawthorne's Lenox, Cornelia Brooke Gilder with Julia Conklin Peters, Hawthorne's Lenox. The History Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1-59629-406-6 pp.71–76 9.Jump up ^ National Gallery of Art (2011). "Augustus Saint-Gaudens". Artist. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art. 10.Jump up ^ Augustus Saint-Gaudens (artist). "Shaw Memorial, 1900". The Collection. National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 2012-01-19. 11.Jump up ^ Paul Laurence Dunbar. "Robert Gould Shaw". Poems. 12.Jump up ^ Benjamin Griffith Brawley (1922). "My Hero". In James Weldon Johnson. The Book of American Negro Poetry, With an Essay on the Negro’s Creative Genius. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.

References[edit] Dhalle, Kathy, A Biography of Robert Gould Shaw Foote, Lorien (2003). Seeking the One Great Remedy: Francis George Shaw and Nineteenth-century Reform. Ohio University Press. ISBN 0-8214-1499-2. Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry history Simpson, Brooks (2013), The Civil War: The Third Year. The Library of America (2013)

Further reading[edit] 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 0-87130-036-2 Cox, Clinton (1991), Undying Glory: The Story of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, New York: Scholastic. Duncan, Russell, ed., Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, University of Georgia Press, 1992. ISBN 0-8203-1459-5 Duncan, Russell, Where Death and Glory Meet : Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, University of Georgia Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8203-2135-4 Robert Lowell, For the Union Dead, Collected Poems, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2003, ISBN 0-374-12617-8 Burchard, Peter One Gallant Rush—Robert Gould Shaw & His Brave Black Regiment, St. Martin's Press, 1965. ISBN 0-312-03903-4 Emilio, Luis F., A Brave Black Regiment: The History of the 54th Massachusetts, 1863–1865, Da Capo Press, 1894. ISBN 0-306-80623-1 The Master by Colm Toibin relates Wilkie James's (younger brother of Henry and William James) participation as an officer in the regiment.

External links[edit] Wikisource-logo.svg "Shaw, Robert Gould". New International Encyclopedia. 1905. Wikisource-logo.svg Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Robert Gould Shaw," a poem. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw: 54th Massachusetts Regiment on YouTube NHD Robert Gould Shaw – National History Day on YouTube Robert Gould Shaw Letters to his Family and Other Papers (MS Am 1910) at Houghton Library, Harvard University

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/19467/robert-gould-shaw
Civil War Union Army Officer. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, the only son Sarah Sturgis and Francis George Shaw, a wealthy merchant. He was educated in private academies in New York and Switzerland and by tutors in Europe. He returned to the United States to attend Harvard, but did not take a degree; instead he left school to work in his uncle's mercantile firm in New York. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he enlisted in the 7th New York as a Private. The unit served thirty days in defense of Washington, D.C. The following month, he joined the 2nd Massachusetts as a Second Lieutenant. He was offered a position on Brigadier General George Gordon's staff, which he accepted. He saw action in the Battles of Cedar Creek and Antietam, where he was wounded. He was promoted to Captain, and, in February 1863, his father, an ardent abolitionist, delivered to him Governor John Andrew's offer of command of the new Massachusetts 54th Regiment to be comprised of black troops. Shaw refused the command, unsure he was "equal to the responsibility of such a position." Eventually, however, he was persuaded to change his mind and accepted. Promoted to Colonel in April 1863, he oversaw the recruitment and training of the 54th at Camp Meigs. Though originally skeptical about the fighting abilities of the regiment, his men's efforts and dedication impressed him. He married Anna Haggerty on May 2, 1863, and on May 28, the 54th marched south. They arrived in Hilton Head, South Carolina, on June 3rd and entered service in Major General David Hunter's Department of the South. The 54th took part the attack on Darien, Georgia, but Shaw ordered his men to stand down when the town was ordered looted and burned against his objections. Shaw wrote the Governor and the Adjutant General about the incident. Following his letters, Hunter was relieved and replaced with Major General Quincy Gillmore. On June 30, Shaw learned that his troops were to be paid less than white soldiers of the same rank; displeased, he suggested his men boycott their pay until the situation was resolved. On July 16, the 54th saw action on James Island when it distinguished itself in assiting to repulse a Confederate attack. General Gillmore's planned attack on Morris Island's Battery Wagner went ahead on July 18, 1863. The honor of the lead position in the assault was given to the 54th. Shaw signaled the advance. They came under Confederate fire, and, pushing forward, they took heavy losses. Shaw led his men through the moat and up the wall. He reached the top and urged, "Forward 54th!" before being shot multiple times and killed. After a fierce battle, the Confederates succeeded in driving the Union troops out of Fort Wagner, leaving 246 Union dead. The action had proved the worth of Shaw's men, and had infuriated the Confederates who buried Shaw in a mass grave with his troops in a gesture of contempt. Shaw's father however, discouraged later efforts to recover his son's body, writing, "We would not have his body removed from where it lies surrounded by his brave and devoted soldiers." Shortly after the end of the Civil War, the Army disinterred all the dead from Morris Island and reburied them at the Beaufort National Cemetery in Beaufort, South Carolina, where their grave were marked "unknown." The Shaw family installed a bronze tablet in his memory on a cenotaph in their family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Boston. In 1897, the Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial, a bas-relief designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, was placed on Boston Common. The story of Shaw and the 54th were depicted in the 1989 film, "Glory," which was based on the Peter Burchard book, "One Gallant Rush." Shaw's collected letters were published in 1992 in "Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw."* Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Jan 4 2024, 11:39:27 UTC