Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Major Henry L. Higginson, September 14, 1863

Centreville, Virginia, Sept. 14, 1863.

My Dear Henry, — I was glad to see your fist on an envelope some weeks ago. I ought to have written you sooner, but it is so infernally quiet here now that to get together material for a letter is a labour.

I am glad, old fellow, to hear that your wound is at length convalescent. It would have been a bore to carry a ball in it all your life, with a chance of its giving you a twinge any minute. . . .

You ask me no end of questions about the army. As if we take interest in the army. We are an independent, fancy department, whereof I command the cavalry, and we take no interest in wars or rumours of wars. I have seen men who profess to be going to and from the “front,” — but where is the “front”? We are in the “front” whenever General Halleck has an officer's application for leave to endorse. Stanton is so fond of us, however, that he keeps us on the safe “front” —  the “front” nearest Washington, whereby I am debarred from the rightful command of a brigade of five regiments in Gregg's division, which Gregg offered me, and which he applied for me to take, my own regiment being one of the five. But Stanton is very fond of us, and keeps us where it is safe.¹

. . . I hope you will be kept at home until next January, for between now and then I mean to be married (if President Lincoln and General Lee do not interfere), and I shall be glad to have your countenance, so do not let your wound heal itself too rapidly. What do you hear from Frank? Give him my love, when you write. Tell him I gave him myself as a sample to be avoided, and I now give him Rob Shaw as a pattern to be followed. I am glad Frank remained in that regiment. It is historic. The Second Massachusetts Cavalry and some others are more mythic. . . .

About coloured regiments, I feel thus, — I am very glad at any time to take hold of them, if I can do more than any other available man in any place. I will not offer myself or apply for a place looking to immediate or probable promotion. If one goes into the black business he must go to stay. It will not end by the war. It will open a career, or at any rate give experience which will, inevitably almost, consign a man to ten or twenty years' hard labour in Government employ, it seems to me. Since Shaw's death I have had a personal feeling in the matter to see black troops made a success; a success which would justify the use (or sacrifice) made of them at Wagner.

Do you know the President is almost ready to exchange your brother Jim, and leave Cabot (it might have been Frank just as well) in prison at Charleston, after all the promises that have been made by the officers of the Administration? This is disgraceful beyond endurance almost.²

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¹ The Government and Major-General Heintzelman, commanding the Department of Washington, fully appreciated the advantage of having so efficient a cavalry commander and well disciplined a force in the neighbourhood. But they had to resist other competitors, for, besides the desires of General Gregg to have Lowell and his regiment in the Army of the Potomac, another general repeatedly importuned the War Department for them. Major-General N. P. Banks (Department of the Gulf), in his report to General Halleck, March 27, 1863, speaking of his need of cavalry, says: —

“I feel especially the loss of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, raised expressly for my expedition; for, besides its strength, I relied upon Colonel Lowell to infuse the necessary vigour into the whole cavalry service.”

Again, April 18, 1863, General Banks sends the following message to Major-General Halleck: —

“I beg leave, at the risk of being considered importunate, to repeat my earnest request that more cavalry be sent to this department.  . . . If you will send me the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, raised expressly for my command, with their arms and equipments, I will mount them here from the horses captured on this expedition. Its commander, Colonel Lowell, is personally nearly as important to us as his regiment."

As late as September, General Banks was still pleading for the cavalry. General Halleck answered: “In regard to Colonel Lowell's regiment, I need simply to mention the fact that it is the only one we have for scouts and pickets in front of Washington.”

² The officers here spoken of are Captain James J. Higginson, of the First Massachusetts Cavalry (who was captured in the fight at Aldie, where his brother, the Major, was wounded), and Captain Francis Lee Higginson, his younger brother, and Captain Cabot J. Russel, both of the Fifty-Fourth. As has been said, Captain Russel's family were not sure of his death. When the news of the raising of coloured troops was heard in the South, it had been threatened that captured privates should be sold to slavery and the officers treated as felons. This threat was not carried out, but difficulties arose about exchanges; and in this matter, and that of their payment, the course of the Administration and of Congress was for a long time timid and discreditable.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 302-4, 443-4

Francis George Shaw to Abraham Lincoln, July 31, 1863

New York 31 July 1863.

To His Excellency

Abraham Lincoln,

President of the United States.

Sir:

My only son, Colonel Robert G. Shaw, of the Fifty fourth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, (colored troops) was killed on the parapet of Fort Wagner, in South Carolina, & now lies buried in its ditch, among his brave & devoted followers.

I feel that I have the right, in his name, to entreat you that immediate measures be taken to extend the protection of the United States over his surviving officers & men, some of whom are now prisoners, & over all others belonging to the colored Regiments in the Service, when they fall into the hands of the enemy. And this, not only as an act of humanity, but as required by justice & sound policy.

Our colored soldiers have proved their valor & devotion in the field; they deserve that their rights & the responsibilities of the Government towards them shall be proclaimed to the world & shall be maintained against all enemies.

If our son's services & death shall contribute in any degree towards securing to our colored troops that equal justice which is the holy right of every loyal defender of our beloved Country, we shall esteem our great loss a blessing.

I am, Sir,

with great esteem & respect,

Frans Geo. Shaw

SOURCE: This letter can be found among The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress.

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw, Sunday July 26, 1863

Centreville, Sunday, July 26.

Cousin John has just sent me the report about dear Rob. It does not seem to me possible this should be true about Rob. Was not he preeminently what “Every man in arms should wish to be?”¹

The manliness and patriotism and high courage of such a soldier never die with him; they live in his comrades, — it should be the same with the gentleness and thoughtfulness which made him so loveable a son and brother and friend. As you once wrote, he never let the sun go down upon an unkind or thoughtless word.²

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¹ From Wordsworth's “Character of the Happy Warrior,” a poem that Lowell in his youth had greatly cared for, and which was strangely descriptive of his later career.

² The story, in brief, of the gallant but unsuccessful assault upon Battery Wagner in Charleston harbour is this: The Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Regiment (coloured), after some six weeks’ service in Georgia and South Carolina, where it won respect and praise, even from original scoffers, had, at Colonel Shaw's request, been transferred to General Strong's brigade. The colonel asked “that they might fight alongside of white soldiers, and show to somebody else than their officers what stuff they were made of.” Therefore, at six o'clock on the evening of Saturday, July 18, the regiment reported at General Strong's headquarters on Morris Island, after forty-eight hours of marching, or waiting, without shelter in rain and thunder, for boat transportation, or stewing in tropical heat, with little to eat or drink. They were worn and weary. General Strong told Colonel Shaw that he believed in his regiment, and wished to assign them, in an immediate assault on the enemy's strong works, the post where the most severe work was to be done and the highest honour won. “They were at once marched to within 600 yards of Fort Wagner and formed in line of battle, the Colonel heading the first, and the Major the second battalion.

“At this point, the regiment, together with the next supporting regiment, the Sixth Maine, the Ninth Connecticut, and others, remained half an hour. Then, at half-past seven, the order for the charge was given. The regiment advanced at quick time, changing to double-quick at some distance on. When about one hundred yards from the fort, the Rebel musketry opened with such terrible effect that for an instant the first battalion hesitated; but only for an instant, for Colonel Shaw, springing to the front and waving his sword, shouted, ‘Forward, Fifty-Fourth!’ and with another cheer and a shout they rushed through the ditch, and gained the parapet on the right. Colonel Shaw was one of the first to scale the walls. He stood erect to urge forward his men, and while shouting for them to press on was shot dead, and fell into the fort.”

The attempt to take the fort was a desperate one, and failed. The Fifty-Fourth did nobly, and suffered terribly. Little quarter was given. In that furious fight in the last twilight, lit only by gun-flashes, it is said that the firing from our own ships was, for a time, disastrous to the regiment.

Emerson, in his poem called "Voluntaries," commemorates the sacrifice of Robert Shaw and his men : —

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man,

When Duty whispers low, Thou must,

The youth replies, I can.

       *   *   *   *   *   *   *

     Best befriended of the God

He who, in evil times,

Warned by an inward voice,

Heeds not the darkness and the dread,

Biding by his rule and choice,

Feeling only the fiery thread

Leading over heroic ground,

Walled with mortal terror round,

To the aim which him allures,

And the sweet Heaven his deed secures.

Peril around, all else appalling,

Cannon in front and leaden rain,

Him Duty through the clarion calling

To the van called not in vain.

     Stainless soldier on the walls,

Knowing this, — and knows no more, —

Whoever rights, whoever falls,

Justice conquers evermore,

Justice after as before, —

And he who battles on her side,

God, though he were ten times slain,

Crowns him victor glorified,

Victor over death and pain.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 285-6, 431-3

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Anna Jackson Lowell, July 26, 1863

Camp Near Centreville, July 26, '63.

You will write me, I know, all you learn about the Fifty-Fourth. I see that General Beauregard believes Bob Shaw was killed in a fight on the 18th, — I hope and trust he is mistaken. He will be a great loss to his regiment and to the service, — and you know what a loss he will be to his family and friends. He was to me one of the most attractive men I ever knew, — he had such a single and loyal and kindly heart: I don't believe he ever did an unkind or thoughtless act without trying to make up for it afterwards — Effie says he never did (I mean she has said so, of course I have not heard from her since this news) — in that, he was like Jimmy. It cannot be so hard for such a man to die — it is not so hard for his friends to lose him.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 284

James Russell Lowell to Sarah Blake Sturgis Shaw, August 28, 1863

Elmwood, Aug. 28, 1863.

My dear Sarah, — Not a day has passed since I heard the dreadful news¹ that I have not thought tenderly of you and yours; but I could not make up my mind to write you, and the longer I put it off the harder it grew. I have tried several times, and broken down. I knew you would be receiving all manner of consolation, and, as I know that consolation is worse than nothing, I would not add mine. There is nothing for such a blow as that but to bow the head and bear it. We may think of many things that in some measure make up for such a loss, but we can think of nothing that will give us back what we have lost. The best is that, so far as he was concerned, all was noble and of the highest example.

I have been writing something about Robert, and if, after keeping a little while, it should turn out to be a poem, I shall print it; but not unless I think it some way worthy of what I feel, however far the best verse falls short of noble living and dying such as his.

I would rather have my name known and blest, as his will be, through all the hovels of an outcast race, than blaring from all the trumpets of repute. . . .

If the consolation of the best is wearisome, it is yet something to have the sympathy of every one, as I know you and Frank have. God bless and sustain you!

Your always loving

J. R. Lowell.

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¹ Of the death of her only son, the gallant Colonel Shaw, one of the most heroic of the youths who offered their lives in the Civil War to their country and to freedom.

SOURCE: Charles Eliot Norton, Editor, Letters of James Russell Lowell, Volume 1, p. 366-7

Colonel Robert Gould Shaw to Annie K. Haggerty Shaw, July 18, 1863

Morris Island, July 18.

We are in General Strong's brigade. We came up here last night, and were out again all night in a very heavy rain. Fort Wagner is being very heavily bombarded. We are not far from it. We hear nothing but praise of the Fifty-fourth on all hands. Montgomery is under Stevenson. I wish I were. He is a good officer. Strong I like too.

SOURCE: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Editor, Harvard Memorial Biographies, Volume 2, p. 207