Governor John A. Andrew to Captain Robert Gould Shaw, January 30, 1863

commonwealth Of Massachusetts, Executive Department,

Boston, January 30, 1863.

Captain Robert G. Shaw,

Second Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

Captain, — I am about to organize in Massachusetts a colored regiment as part of the volunteer quota of this State, — the commissioned officers to be white men. I have to-day written to your father, expressing to him my sense of the importance of this undertaking, and requesting him to forward to you this letter, in which I offer to you the commission of Colonel over it. The lieutenant-colonelcy I have offered to Captain Hallowell of the Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment. It is important to the organization of this regiment that I should receive your reply to this offer at the earliest day consistent with your ability to arrive at a deliberate conclusion on the subject.

Respectfully and very truly yours,

john A. Andrew,

Governor of Massachusetts.

SOURCE: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Editor, Harvard Memorial Biographies, Volume 2, p. 201