Brief description of
Robert Gould Shaw (Robert Gould Shaw, October 10, 1837-July 18, 1863) was during the Civil War Participated in the Northern Army and served as an officer of the 54th Volunteer Infantry Regiment of Massachusetts, an all-black organization, with the final rank of colonel. Participated in the defeat of the Wagner Fort near Charlestown in South Carolina and died in the battle.
In the 1989 film "Glory" ("Glory", 1989) as the protagonist, played by Matthew Broderick (Matthew Broderick).
Early career
Robert \ was born in a well-known abolitionist family in Boston. The family has father Francis = George and mother Sarah = Black = Stakis = Xiao, and four sisters Anna, Josephine, Susanna and Allen. The family moved to a large farm in West Roxbury outside Boston when Robert was five years old. In his youth, he studied in Switzerland, Italy, Hanover, Norway and Sweden. Later his parents moved to Staten Island in New York and joined the abolitionist literary society. After returning to China, he studied at the St. Johns University Preparatory Course (later Fordham University), and entered Harvard University from 1856 to 1859 and joined the Ceramic Society, but he did not finish his studies before he graduated.
After the Civil War and the
Civil War began, Robert volunteered to join the army. In April 1861, he joined the Seventh Infantry Regiment of New York and went to defend Washington for 30 days. Later, in May, it was changed to the second lieutenant of the Massachusetts Infantry Regiment.
In the second half of 1862, Robert's father proposed the idea of a purely black army and asked him to take the command. Robert declined at first, but after careful consideration he finally accepted the proposal and became the commander of the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts. It is clear from his letters that he has doubts about whether the black army can be successfully formed, but he is still moved and respected by the sacrifices of these soldiers. When they found that the salary of the black soldiers was less than that of the white soldiers, they launched a rejection action. The 54th Regiment's sister group, the 55th Regiment of Massachusetts, also participated in the boycott until 1864, when Congress passed the black and white flat rate bill.
Robert was promoted to major on March 31, 1863, and was promoted to colonel on April 17 of the same year.
Marriage
On May 2, 1862, Robert married Anna = Neilante = Hagerty in New York City. Due to their parents' concerns, the two married before the troops left Boston.
Letters
Robert is best known for his more than 200 letters to his parents and friends. These letters are now kept in the Hughton Library of Harvard University. These letters are now electronic and open to the general public.
http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu//oasis/deliver/deepLink?_collection=oasis&uniqueId=hou00649
writer Peter Burchard wrote the novel "One Gallant Rush" accordingly , And will become one of the bases of the movie "Glorious Battle" in the future.
Fort Wagner Fortress
Robert followed the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts, and two other white infantry brigades participated in the Fort Wagner Fortress in Charlestown, South Carolina. When the troops were afraid of the artillery fire of the Southern Army, Robert rose up and shouted, "Go forward! 54th Regiment, go forward!", inspiring morale, leading the soldiers, but was hit by a stray bullet in the heart and died. The black officer of the 54th regiment described that he was defeated outside the fortress while leading the brigade to attack a fortress.
In order to humiliate him after the battle, the commander of the Southern Army, Johnson Hagood, buried Robert's body with the black soldiers in a mass grave instead of being sent back to the Northern Army position like other officers. He once said to the captured Northern Army officer, "If he were an officer leading the whites, I could have buried him heavily; so he deserves to be buried with these niggers." But Robert's father said this after hearing the news. The method of death is glorious and just. He wrote in a letter to the regiment’s medic, Lincoln = Stone (Lincoln Stone): “We should not remove him from the place where these loyal and fearless soldiers lie down; ... as far as I can imagine. And, there is no more sacred cemetery than here. Because he is among these loyal and sacrificed warriors, we can't think of people who are more suitable for burial with him.-What a perfect guardian! "
his wife has not remarried, they moved to Europe after the war with its sister lived. Although the contents of
the 54th Regiment's film and the historical
film "Glorious Battle" are based on historical facts, there are some similarities and differences. Here are a few points:
1. The 54th Regiment of Massachusetts is indeed one of the first formal black troops in the Northern Army. (The earliest unofficially established black unit was the First Volunteer Infantry Regiment in South Carolina.)
2. The 54th Regiment in the movie is described as mostly composed of fugitive black slaves, but in fact most of the people are free blacks in the north. .
3. Except for Colonel Xiao, the 54 regiments in the movie did not appear under their real names, and the name of his adjutant Capote = Forbes was also a combination of the last names and first names of Robert's other friends.
Incidentally, the adjutant of the 54th regiment in history is Lt. Colonel Edwin Hallowell (Lt. Colonel Edwin Hallowell). Wagner was seriously injured during the fortified battle but survived. Before the 54th regiment was disbanded in 1865, he took over as the head of the regiment, and finally retired as a brigadier general.
4. In the movie, Robert quickly took over the 54 regiment, but he actually spent a few days thinking about it. And he was not promoted to colonel as soon as he took over as regiment commander. He maintained the rank of major in the first few months.
5. Before the fortified battle of Wagner Fortress, Robert had searched for the standard bearer, but in fact it was George = Kirk = General George Crockett Strong (General George Crockett Strong). And the black officer he found was William Harvey Carney, who was good at protecting the flag after the war and became the first black recipient of the Medal of Honor in American history.
6. The movie does not mention that Robert is married.
7. At the end of the movie, it is stated that the 54th regiment lost more than half of the battle at Wagner Fortress, but the official record is that there were 272 casualties, accounting for 40% of the regiment, of which 116 were dead. But if you add up to the number of captured people, it's more than half.
8. In fact, when attacking the fortress, the right side of the 54th regiment is the sea. The reason why it becomes the left side is because of the light angle when shooting.
9. In the movie, the clamor for rejection of salary was spontaneous by the soldiers, but in fact it was Robert himself who asked the soldiers to reject it.
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