Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: July 23, 1861

Yesterday was the saddest day this country has ever experienced. In the morning the papers said that we had gained a great victory at Bull's Run, taken three batteries and were pushing on to Manassas Junction. We found afterwards that these accounts were exaggerated, and that the action at Bull's Run was merely the beginning of a battle, which appeared to be favorable to the Federal forces. About half past three, Anna and Mother had gone to drive and I was sitting in Mother's room, when Nellie came up crying, and said, “Our whole army has been cut to pieces and entirely routed.” “Which army?” I asked. I immediately thought that we had been driven from Virginia and the three divisions of our army completely destroyed. I went down to ask Anna, but she could tell nothing excepting that our men had run from the enemy and lost everything. In a few moments Father, George and Mother (who had met them and walked back with them) came in and we all sat on the piazza in a most unhappy state of mind. The report was that a panic had taken possession of our army as they were attacking the batteries at Manassas Junction and they had all run, with no regard to anything else but saving their own lives. Our loss was said to be about three thousand and that of the enemy very severe also. Father had brought down a letter from Rob, saying they (Patterson's Column) were about to march somewhere from Charlestown, but we have heard this morning that Patterson was expected to make a junction with McDowell and would have saved the day had he done so. As we sat all together on the piazza feeling very miserable, George didn't enliven us much by saying, “The next thing they will do will be to march on Washington, take possession of it, and then Jeff Davis will issue his conditions from the Capitol and offer us peace.” After talking it over we all felt better and prepared to hear that it wasn't quite so bad as the reports said.

In the evening Mr. Appleton (a neighbor) came in to George's and told us that Patterson's forces were supposed to be engaged at Manassas. We didn't tell Mother, although we all knew it, for it would have caused her useless anxiety. Lou Schuyler (who is staying here with her sister) heard of the report on the boat but didn't speak of it. In the evening Sam Curtis and I went to Mrs. Oakey's and Mr. Oakey demonstrated in a very scientific manner that this couldn't possibly be true. In spite of his cheering remarks, we all felt very badly and merely hoped we might hear better news in the morning. Our hopes proved true, although even today the news is so humiliating that we feel as if we couldn't trust our own men again. They ran with no one pursuing! The enemy didn't even know such a direful rout had occurred. In their reports they say only that they have gained the battle, but with fearful loss on both sides. It was evidently the battle on which everything depended for them. Their four best generals, Beauregard, Johnston, Davis and Lee, were there with ninety thousand men, while our force was only twenty-five thousand. I can conceive what must be the feelings of the men under Patterson; they might have turned the fortune of the battle and were doing nothing! Poor fellows! Our men ran as far as Fairfax Court House and the Rebels took possession of the territory as we left it. McClellan is called from Western Virginia and we shall have to retake by slow degrees what we have lost in one day. This morning our loss was said to be only five hundred, but what are we to believe?

This afternoon all the most humiliating circumstances of our defeat proved to be false. Our men behaved with the greatest courage and bravery, charging and carrying the batteries and fighting with as much intrepidity as the most veteran troops could display, until the force of the enemy became overpowering by the junction of Johnston with Beauregard. Then, and not until then, they retreated in good order. Mr. Russell, of the London Times, is said to have said that nowhere in the Crimean War had he seen men make such splendid charges. This morning I and the Oakeys went down to the sewing meeting and worked hard until three o'clock, when we came home and heard the joyful tidings that our men were not cowards. The false reports were from the exaggerated statements of civilians who had witnessed the battle and been very much frightened themselves, and all the agony of yesterday was occasioned by the readiness of newspaper reporters to transmit any stirring news to their employers.

One little incident showed the difference of feeling between today and yesterday. A few days ago Mother bought Frank a uniform and George had promised to buy him a knapsack yesterday, but when he came down from town he said to Frank: “My dear little boy, you must forgive me this time for when I got to New York, I heard such terrible news that I had no heart to buy your knapsack.” This afternoon Frank came over in great glee, with knapsack and fez.

I know a great many men in the army who are: My brother, and first cousin, H. S. Russell, in Gordon's Regiment (2d Mass. Vol.), Capt. Curtis, Lieut. Motley, Lieut. Morse, Capt. Tucker, Lieut. Bangs, Lieut. Robson in the same Regiment; Joe and Ned Curtis, the former belonging to the Ninth Regiment, N. Y., the latter, a surgeon in the Georgetown Hospital. My cousin, Harry Sturgis, in Raymond Lee's Mass. Regiment. My uncle, William Greene, Colonel of the 14th Mass.; Dr. Elliott and his three sons of the Highland Regiment; Capt. Lowell of the U. S. A., and Theodore Winthrop, who died for his country at Great Bethel, June 10th, 1861. Also, Rufus Delafield, a surgeon U. S. A. Twenty brave men, — nineteen living and one dead. — O. Wendell Holmes, Caspar Crowninshield.

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 10-13

Captain Robert Gould Shaw to Francis G. Shaw, March 30, 1863

March 30.

The mustering officer who was here to-day is a Virginian, and has always thought it was a great joke to try to make soldiers of “Niggers,” but he tells me now that he has never mustered in so fine a set of men, though about twenty thousand had passed through his hands since September. The sceptics need only to come out here to be converted.

SOURCE: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Editor, Harvard Memorial Biographies, Volume 2, p. 204

Captain Robert Gould Shaw to Francis G. Shaw, February 16, 1863

Boston, February 16, 1863.

I arrived here yesterday morning; things are going on very well and I think there is no doubt of our ultimate success.

We go into camp at Readville. We have a great deal of work before us. The pay is thirteen dollars per month, the same as white soldiers receive.

SOURCE: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Editor, Harvard Memorial Biographies, Volume 2, p. 203

Captain Robert Gould Shaw to Annie Kneeland Haggerty Shaw, February 4, 1863 (Excerpt)

February 4.

Father has just left here. He came down yesterday, and brought me an offer from Governor Andrew of the colonelcy of his new black regiment . The Governor considers it a most important command, and I could not help feeling, from the tone of his letter, that he did me a great honor in offering it to me. My father will tell you some of the reasons why I thought I ought not to accept it. If I had taken it, it would only have been from a sense of duty, for it would have been anything but an agreeable task.

SOURCE: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Editor, Harvard Memorial Biographies, Volume 2, p. 202

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

Robert Gould Shaw to Francis G. Shaw, September 21, 1862

maryland Heights, September 21, 1862.

Dear Father, — . . . We left Frederick on the 14th instant, marched that day and the next to Boonsborough, passing through a gap in the mountain where Burnside had had a fight the day before. On the 16th our corps, then commanded by General Mansfield, took up a position in rear of Sumner's, and lay there all day. The Massachusetts cavalry was very near us. I went over and spent the evening with them, and had a long talk with Forbes about home and friends there We lay on his blanket before the fire until nearly ten o'clock, and then I left him, little realizing what a day the next was to be, though a battle was expected; and I thought, as I rode off, that perhaps we shouldn't see each other again. Fortunately, we have both got through safely so far. At about eleven, P. M., Mansfield's corps was moved two or three miles to the right. At one in the morning of the 17th we rested in a wheat-field. Our pickets were firing all night, and at daylight we were waked up by the artillery; we were moved forward immediately, and went into action in about fifteen minutes. The Second Massachusetts was on the right of Gordon's brigade, and the Third Wisconsin next; the latter was in a very exposed position, and lost as many as two hundred killed and wounded in a short time. We were posted in a little orchard, and Colonel Andrews got a cross-fire on that part of the enemy's line, which, as we soon discovered, did a great deal of execution, and saved the Third Wisconsin from being completely used up. It was the prettiest thing we have ever done, and our loss was small at that time; in half an hour the brigade advanced through a corn-field in front, which until then had been occupied by the enemy; it was full of their dead and wounded, and one of our sergeants took a regimental color there, belonging to the Eleventh Mississippi. Beyond the corn-field was a large open field, and such a mass of dead and wounded men, mostly Rebels, as were lying there, I never saw before; it was a terrible sight, and our men had to be very careful to avoid treading on them; many were mangled and torn to pieces by artillery, but most of them had been wounded by musketry fire. We halted right among them, and the men did everything they could for their comfort, giving them water from their canteens, and trying to place them in easy positions. There are so many young boys and old men among the Rebels, that it seems hardly possible that they can have come of their own accord to fight us; and it makes you pity them all the more, as they lie moaning on the field.

The Second Massachusetts came to close quarters, i. e. within musket range, twice during the day; but we had several men wounded by shell, which were flying about loosely all day. It was the greatest fight of the war, and I wish I could give you a satisfactory account of everything I saw. . . .

At last, night came on, and, with the exception of an occasional shot from the outposts, all was quiet. The crickets chirped, and the frogs croaked, just as if nothing unusual had happened all day long; and presently the stars came out bright, and we lay down among the dead, and slept soundly until daylight. There were twenty dead bodies within a rod of me. The next day, much to our surprise, all was quiet, and the burying and hospital parties worked hard, caring for the dead and wounded

I never felt before the excitement which makes a man want to rush into the fight, but I did that day. Every battle makes me wish more and more that the war was over. It seems almost as if nothing could justify a battle like that of the 17th, and the horrors inseparable from it.

SOURCE: Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Editor, Harvard Memorial Biographies, Volume 2, p. 199-200