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1,104 pages of letters written by, and papers related to Colonel Robert G. Shaw, commander of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of the first official African-American units in the United States during the Civil War, copied from material held by the Houghton Library.
The most remarkable item in the collection is the officer’s sword carried by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, 54 th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment – the first Northern regiment composed of free black volunteers. One hundred fifty-four years ago, Shaw carried the weapon during the failed assault on Fort Wagner, Morris Island, South Carolina.
Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837 – July 18, 1863) was an American officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Born into a abolitionist family from the Boston upper class, he accepted command of the first all-black regiment (the 54th Massachusetts) in the Northeast.
The bulk of the collection consists of letters by Robert Gould Shaw to his family, including 98 letters to his mother, 31 to his father, and some to his sisters and brothers-in-law. Most were written during the Civil War, though some to his parents are from his pre-war days when he traveled in Europe and was a student at Harvard.
Colonel Shaw was the Commander of the Massachusetts 54th Infantry regiment, the first official African American regiments to be formed in the United States. Colonel Shaw was killed at the battle for Fort Wagner, near Charleston South Carolina on July 18, 1963. Creator: Shaw, Robert Gould, 1837-1863 Date: April 27, 1863 Format: Letters ...
The Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment Memorial, a masterpiece by the acclaimed sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, pays tribute to one of the first African American regiments to serve in the Civil War.
With intimate connections to the struggle for equal rights during and after the Civil War, African-Americans might point to the Shaw Memorial’s glaring omissions and question why the history of the 54th’s pay crisis has been forgotten.
