James Island, July [15].
. . . You don't know what a fortunate day this has been for
me, and for us all, excepting some poor fellows who were killed and wounded.
Two hundred of my men on picket this morning were attacked by five regiments of
infantry, some cavalry, and a battery of artillery. The Tenth Connecticut were
on their left, and say they should have had a bad time if the Fifty-fourth men
had not stood so well. The other regiments lost, in all, three men wounded. We
lost seven killed, twenty-one wounded, six missing, supposed killed, and nine
unaccounted for.
General Terry sent me word he was highly gratified with the
behavior of my men, and the officers and privates of other regiments praise us
very much. All this is very gratifying to us personally, and a fine thing for
the colored troops.
I have just come in from the front with my regiment, where we
were sent as soon as the Rebels retired. This shows that the events of the
morning did not destroy the General's confidence in us.
SOURCE: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Editor, Harvard
Memorial Biographies, Volume 2, p. 205-6 which misdated this letter as
July 16 1863; Russell Duncan, Editor, Blue-Eyed
Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, p.
385-6 is found the complete letter with the date of July 15, 1863.
No comments:
Post a Comment