_The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment.--Col. Shaw.--March to the
Island.--Preparation.--Speeches.--The Attack.--Storm of Shot, Shell,
and Canister.--Heroism of Officers and Men.--Death of Col. Shaw.--The
Color-sergeant.--The Retreat.--“Buried with his Niggers.”--Comments._
On the 16th of July, the Fifty-fourth Regiment (colored), Col. R. G.
Shaw, was attacked by the enemy, on James Island, in which a fight of
two hours’ duration took place, the Rebels largely outnumbering the
Union forces. The Fifty-fourth, however, drove the enemy before them in
confusion. The loss to our men was fourteen killed and eighteen wounded.
During the same day, Col. Shaw received orders from Gen. Gillmore to
evacuate the island. Preparations began at dusk. The night was dark and
stormy, and made the movement both difficult and dangerous. The march
was from James Island to Cole Island, across marshes, streams, and
dikes, and part of the way upon narrow foot-bridges, along which it was
necessary to proceed in single-file. The whole force reached Cole
Island the next morning, July 17, and rested during the day on the
beach opposite the south end of Folly Island. About ten o’clock in the
evening, the colonel of the Fifty-fourth received orders directing him
to report, with his command, to Gen. George C. Strong, at Morris Island,
to whose brigade the regiment was transferred.
From eleven o’clock of Friday evening until four o’clock of Saturday,
they were being put on the transport, “The Gen. Hunter,” in a boat which
took about fifty at a time. There they breakfasted on the same fare, and
had no other food before entering into the assault on Fort Wagner in the
evening.
“The Gen. Hunter” left Cole Island for Folly Island at six, a.m.; and
the troops landed at Pawnee Lauding about nine and a half, a.m., and
thence marched to the point opposite Morris Island, reaching there about
two o’clock in the afternoon. They were transported in a steamer across
the inlet, and at four, p.m., began their march for Fort Wagner. They
reached Brigadier-Gen. Strong’s quarters, about midway on the island,
about six or six and a half o’clock, where they halted for five minutes.
Gen. Strong expressed a great desire to give them food and stimulants;
but it was too late, as they had to lead the charge. They had been
without tents during the pelting rains of Thursday and Friday nights.
Gen. Strong had been impressed with the high character of the regiment
and its officers; and he wished to assign them the post where the most
severe work was to be done and the highest honor was to be won.
The march across Folly and Morris Islands was over a sandy road, and was
very wearisome. The regiment went through the centre of the island, and
not along the beach, where the marching was easier.
When they had come within six hundred yards of Fort Wagner, they formed
in line of battle, the colonel heading the first, and the major the
second battalion. This was within musket-shot of the enemy. There
was little firing from the enemy; a solid shot falling between the
battalions, and another falling to the right, but no musketry. At this
point, the regiment, together with the next supporting regiment, the
Sixth Connecticut, Ninth Maine, and others, remained half an hour. The
regiment was addressed by Gen. Strong and by Col. Shaw. Then, at seven
and a half or seven and three-quarters o’clock, the order for the charge
was given. The regiment advanced at quick time, changed to double-quick
when at some distance on.
The intervening distance between the place where the line was formed and
the fort was run over in a few minutes.
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 Col. Shaw, springing to the
front and waving his sword, shouted, “Forward, my brave boys!” and with
another cheer and a shout they rushed through the ditch, gained the
parapet on the right, and were soon engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict
with the enemy. Col. 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. His body was found,
with twenty of his men lying dead around him; two lying on his own body.
The Fifty-fourth did well and nobly; only the fall of Col. Shaw
prevented them from entering the fort. They moved up as gallantly as any
troops could, and, with their enthusiasm, they deserved a better fate.
Sergeant-major Lewis H. Douglass, son of Frederick Douglass, the
celebrated orator, sprang upon the parapet close behind Col. Shaw, and
cried out, “Come, boys, come, let’s fight for God and Governor Andrew.”
This brave young man was the last to leave the parapet. Before the
regiment reached the parapet, the color-sergeant was wounded; and,
while in the act of falling, the colors were seized by Sergt. William
H. Carney, who bore them up, and mounted the parapet, where he, too,
received three severe wounds. But, on orders being given to retire, the
color-bearer, though almost disabled, still held the emblem of liberty
in the air, and followed his regiment by the aid of his comrades, and
succeeded in reaching the hospital, where he fell exhausted and almost
lifeless on the floor, saying, “The old flag never touched the ground,
boys.” Capt. Lewis F. Emilio, the junior captain,--all of his superiors
having been killed or wounded,--took command, and brought the regiment
into camp. In this battle, the total loss in officers and men, killed
and wounded, was two hundred and sixty-one.
When John Brown was led out of the Charlestown jail, on his way
to execution, he paused a moment, it will be remembered, in the
passage-way, and, taking a little colored child in his arms, kissed
and blessed it. The dying blessing of the martyr will descend from
generation to generation; and a whole race will cherish for ages the
memory of that simple caress, which, degrading as it seemed to the
slaveholders around him, was as sublime and as touching a lesson, and
as sure to do its work in the world’s history, as that of Him who said,
“Suffer little children to come unto me.”
When inquiry was made at Fort Wagner, under flag of truce, for the body
of Col. Shaw of the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth, the answer was, “We have
buried him with his niggers!” It is the custom of savages to outrage the
dead, and it was only natural that the natives of South Carolina should
attempt to heap insult upon the remains of the brave young soldier;
but that wide grave on Morris Island will be to a whole race a holy
sepulchre. No more fitting burial-place, no grander obsequies, could
have been given to him who cried, as he led that splendid charge, “On,
my brave boys!” than to give to him and to them one common grave. As
they clustered around him in the fight: as they rallied always to the
clear ring of his loved voice; as they would have laid down their lives,
each and all of them, to save his; as they honored and reverenced him,
and lavished on him all the strong affections of a warm-hearted and
impulsive people: so when the fight was over, and he was found with the
faithful dead piled up like a bulwark around him, the poor savages did
the only one fitting thing to be done when they buried them together.
Neither death nor the grave has divided the young martyr and hero from
the race for which he died; and a whole people will remember in the
coming centuries, when its new part is to be played in the world’s
history, that “he was buried with his niggers!”
They buried him with his niggers!”
Together they fought and died.
There was room for them all where they laid him
(The grave was deep and wide),
For his beauty and youth and valor,
Their patience and love and pain;
And at the last day together
They shall all be found again.
They buried him with his niggers!”
Earth holds no prouder grave:
There is not a mausoleum
In the world beyond the wave,
That a nobler tale has hallowed,
Or a purer glory crowned,
Than the nameless trench where they buried
The brave so faithful found.
“They buried him with his niggers!”
A wide grave should it be.
They buried more in that shallow trench
Than human eye could see.
Ay: all the shames and sorrows
Of more than a hundred years
Lie under the weight of that Southern soil
Despite those cruel sneers.
“They buried him with his niggers!”
But the glorious souls set free
Are leading the van of the army
That fights for liberty.
Brothers in death, in glory
The same palm-branches bear;
And the crown is as bright o’er the sable brows
As over the golden hair.
Only those who knew Col. Shaw can understand how fitting it seems, when
the purpose of outrage is put aside and forgotten, that he should have
been laid in a common grave with his black soldiers. The relations
between colored troops and their officers--if these are good for any
thing, and fit for their places--must need be, from the circumstances
of the case, very close and peculiar. They were especially so with Col.
Shaw and his regiment. His was one of those natures which attract first
through the affections. Most gentle tempered, genial as a warm winter’s
sun, sympathetic, full of kindliness, unselfish, unobtrusive, and gifted
with a manly beauty and a noble bearing, he was sure to win the love,
in a very marked degree, of men of a race peculiarly susceptible to
influence from such traits of character as these. First, they loved
him with a devotion which could hardly exist anywhere else than in the
peculiar relation he held to them as commander of the first regiment
of free colored men permitted to fling out a military banner in this
country,--a banner that, so raised, meant to them so much! But, then,
came closer ties; they found that this young man, with education and
habits that would naturally lead him to choose a life of ease, with
wealth at his command, with peculiarly happy social relations (one
most tender one just formed), accepted the position offered him in
consideration of his soldierly as well as moral fitness, because he
recognized a solemn duty to the black man; because he was ready to throw
down all that he had, all that he was, all that this world could give
him, for the negro race! Beneath that gentle and courtly bearing which
so won upon the colored people of Boston when the Fifty-fourth was in
camp, beneath that kindly but unswerving discipline of the commanding
officer, beneath that stern but always cool and cheerful courage of the
leader in the fight, was a clear and deep conviction of a duty to the
blacks. He hoped to lead them, as one of the roads to social equality,
to fight their way to true freedom; and herein he saw his path of duty.
Of the battle two days before that in which he fell, and in which his
regiment, by their bravery, won the right to lead the attack on Fort
Wagner, he said, “I wanted my men to fight by the side of whites, and
they have done it;” thinking of others, not of himself; thinking of that
great struggle for equality in which the race had now a chance to gain
a step forward, and to which he was ready to devote his life. Could it
have been for him to choose his last resting-place, he would, no doubt,
have said, “Bury me with my men if I earn that distinction.”
Buried with a band of brothers
Who for him would fain have died;
Buried with the gallant fellows
Who fell fighting by his side;
Buried with the men God gave him,
Those whom he was sent to save;
Buried with the martyred heroes,
He has found an honored grave.
Buried where his dust so precious
Makes the soil a hallowed spot;
Buried where, by Christian patriot,
He shall never be forgot;
Buried in the ground accursed,
Which man’s fettered feet have trod;
Buried where his voice still speaketh,
Appealing for the slave to God;
Fare thee well, thou noble warrior,
Who in youthful beauty went
On a high and holy mission,
By the God of battles sent.
Chosen of Him, “elect and precious,”
Well didst thou fulfil thy part:
When thy country “counts her jewels,”
She shall wear thee on her heart.
One who was present, speaking of the incidents before the battle, says
of Col. Shaw,--
“The last day with us, or, I may say, the ending of it, as we lay flat
on the ground before the assault, his manner was more unbending than
I had ever noticed before in the presence of his men. He sat on the
ground, and was talking to the men very familiarly and kindly. He told
them how the eyes of thousands would look upon the night’s work they
were about to enter on; and he said, ‘Now, boys, I want you to be men!’
He would walk along the line, and speak words of cheer to his men.
“We could see that he was a man who had counted the cost of the
undertaking before him; for his words were spoken ominously, his lips
were compressed, and now and then there was visible a slight twitching
of the corners of the month, like one bent on accomplishing or dying.
One poor fellow, struck no doubt by the colonel’s determined bearing,
exclaimed, as he was passing him, ‘Colonel, I will stay by you till I
die;’ and he kept his word: he has never been seen since. For one so
young, Col. Shaw showed a well-trained mind, and an ability of governing
men not possessed by many older or more experienced men. In him the
regiment has lost one of its best and most devoted friends. Col. Shaw
was only about twenty-seven years of age, and was married a few weeks
before he joined the army of the South.”
The following correspondence between the father of Col. Shaw and Gen.
Gillmore needs no comment, but is characteristic of the family:--
“_Brig-Gen. Gillmore, commanding Department of the South._
“_Sir_,--I take the liberty to address you, because I am informed that
efforts are to be made to recover the body of my son, Col. Shaw, of the
Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, which was buried at Fort Wagner. My
object in writing is to say that such efforts are not authorized by me,
or any of my family, and that they are not approved by us. We hold that
a soldier’s most appropriate burial-place is on the field where he has
fallen. I shall, therefore, be much obliged, general, if, in case the
matter is brought to your cognizance, you will forbid the desecration of
my son’s grave, and prevent the disturbance of his remains or of those
buried with him. With most earnest wishes for your success, I am, sir,
with respect and esteem,
“Your most obedient servant,
“_FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW._
“New York, Aug. 24,1863.
“_Headquarters Department of the South,_ Morris Island, S.C., Sept. 5,
1863.
“_F. G. Shaw, Esq., Clifton, Staten Island, N.Y._
_Sir!_ I have just received your letter, expressing the disapprobation
of yourself and family of any effort to recover the body of your son,
the late Col. Shaw, of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Volunteers, buried
in Fort Wagner; and requesting me to forbid the desecration of his grave
or disturbance of his remains.
“Had it been possible to obtain the body of Col. Shaw immediately after
the battle in which he lost his life, I should have sent it to his
friends, in deference to a sentiment which I know to be widely prevalent
among the friends of those who fall in battle, although the practice is
one to which my own judgment has never yielded assent.
“The views expressed in your letter are so congenial to the feelings of
an officer, as to command not only my cordial sympathy, but my respect
and admiration. Surely no resting-place for your son could be found
more fitting than the scene where his courage and devotion were so
conspicuously displayed.
“I beg to avail myself of this opportunity to express my deep sympathy
for yourself and family in their great bereavement, and to assure you
that on no authority less than your own shall your son’s remains be
disturbed.
“Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
“_Q. A. GILLMORE_,
“_Brigadier-General commanding_.”
The following address of the Military Governor of South Carolina to the
people of color in the Department of the South pays a fit tribute to the
memory of the lamented Col. Shaw:--
_“Beaufort, S.C., July 27, 1863._
“_To the Colored Soldiers and Freedmen in this Department._
“It is fitting that you should pay a last tribute of respect to the
memory of the late Col. Robert Gould Shaw, Colonel of the Fifty-fourth
Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers. He commanded the first regiment of
colored soldiers from a free State ever mustered into the United-States
service.
“He fell at the head of his regiment, while leading a storming-party
against a rebel stronghold. You should cherish in your inmost hearts the
memory of one who did not hesitate to sacrifice all the attractions of
a high social position, wealth and home, and his own noble life, for
the sake of humanity; another martyr to your cause that death has added;
still another hope for your race. The truths and principles for which he
fought and died still live, and will be vindicated. On the spot where he
fell, by the ditch into which his mangled and bleeding body was thrown,
on the soil of South Carolina, I trust that you will honor yourselves
and his glorious memory by appropriating the first proceeds of your
labor as free men toward erecting an enduring monument to the hero,
soldier, martyr, Robert Gould Shaw.
“_R. SAXTON,_
“_Brigadier-General and Military Governor._”
We are glad to be able to say, that the noble proposition of Gen. Saxton
met with success.
Col. Shaw was singularly fortunate in being surrounded by officers, like
himself, young, brave, and enthusiastic. Major Hallowed, the next in
command, was wounded while urging forward his men. Adjutant G. W. James,
Capts. S. Willard, J. W. M. Appleton, E. L.
Jones, G. Pope, W. H. Simpkins, C. J. Russell, and C. E. Tucker, and
Lieuts. O. E. Smith, W. H. Homan, R. H. Jewett, and J. A. Pratt,--were
severely wounded. A large proportion of the non-commissioned officers
fell in the engagement or were badly wounded. Among these was Sergt. R.
J. Simmons, a young man of more than ordinary ability, who had learned
the science of war in the British army. The writer enlisted him in the
city of New York, and introduced him to Francis George Shaw, Esq., who
remarked at the time that Simmons would make “a valuable soldier’.”
Col. Shaw, also, had a high opinion of him. He died of his wounds in the
enemy’s hospital at Charleston, from bad treatment. The heroic act
of Sergt. Carney, to which we have already alluded, called forth
the following correspondence, which needs no comments, from the
Adjutant-General’s Report of the State of Massachusetts for the year
1865:--
“_New York, 596 Broadway, Boom 10,_ _Dec. 13, 1865._.
“_To Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, Boston._
“_Sir_,--Will you be pleased to give me the name of some officer of
the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts colored regiment, so that I can obtain
information concerning the famous assault that regiment made on Fort
Wagner? I wish to learn the facts relating to the wounded color-bearer,
who, though wounded severely, bore the flag heroically while crawling
from the parapet to his retreating or repulsed regiment. It would make a
splendid subject for a. statuette.
“Respectfully,
“_T. H. BARTLETT,_
“_Sculptor_.”
I immediately forwarded the letter to Col. Hallowell, with a request
that he would furnish me with all the facts relating to the incident
which he possessed. The following is Col. Hallowell’s reply:--
“_Boston, Dec. 18, 1865._
“_William Schouler, Adjutant-General._
“_Dear Sir_,--Your letter of the 15th to my brother, enclosing one from
Mr. Bartlett, and requesting me to furnish a statement of facts relating
to Sergt. Carney, of the Fifty-fourth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers,
is received. The following statement is, to the best of my knowledge and
belief, correct; but you must remember it is made up principally from
hearsay, no one person having seen every incident, except the sergeant.
During the assault upon Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, the sergeant
carrying the national colors of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts
Volunteers fell; but, before the colors reached the ground, Sergt.
Carney, of Company C, grasped them, and bore them to the parapet of the
fort; where he received wounds in both legs, in the breast, and in the
right arm: he, however, refused to give up his trust. When the regiment
retired from the fort, Sergt. Carney, by the aid of his comrades,
succeeded in reaching the hospital, still holding on to the flag, where
he fell, exhausted and almost lifeless, on the floor, saying, ‘The old
flag never touched the ground, boys.’ At the time the above happened, I
was not in a condition to verify the truth of the statements made to me;
but they come to me from very reliable parties, and from very different
people; so, after a close cross-examination of the sergeant (who was
known as a truthful man), I have concluded that the statement I have
made is substantially correct.
“Sergt. Carney was an African, of, I should think, full blood; of very
limited education, but very intelligent; bright face, lips and nose
(comparatively) finely cut, head rather round, skin very dark, height
about five feet eight inches, not very athletic or muscular; had lived
in New Bedford, Mass., for many years. Hoping this will be of service to
Mr. Bartlett, I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
“Your obedient servant,
“_E. N. HALLOWELL_,
“_Late Colonel, &c._”