A Glorious Fate: The Life and Legacy of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, with Kevin Levin (episode 363)

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Transcript

Jake:
[0:03] Welcome to Hub History, where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.

Civil War Legend Begins

Jake:
[0:13] This is episode 363, A Glorious Fate, with Kevin Levin. Hi, I’m Jake. In just a few minutes, we’re going to take a deep dive into Civil War history with historian Kevin M. Levin. We’ll be discussing his new biography, A Glorious Fate, The Life and Legacy of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.

Jake:
[0:38] Most of us probably know Shaw primarily as the tragic hero portrayed by Matthew Broderick in the film Glory, or maybe from the iconic monument that stands opposite the Massachusetts Statehouse on Beacon Street. But as Levin reveals, the real man behind the bronze was far more complex. A directionless young Boston Brahmin who initially rejected his elite family’s radical abolitionist views, struggled to find his purpose, and ultimately wrestled with the brutal realities of battlefield command, and the deep-seated racial tensions of his era. Together, we trace Shaw’s full story, from his privileged upbringing and early military service in the Shenandoah Valley, to his fateful leadership of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first black regiment to be raised in the North, through his death during the bloody assault on Fort Wagner in July 1863. Levin breaks down how Shaw’s post-war legend was shaped by his mother, Sarah, how his family embraced his burial in a mass grave with his fallen soldiers as an enduring symbol of racial equality, and how public memory of the 54th evolved through books, monuments, and eventually the film Glory.

Jake:
[1:53] But before we talk about Robert Gould Shaw and the Mass 54th, I just want to pause and remind all our listeners that we’re celebrating a decade of hub history with our first ever live episode on November 13th, 2026.

Jake:
[2:09] On the evening of Friday, November 13th, we’re going to gather at Old North Church on Salem Street in the North End for a conversation with Laurie Rogers Stokes and another special guest. Have you ever wondered how Massachusetts went from the stern Puritanism of Increase Mather to the hopeful liberalism of Mike Dukakis, from the most conservative colony to the most progressive state? This event will focus on the Puritan legacy that still shapes Boston in New England today. Despite their stern and unbending reputation, 17th-century Puritans saw themselves as progressive reformers, committed to continuous learning and adaptation, and the vast woodlands of New England would be the garden where the seeds of a new culture could grow, unimpeded by the religious and governmental constraints of Europe. We’ll examine how the Puritans created our modern values of universal literacy and education, direct participation in government, and, eventually, separation of church and state. Then we’ll discuss how subsequent generations of Reformers expanded the scope of these rights beyond white male Congregationalists to all Americans.

Jake:
[3:21] The event will be free, but registration is required, by going to hubhistory.com slash live and filling out a quick form. Again, please come out for our first-ever live podcast episode on November 13th, 2026. More information and registration are available at hubhistory.com slash live.

Jake:
[3:45] I’m joined now by Kevin M. Levin, whose latest book is A Glorious Fate, The Life and Legacy of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. Kevin’s a historian, an educator, and a blogger. His three previous books about the history and memory of the Civil War era are Remembering the Battle of the Crater, War as Murder, Searching for Black Confederates, the Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth, and interpreting the Civil War at museums and historic sites. He’s an honorary fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society and author of the popular blog, Civil War Memory, which he started back in 2005. Kevin Levin, welcome to the show.

Kevin M Levin:
[4:29] Great to be here.

Jake:
[4:30] So I’ve asked you here today to discuss your new book out this month, A Glorious Fate, The Life and Legacy of Colonel Robert Gouldshaw. And probably like many of our listeners, maybe even some of your readers, before the book, I basically only knew Robert Gouldshaw as Matthew Broderick in the movie Glory and from the monument that’s right across the street from the State House. Before we talk about the actual life of Robert Gouldshaw, let’s talk about the legend a little bit. When did he become this larger-than-life figure? How soon after his death did the sort of myth-making around Shaw start?

Kevin M Levin:
[5:07] Almost immediately. His mother, Sarah, was devastated, as you can imagine. This was their only son. They had hoped that he would fully embrace their abolitionist beliefs, the cause for which they gave so much of their lives to, their public lives to. And, you know, that didn’t quite materialize. And I think in Death for Sarah, it was an opportunity to mold a memory of Robert around this narrative of a martyr to abolitionism. And she did a very good job of it. And by the end of the 1890s, as many Bostonians know, you’ve got the most or one of the most significant, pieces of Civil War art in a public space commemorating, honoring Robert Gould Shaw and specifically the 54th Massachusetts, the first black regiment raised in the North in 1863.

Jake:
[6:07] Do you feel like the legend that us later adopters of Shaw know from the movie,

Jake:
[6:13] is it a similar myth to what Sarah Shaw was trying to create?

Glory and Mythmaking

Kevin M Levin:
[6:17] The movie Glory, which came out in 1989, was based on a book that was published in 1965 by a man named Peter Bouchard, right smack dab in the middle of the civil rights era. And that book certainly painted Shaw as a hero of abolitionism, a hero of African-Americans. And I think between the book and even the movie, to a certain extent, there’s a certain sort of subtlety to Shaw. I think you get a kind of evolution in his beliefs about the black men under his command. Everything sort of comes to a head with his death on July 18th of 1863, leading his men in battle. So that’s still the highlight reel, if you will, when it comes to Shaw. But I think for his mother, it was a much pure, much more straightforward narrative that she was interested in promoting. So I think with time, that was enough to sort of complicate things a little bit. But even saying that, I would still suggest that both Bouchard’s book in 65 and the movie still present Shaw as this martyr to abolitionism.

Jake:
[7:30] Now, I might have a circle back around to the myth after we talk a little bit about how the real Shaw measures up to that myth, but let’s talk about the man Robert Gould Shaw.

Shaw Family Origins

Jake:
[7:40] He’s born in 1837 into this very wealthy family. Who were the Boston Shaws at the time of his birth? Where did their fortune come from?

Kevin M Levin:
[7:49] Yeah. So like many of these elite Boston families, these Brahmin families, their fortune is made off of shipping, right? Overseas trade.

Kevin M Levin:
[7:57] And this goes back to the period before the American Revolution, the earliest shahs come over in the 17th century. The revolution, of course, throws a wrench into all of it, like it did for many families in terms of a downturn in the economy. The revolution certainly disrupted that, but the family managed to pick up the pieces in the decades afterwards. Frank Shaw, Robert’s father, interestingly enough, goes into the family business, but decides to retire at a relatively early age. He finds in his wife, Sarah, someone that made the perfect couple. They were an ideal couple because they were both very interested in reform movements. I mean, they ran the gamut in terms, the spectrum, in terms of the various causes they were championing. So they found common ground, a really sort of a marriage built on mutual respect and love. And that kind of filtered down into their children, including Robert. They’re unusual when it comes to these sort of elite Boston families. Now, I should say we do associate the Shaws with Boston, I think rightly so. But when Shaw was just a couple of years old, the family moved first to what is now West Roxbury and a brief stint nearby Brook Farm. And then down to Staten Island because Sarah had some serious issues with her eyesight. And so she went for treatment to a doctor on Staten Island. And the family essentially remained there from that point forward.

Reformers at Home

Jake:
[9:25] Let’s talk a little bit about the parents then and how they got involved with these various reform movements. It seems like Transcendentalism was their way into abolition.

Kevin M Levin:
[9:38] Transcendentalism opened up the opportunity to see themselves as activists.

Kevin M Levin:
[9:44] Within a number of causes because, of course, the whole idea is that society can be perfected and we have a responsibility to engage in that work. And so temperance, abolitionism, prison reform, they don’t live at Brook Farm, which is one of many sort of utopian experiments, but Frank certainly funded much of that operation. They lived nearby, I guess, not wanting to give up the family wealth and their life of privilege, but they certainly spent time at Brook Farm. But they’re also involved in more pure intellectual pursuits. Sarah especially becomes involved in Margaret Fuller’s sort of salon discussions about women, the relationship between the sexes. I’m reading Megan Marshall’s brilliant biography of Margaret Fuller right now, just a fascinating individual. And so they are involved in all of this. You can imagine, you know, Robert Goldshaw and his sisters sitting around this table at night and having these discussions at a very early age about many of these intellectual subjects and causes. They expect their children to take up the cause at a fairly early age. That creates a bit of a challenge for Robert, who very early on rejects these calls that he should become a reformer, that he should embrace these causes.

Childhood Pressure

Jake:
[11:13] Well, how old would Rob have been when his parents got really enmeshed in the abolition movement?

Kevin M Levin:
[11:20] Yeah, so very early on. He’s born in 1837. His earliest memories would have been watching his parents engage in some of these pursuits. Once they get to West Roxbury and the Brook Farm experiment, we have some accounts of him traveling with his father on horseback through the community, even on Staten Island, they lived among a bunch of reformers in this community. He would have remembered any number of high-profile individuals coming through the house for conversation. He actually does go off to school at a fairly early age, so he’s not ensconced in this throughout his childhood. But certainly when you read his correspondence with his mother, she’s communicating clearly, she’s communicating what’s going on back in the household and the latest news about what they’re involved in.

Jake:
[12:14] What does it mean for a rich white family in Boston or Staten Island to be an abolitionist that early in the movement? Were they signing petitions, going to lectures, were they marching in the streets? What action is somebody asked to take?

Kevin M Levin:
[12:27] Yeah, a lot of this is organizing publishing, certainly for Frank Shaw, and sort of jumping ahead to the Civil War. But it’s an example of what Frank Shaw is involved in, and that is funding some of the relief efforts in different parts of the South, especially, South Carolina and the Seacoast Islands along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, supporting newly freed slave people with all kinds of clothing, anything they need. A lot of it is correspondence. A lot of it is intellectual in nature. It’s public speaking. It’s also the publication. It’s Not anything as high profile as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin or anything Douglas is publishing, but along those lines, that’s the work that they’re doing for the most part. But I should say, I mean, that’s a really good question, because abolitionism, I think, takes different forms. There are very few abolitionists, white abolitionists, who are directly involved in African-American communities. The Shaws live on Beacon Hill before they moved to Staten Island. A few blocks away, of course, at that time on the north slope of Beacon Hill would have been one of the, more high profile, one of the more vibrant African-American communities, of course, centered around Smith Court, the African-American meeting house, the first public school for African-American children.

Jake:
[13:51] That’s where David Walker’s publishing his appeal in 1828 or whatever it is.

Kevin M Levin:
[13:56] William Coopernell lives, of course, in that area, right in Smith Court. There’s no evidence that they ever interacted with African-Americans directly. And then, of course, whether or not you believe that African Americans should be given equal rights as opposed to just ending slavery as a system, that, of course, divides abolitionists as well. The Shaws, they’re on the more extreme side. They do reject the idea of William Lloyd Garrison that you can’t engage in politics. They do believe, and once the Republican Party comes into being in the 1850s, they do engage in politics. They do think that the Constitution can be reformed. But of course, all of these things are highly debated among abolitionists before the war.

Boarding School Years

Jake:
[14:47] Well, as you mentioned, Rob’s going to move around a lot. So he starts out on Beacon Hill. He ends up in Staten Island. He attends school in Staten Island. I think Queens, Switzerland, eventually Hanover. If he’s moving around all these boarding schools and his parents are back and forth between Staten Island and Boston, you must have had letters to read and to draw from for your research. What can you tell us from that about how his relationship with his parents evolved as he in sort of his adolescence and how his outlook on the world was changing. Did he grow up wanting to be a full-thirded reformer like those parents?

Kevin M Levin:
[15:22] Absolutely not. One of the earliest letters, and this is, I think, while he’s still at what’s now St. John’s. There was a school that he attended as a young boy. And at one point, he writes, I don’t want to be a reformer. He just explicitly rejects this in his letters. As you mentioned, he spends a lot of time away from his family. And that makes it difficult, obviously, for his parents to continue to sort of pressure him or work on him to become this, you know, this reformer that they expect him to be. He becomes very independent. He becomes, I think, very spoiled to a certain extent. He expects certain things. He expects to live a certain lifestyle. He’s not shy about demanding the funds, especially when he’s in Hanover, Germany in the 1850s.

Jake:
[16:13] Well, I have to say, Rob Shaw moves to Hanover at the age of 17 to study with private tutors to get ready for Harvard. And I happened to have been an exchange student to Germany when I was 16 years old. And my friends and I would take the train into Hanover on the weekends, and there was a lot more of a liqueur called Apfelkorn and the good German beer than there was anything to do with private tutors on those weekends. How did Rob like Hanover?

Kevin M Levin:
[16:36] Oh, he clearly loved it. He loved music. He loved attending the opera, the theater. He also has an amusing letter where he writes home, he describes being able to watch the young girls in their window changing their clothes. And it’s a very curious letter.

Kevin M Levin:
[16:56] It’s not entirely clear what he’s trying to communicate to his mother. Maybe it’s just that he’s looking and not touching something along those lines. I don’t know. But he clearly enjoyed it. He also did attempt to stay on top of the growing rift back in the United States over slavery and the expansion of slavery. And he certainly read American newspapers in his correspondence with his parents. It’s also being discussed. The problem of course, is he’s coming of age at a time when the nation is coming apart at the seams and he’s overseas. So he’s not directly impacted by that, right? And I tend to think that, not that it’s a missed opportunity, we all have our own experiences, but certainly compared to other young men coming of age who are actually still in the States.

Kevin M Levin:
[17:47] Probably didn’t seem as immediate to him as perhaps it would be to a young Virginian coming of age or, again, anyone else watching their country fall apart. It’s clear that he understands the seriousness of it. It’s just that you don’t get a sense at this point that that is going to translate into any specific action. Now, of course, that’s asking too much of him. Again, he’s a young man. And no one knows there’s going to be a civil war.

Kevin M Levin:
[18:17] I mean, he contemplates at this point in his life. And even when he comes back and, you know, becomes a student at Harvard, he talks about going west to become a farmer. He talks about at one point becoming a soldier, joining the army. I think in large part, he’s just directionless at this point in time. He doesn’t really know what to do with his life. He doesn’t, there’s nothing that centers him, certainly not what centers his parents.

Directionless in Harvard

Jake:
[18:44] So he does, after a few years of a very good time in Europe, it seems, come back home to the States. He goes to the family home in Staten Island in 1856 to work on trying to get himself into Harvard, the things that he didn’t quite get done in Hanover. Sounds like he got in. So what was his application process like, or what was campus life, I guess, at Harvard like for Robert Shaw?

Kevin M Levin:
[19:07] I think he continued to enjoy himself more than anything else. I mean, he clearly enjoyed the social dimension of Harvard. He played his violin. He did enjoy playing music. And so he did bring his violin with him. He enjoyed spending time with his sister when she was in school nearby. Spending time with family members still in the area, extended family members. He doesn’t really talk much about school itself. He doesn’t really talk much about his classes. Again, he clearly, he’s not much of a student. He’s not really much of an intellectual. And, you know, that comes out very clearly in his letters to the point that I think he wants his parents to understand that. His father attended Harvard. This was what was expected of someone of his social class, especially a family that hailed from Boston. And so I think he bided his time for the most part. And he didn’t even finish, of course. He asks for a leave of absence. He moves to New York City and joins the larger family firm, if you will. And he is, I guess, on track to becoming a businessman. And, you know, almost immediately he hates it. So that clearly is not going to work out. It just so happens that in this moment, we’re talking about the eve of a presidential election in 1860. And as we all know, everything’s about to change.

War Breaks Out

Jake:
[20:34] Yeah, so I guess the 1860 election and then the secession crisis that immediately follows it between the point when South Carolina declares that they’ve seceded and when the war breaks out at Fort Sumter, Rob enlists in the 7th New York Regiment. Tell us more about what it meant to serve in a state militia at that time and what made this particular regiment unique among the New York militias.

Kevin M Levin:
[20:58] Local militias like the 7th New York, they have a history going back a few decades. But for the most part, militia units…

Kevin M Levin:
[21:05] Including the 7th, are more just a formality. The men muster at different times to have a good time, their social events. It’s not very serious. This is a regiment that’s known as the Silk Stocking Regiment, and that’s because this is a militia unit made up of elite men. And so that, of course, will include Robert. And so he’s training with this regiment from January of 61 right through the actual firing on Fort Sumter in the middle of April of 1861. There’s a lot of excitement, of course, at this point in time. I think Shaw is finally coming into his own. He is following what’s happening. He does have some sharp things to say about secession, although he’s never deeply ideological about the war, I would say. But he understands certainly what’s at stake. And when the regiment marches out down Broadway, they’re going to spend a month in Washington, D.C., of course, because the Capitol is almost completely unprotected. And so there’s the government scrambling to bring these regiments down to protect them. They don’t know whether or not Confederate forces, Virginia forces are organizing to attack and perhaps take control of it. And so they rush down and he spends a month in Washington, just a couple of weeks. And that’s his first taste of really being away from home with a regiment. And, you know, he’s a private, so he’s just one of roughly six or seven hundred men.

Jake:
[22:35] It’s not a safe duty that he’s reporting for. Did they see any action at that point?

Kevin M Levin:
[22:40] They don’t see any action really at all. They do, of course, confront some of the first enslaved people that most, if not all of these men, for the first time will experience. I mean, right from the beginning, I think they’re literally getting a glimpse, of what will quickly transform the war from a war that is narrowly being fought to preserve the Union. And of course, as the result of the movements of all of these enslaved people, that’s going to gradually erode the institution of slavery and eventually get us to emancipation.

Jake:
[23:17] Yeah. Historian Mark Peterson has referred to especially colonial Boston as a slave society where the enslavement mostly happened elsewhere. So it was a place where you could participate in the slave economy without having to confront slaves in your day-to-day life.

Kevin M Levin:
[23:31] And they did. I mean, obviously, you know, for your listeners, your viewers, the New England region, especially the area immediately outside of Boston, relies heavily on the work of enslaved people, either the cotton that’s being manufactured or the industrial output that’s being sent down to the south to help, further plantation production.

Annie Haggerty Appears

Jake:
[23:56] So, when Rob Shaw leaves home to journey with his unit to Washington, his parents aren’t home. He’s leaving home basically alone. His parents are off in Havana on vacation, but he does leave somebody behind. He leaves behind Annie Nyland Haggerty. Tell us a little bit about how they met, how well they had become acquainted by the time of April of 61. Who was Annie?

Kevin M Levin:
[24:18] Yeah, she comes from a family of, I guess, what you would call new wealth. The family lived out in Lenox, Massachusetts. She somehow becomes friends with one of Rob’s sisters, and they meet in New York City. It’s his sister that introduces them. They begin to correspond. I think it’s sort of a serious friendship more than anything else. But they will see one another on occasion. And of course, the two will eventually be married in May of 1863. But it’s anyone’s guess as to how this is going to play out, especially given, of course, that this young man’s going off to war now, right? There’s a lot of unknowns when that happens.

Jake:
[24:54] Had he had any other significant romances up to that point? Was there anything to write home about before?

Kevin M Levin:
[25:00] So beyond the peeping Tom incident in Hanover.

Jake:
[25:02] Beyond that.

Kevin M Levin:
[25:03] Yeah, he writes, he does talk about one young woman that he did fall in love with, but he doesn’t talk about anything that sort of blossoms into a relationship. And so this is the first.

Officer in Uniform

Jake:
[25:15] By the time his 30 days in Washington are over, Robert Shaw has decided that he wants to see the war through to the end. He wants to seek a commission, but he has to choose whether to enlist in a volunteer regiment or the regular army. So what does he decide to do?

Kevin M Levin:
[25:31] It’s a no-brainer. If he’s going to serve, someone from his social class, the way he sees the world, he sees the world structured as a natural hierarchy. And, you know, there are certain people that are meant to lead and the masses who are meant to follow. And so, of course, he is going to seek out a commission as an officer. And he gets it in the 2nd Massachusetts, which is really the perfect regiment for Shaw. The 20th Massachusetts, another well-known…

Jake:
[26:00] That’s the Harvard Regiment.

Kevin M Levin:
[26:01] Yeah, commonly known as the Harvard Regiment because it’s junior officer classes, for the most part, either students who have left Harvard or graduates. The same can be said— But the second is also, right? Oh, same. Yeah, that’s the point here. Whatever you can say about the second, the 20th, you can say about the second. He’s found the perfect regiment. They train, interestingly enough. the regiment organizes at Brook Farm, which of course is interesting because Shaw would have had some early memories of the family’s involvement in Brook Farm back in the 1840s. And now, of course, they’re using that ground to train for war. There is, if your visitors live in the area or visit Brook Farm, there is a marker.

Jake:
[26:42] Yeah, West Roxbury, Baker Street, go all the way past the poorly marked ruins of Brook Farm. And at the entrance to the cemetery, there’s one little marker.

Kevin M Levin:
[26:50] And I’ll tell you, this is really where I think he shines. Shaw really enjoyed, I don’t say that lightly, he really took to life in this regiment. And what’s impressive about all of this is he knows nothing about leadership in the military. None of these men do. And so they have to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. They have to learn drill. They have to learn all of the responsibilities of the paperwork, the training and discipline of the men. And Shaw becomes a very notorious, strict disciplinarian to the extent that newspapers are reporting on this and his parents and especially his sister are giving him a hard time about it. And he doesn’t want to hear any of it. That’s his job. That’s his role in all of this. That is how a company, he’s at the level of a company, 100 men, that’s how you build an army, right, from the ground up. And I think he understood that, and he really took to it. He’s in the right place.

The Shenandoah Valley

Jake:
[27:51] Eventually, the 2nd Massachusetts completes their basic training. They learn to be soldiers and officers, and they’re going to be sent to the seat of war down along the border states. They’re going to start out on their way to Western Maryland as their first assignment.

Kevin M Levin:
[28:06] Their first assignment is in what’s called the Lower Shenandoah Valley, the northern part of Virginia, around Harper’s Ferry and Martinsburg. That’s where they’ll spend the next few months.

Jake:
[28:20] I thought it was interesting that they are sent to the Shenandoah Valley by way of Hagerstown and Williamsport. I think last summer or summer before I stopped in Williamsport, it’s where Interstate 70 and 81 interchange, right between the two towns. And 81 goes straight up the Shenandoah Valley all the way from Roanoke to Harrisburg, PA. And in quick succession, it crosses the Potomac River, the C&O Canal, Interstate 70, the B&O Railroad tracks. So having just driven through there not that long ago, I could immediately see, oh, this is why this is strategic.

Kevin M Levin:
[28:55] Yeah, strategic and also just the scenery. I mean, a lot of these men, including Shaw, they write extensively about the landscapes. They’re really quite taken by it all. And part of that is in contrast to the horror they experience when it comes to slavery itself. I mean, not so much for Shaw, but for many of the men in the regiment. There is a very sharp contrast between the beauty of the landscape and what they see is a kind of deterioration of the broader society that they explain because of slavery. That’s the difference between the productivity they see in the North and especially New England. New England, of course, is exceptional. The hub of the universe, of course, Boston and the South.

Seeing the South Clearly

Jake:
[29:39] Well, how did that exposure to slavery in the Shenandoah Valley change Robert Gould Shaw’s attitudes about Southern whites? Obviously, it’s his first exposure to enslaved Black people in the South, but that has to change how he views the white people that are there also.

Kevin M Levin:
[29:56] I think it clarifies what he already believed about white Southerners in terms of the privilege they have, their laziness. He comments on that, that they’re not the ones who actually are doing the work. But I think it must have horrified his parents, really disappointed his mother, that he is not really transformed by the presence or the interactions with enslaved people. I mean, one of the examples is, you know, they’re in Harper’s Ferry. This is the site of John Brown’s famous raid. This is where John Brown attempts, to instigate a rebellion among enslaved people. And, of course, he’s captured and eventually executed.

Kevin M Levin:
[30:35] You know, but he talks about visiting the fort where John Brown is held up in and eventually captured by Marines led by Robert E. Lee and Jeb Stewart. And all he can talk about is the kind of, he sort of gives a kind of technical primer or explanation of why it was a poor decision to use the firehouse as a point of defense. And you can imagine his mother thinking, hold on, you’re on holy ground, man. I mean, come on, give me something more here. And he just doesn’t do that. He doesn’t really do that at any point while he’s in the Shenandoah Valley. And I think it is the beginning of a growing rift between mother and son. It’s so easy on the home front to take in the war as a whole and to pontificate about its purpose, what they should be doing, what it all means. It’s another thing entirely to be on the ground in a new environment, one that’s constantly changing, filled with all kinds of danger. That’s a very different perspective. And I think sometimes he must have been a little frustrated that his parents and especially his mother and his sister, Josephine, just never really appreciated. So I think he was a bit frustrated, but this is only going to grow and widen into the end of 1862.

Black Soldiers Idea

Jake:
[31:53] During that first summer, he made some of the first proposals to enlist black soldiers in the Union cause. Was that serious at that time? I know that didn’t come to fruition for a couple of years.

Kevin M Levin:
[32:04] And I have to admit, I was surprised when I first read that in his letters. I didn’t really know anything about that. The first time is in the summer of 1861. The reason it comes up is because a fellow officer, Morris Copeland, Harvard graduate, would clearly sympathetic to, you know, enslaved people, clearly, you know, an abolitionist at heart. He believes that this is the direction the war must take. Why not recruit African-Americans as soldiers? They can be useful for any number of purposes. And he must have been talking to Shaw about this. They must have chatted about this. And look, one of the things that you have to understand about Robert Goldshaw. What he is most interested in as a young officer is he is interested in promotion and he is interested in self-advancement. And that’s an opportunity for him. All kinds of questions about a black regiment, right? And this will be true right through the 54th when he accepts that assignment. But nothing really comes of it. It is raised again in the spring of 1862, and they even meet with Edwin Stanton. But that falls apart very quickly for a number of reasons. I don’t think this is Robert Goldshaw as somehow coming to some realization about African Americans and their place in the war. This is Robert Goldshaw trying to take advantage of opportunity.

First Major Battles

Jake:
[33:31] I’m trying to figure out how to ask the next few questions without making you recount the entire campaign history of the Civil War. The second has a quiet winter around Frederick, Maryland with fairly sympathetic locals. But then the next spring and summer, he first experiences combat in a big way. Can you just talk a little bit about the major engagements he was part of during that summer?

Kevin M Levin:
[33:52] There’s two between August and September of 1862. It’s the Battle of Cedar Mountain, August 9th or 10th of 1862. And then, of course, the big one is Antietam on September 17th. This is a watershed moment for Shaw. One of the things I wanted to do in this book was de-center Shaw from the 54th. Everyone knows Shaw in connection to the 54th Massachusetts, and that’s all fine and good. I talk about that to a great extent, and it’s important. I don’t deny that.

Kevin M Levin:
[34:21] But the most important moment in his military career is this period between, August and September, early October of 62. He fights two significant battles. The first thing to remember about this, and it comes through loud and clear in his letters, he loses a number of really good friends. It’s not the first battles he’s fought in, but they’re the first major battles. And it’s the first time that he loses a significant number of friends. And he’s devastated by this. He writes these scenes of walking the battlefield at Cedar Mountain the day after in a number of different letters home. And he continues to sort of, you can imagine him sitting there recounting, coming across the lines of dead bodies and seeing his friends in a row.

Kevin M Levin:
[35:07] So it clearly had an impact on him emotionally. And then of course, with Antietam, he loses a number of other friends, wounded or killed. Wilder Dwight is perhaps the most significant one. I mean, this is a poor guy. This guy starts a letter home to his family the morning of the 17th, is in mid-sentence, essentially, and gets the order to move out, puts the letter away. And by 10 o’clock in the morning, he’s lying mortally wounded on the battlefield, trying to finish his letter home. And you can see his handwriting becoming more and more illegible.

Kevin M Levin:
[35:44] The letter is at the Massachusetts Historical Society. You can see his bloodstains on the letter itself. So it’s the loss of friends. And then, of course, five days later, it’s the issuance of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and the rift between mother and son over emancipation that has been brewing forever. Through 1861 and especially 1862 really does come to a head.

Emancipation Tensions

Kevin M Levin:
[36:11] I think this is actually as close to a breaking point between mother and son as they get during the war because he really doesn’t want to have anything to do with emancipation. He understands, of course, he shares his mother and his father’s views that slavery is immoral, but he doesn’t really think that a proclamation is going to change anything again on the ground where he has to operate. And it’s going to make his life more difficult, he thinks. And so through the end of September and October, this is all he’s writing home about. And at one point, he just says, look, just stop bringing this issue up. I’m sick and tired of talking about it. And I think it’s just a wonderful moment where we get a glimpse of the great divide, again between the home front and the battlefield. Two very different environments. And it complicates our understanding of how families navigate the war.

A Delayed Engagement

Jake:
[37:06] While he’s growing a little more distant and nearly sort of having a rupture in his relationship with his mother, he is getting a little closer to Annie Haggerty.

Kevin M Levin:
[37:15] That’s another problem because, of course, his mother at first, his parents, she doesn’t really support marriage in large part because she doesn’t want her son distracted. He’s fighting, at least in her mind, to win this war to end slavery. And so Annie is only going to get in the way. So at first, there’s a real question about his mother’s approval. There’s also a question about whether Annie wants to get married. And you can imagine the situation she’s in because he’s at war. And so there are all kinds of questions about whether you can make a life, whether you’re going to have a future at all together. And of course, that proved to be tragically the case in the end. But, you know, you can understand why this is a problem. And it only adds, I think, to the frustration that’s already there as a result of the politics of war.

Jake:
[38:06] Before any wedding can take place, President Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation with a pen that I believe is also in the collection of the National Historical Society.

Kevin M Levin:
[38:15] One of them, at least. Yeah.

A Commanding Opportunity

Jake:
[38:16] New Year’s Day, 1863. So how does that stroke of the pen lead Frank Shaw, the father, to show up in a cold, muddy army camp in Virginia with a job offer for Rob?

Kevin M Levin:
[38:28] The proclamation opens up, makes possible what Governor John Andrew has been wanting to do from the very beginning of the war, and that is recruit black soldiers.

Kevin M Levin:
[38:38] Of course, he was rebuffed by the Lincoln administration because the Lincoln administration has to maintain the loyalty of the border states, the border slave states, and it also has to maintain the loyalty of the vast majority of the loyal white citizenry of the North. So once the proclamation is signed, that gives Andrew the green light. And Andrew has a really difficult decision to make because this is his baby. This is his project. And he wants to ensure that he offers the colonelcy of the regiment and the lieutenant colonelcy of the regiment to the right individuals. And they have to come from well-established abolitionist families. And so he certainly would have known of the Shaws. I don’t know how close they were before the war. But Andrew, of course, was involved in abolitionist activities before the war as a lawyer, et cetera, and as a politician. So he would have known of them. And what he does is interesting because he doesn’t communicate with Shaw directly. He does have his father relay a letter down to Virginia where the 2nd Massachusetts is encamped. And he does that at the end of January. And Shaw famously, of course, at first rejects the governor’s offer. It’s difficult to understand why. We don’t really have any kind of written explanation. I suspect that Shaw had a lot of questions about.

Kevin M Levin:
[39:58] Leading a black regiment. I think he probably had doubts as to whether or not a black regiment, certainly the promotion to colonel is a major jump, but would commanding black soldiers bring him the honor, the notoriety that he of course believed he deserved? I mean, that’s still an open question. And that’s the.

Jake:
[40:18] Question- If you thought he could get a promotion to major in a white regiment, would that carry more honor than being the colonel?

Kevin M Levin:
[40:23] That’s right. And he does have those opportunities at the end of 1862. So he’s got some different moves he can make. So the question is, what’s the right move? His mother, of course, just imagine after all of this time, her son finally gets an offer to lead black men in battle. And she gets word that, oh, Rob has rejected this. So she writes Andrew apologizing profusely for this. And at one point she even blames, she blames her husband for this, which I find really interesting. But of course, within 24 hours, Shaw does agree to take command, and he must have talked to some of his fellow officers in the second. And within a matter of days, he’s off to Boston, and he spends the first chunk of time with Andrew directly in his office in Boston. He doesn’t go directly to Reedville or Camp Meigs, where the regiment will form. He remains in Boston for doing the paperwork and getting the regiment off the ground.

Jake:
[41:23] How involved in the day-to-day planning and administration and recruiting of officers and all the nuts and bolts were you? Was the governor of Massachusetts in this new regiment.

Kevin M Levin:
[41:34] I think this is probably the most important thing that’s come down since the beginning of the war. So he has to organize committees, especially recruiting committees, that he sends out to the different states. Because, of course, I think a lot of your listeners will know that relatively few African Americans actually came from Boston itself. There was a lot of controversy in Boston about whether Black men should volunteer. Remember, they had offered their service in 1861. They were turned away. There are questions about whether African Americans will be allowed to become officers. There’s questions of pay, even though, of course, they’ve been promised equal pay. There are all these doubts. And so the recruiting has to fan out. And the first group comes from New Bedford. There’s a small group from Western Massachusetts.

Recruiting the 54th Starts

Kevin M Levin:
[42:26] But the vast majority of these recruits come from New York State, Pennsylvania. It is really a reflection of broader free black northern society. In fact, I always like to remind people that if you consider African-American men of military age, it is upwards of 75% will volunteer to fight in the United States Army. They’re volunteering for a nation that they have no idea what will come out of the war. Will they be given equal rights? Remember, the Supreme Court has recently ruled that African-Americans can’t even become citizens in the Dred Scott case. So that’s a remarkable fact when you consider it. It is very much a day-to-day responsibility of the governor. And like I said, Shaw, for the most part, spends that first few weeks in Boston. He has to rally support among Boston elite. So he spends his time in the salons of wealthy Bostonians asking for monetary support, other kinds of support.

Kevin M Levin:
[43:29] It is a reminder that compared to the movie Glory, he is not involved in the day-to-day operations, as the movie would suggest. You know, that’s not his role. He’s there, of course, eventually, but that’s not his role. In fact, I tried to actually break down how much time he actually spends at Reedville, and it’s a fairly insignificant amount of time. Remember, by May 2nd, this guy is off getting married in New York City and spending his honeymoon in western Massachusetts.

Jake:
[43:59] And that’s during the time that the 54th is in training, he’s doing these other things.

Kevin M Levin:
[44:04] And of course, the regiment leaves Reedville at the end of May.

Jake:
[44:07] I can’t have us leave Reedville just yet because I live here in Reedville. And it’s really hard for me. So today it’s a neighborhood defined by train yards, some industrial parks, and a lot of block after block of tidy little Cape style homes. It’s really hard to imagine what it would have looked like here as this vast army training facility. What would I have seen here in the spring of 1860?

Kevin M Levin:
[44:32] I believe it’s open in 61, but you would have seen large training fields. The railroads would have been there as well because, of course, one of the reasons why it’s selected is, of course, easy transportation to Boston and from there, of course, anywhere they want. Of course, you have the large training fields, but you would have had row upon row of long log houses, if you will, to shelter the men. The idea, of course, getting back to the movie, that these men were, you know, without uniforms and using tents, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. They have everything they need from day one. You know, you would have had officers’ quarters as well at a different section of the camp. You’re right. There isn’t much there now. I mean, the actual, the heart of it, as I understand it, is essentially tennis courts, a basketball court. It’s a park. I mean, there are some wayside markers.

Jake:
[45:21] Yeah, there’s a small park with some historical markers.

Kevin M Levin:
[45:23] Yeah, there’s just a few historical markers. But it would have been pretty extensive at the time.

Reedville Camp and Boston Debut

Jake:
[45:28] Rob Shaw cuts his honeymoon short to rush back to Reedville to make some sort of final preparations. Talk a little bit about how the end of training and then the sort of ceremonial presentation of the regiment’s colors and the parade through Boston, how does the 54th sort of make its public debut?

Kevin M Levin:
[45:45] You know, that’s one of the best scenes of the movie Glory, the parade through Boston. But I think there is a muster at Reedville within a couple days of their leaving camp where they’re presented the regimental colors. Thousands of people show up from Boston, black and white. And I think it is an opportunity. And, you know, there have been observers in camp throughout their time at Reedville. There’s a lot of curiosity about these men. I mean, there are real questions about, forget about whether or not African Americans can muster the courage to fight on a battlefield. There’s a question about whether they can even be trained. That’s how deeply ingrained the racism is in the United States in the mid-19th century. And so there are a lot of newspaper reporters and other observers. But when the regiment receives its regimental colors, there’s a real outpouring of support. Interracial support, I think, you know, black and white support. And especially for African-Americans, you get the sense that they are really deeply invested in the performance of this regiment. And I also think that Shaw…

Kevin M Levin:
[46:48] And this is including the parade that takes place before they ship out to South Carolina. He clearly was impressed with the discipline and the performance of the men, both in camp, during the ceremony, and especially during the parade. He writes a number of really colorful letters while they’re on the transport ship going down to South Carolina to his mother and Annie. It was a proud moment for him. There’s no question about that. But he’s certainly optimistic about the regiment moving forward.

First Footing in Beaufort

Jake:
[47:22] And so, the 54th steps onto southern soil for the first time in June of 1863 at Beaufort, South Carolina. And Beaufort’s been in federal hands since November of the first year of the war, November 61. How had the Beaufort, sort of the larger Sea Islands area, changed since the secessionists sort of walked away from the area?

Kevin M Levin:
[47:44] Yeah. You know, we, we usually think of reconstruction as beginning in 1865 at the end of the war, but it really does begin. In the first year of the war, and especially in 1863, because as you mentioned, as the slaveholding class abandons their wealthy farms, and their plantations, you have thousands of enslaved people. They’re embracing this moment, but there’s also a real question of how this region will be transformed. And the military steps in fairly quickly to take advantage, of course, of cotton production. And also, northern reformers begin to flood the area to begin to educate and help along formerly enslaved people during these first moments of freedom. So, there’s a lot of excitement in and around Beaufort, South Carolina. This is some of the wealthiest slave-owning land in the entire country. This is not just cotton.

Jake:
[48:39] This would be rice. This is also rice. Indigo also?

Kevin M Levin:
[48:42] A little bit, but mainly rice and cotton. A fascinating region of the country. I spent a week there doing research toward the end of the whole process.

Jake:
[48:52] I have to tell you, I am usually very good about finding connections to Boston history whenever I’m traveling someplace. I’ll find the tiniest plaque in the back corner of a museum somewhere. But a couple of years ago, I was on a road trip and I stopped for just a few hours, two or three hours in Beaufort, and I somehow completely missed the connection to the 54th. But a couple of days later in Charleston at the McLeod Plantation, I noticed that the 55th had been stationed there for a while, the 55th of Mass. I completely missed the Beaufort connection to the 54th.

Kevin M Levin:
[49:22] The funny thing about this is I have a friend who works for the National Park Service. There’s a brand new branch of the Park Service, the Reconstruction-era, National Historical Park in Beaufort, which I highly recommend. I’m going down there and thinking, oh, yes, 54th Massachusetts in Beaufort, right? I mean, it’s going to be everywhere. reminders of the regiment’s presence there. And I was quickly reminded by my National Park Service friend that, look, you’re here. 54th is all well and good.

Kevin M Levin:
[49:52] Here, it’s the 1st and 2nd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry. These are the first two African-American regiments made up of many of the formerly enslaved men living in that area. So, the 54th, they’re visitors here. These are the people that really matter. This is an important moment for the 54th because they arrive right at the beginning of June of 1863, just as one of the largest efforts to free enslaved people in the region has taken place. And this is the result of Colonel Montgomery and Harriet Tubman and the Comby Raid in the first days of June. And they free upwards of 800 enslaved people from area plantations. And so as the 54th is disembarking and marching around town, and again, as we all know, these are northern-born African Americans. Many of them have never experienced slavery or even certainly they would have interacted with formerly enslaved people, perhaps their parents, their grandparents, but never on sight. And now they are confronted by hundreds of newly freed people. And so you can imagine their first impressions of the region itself, not just Robert Gold Shaw’s.

Jake:
[51:10] And the Shaw parents, Sarah and Frank, are from a distance involved in that change. What does that reconstruction process look like as it gets started in the Sea Islands?

Kevin M Levin:
[51:20] African-Americans are farming their own land. They’re being educated. They’re serving in the army now. There’s a real sense of hope in the air, a real sense of promise. And of course, many of the Shah’s friends and colleagues, they’re in the area too. They’re the ones who are actually doing the work on the ground of educating and housing and doing all other kinds of support work for these people. There’s tension, of course, because, you know, Northerners who don’t have much direct experience with African-Americans, with enslaved, formerly enslaved men, women, and children, have their own ideas of freedom that they’re bringing down with them. They have their own ideas of what they expect newly freed people to do. That can be very different from what African-Americans, their priorities. And so there is a bit of tension there at times over the expectations. But I think overall, there is this very deep sense of possibility and, like I said, promise.

Jake:
[52:26] At the time he arrives in the Sea Islands or in Beaufort, the way the war is being prosecuted there is very different than the way it had been fought in the Shenandoah Valley the previous summer.

Jake:
[52:38] And this leads to a lot of tension, resentment between Shaw and Colonel James Montgomery. How was the war being carried out besides these raids to try to free enslaved people?

Darien Raid and Montgomery

Kevin M Levin:
[52:49] Shaw, I think, expects to be engaged in the types of battles that are being fought elsewhere. And of course, the ones that he was engaged in at Cedar Mountain, at Antietam, etc., right? These more traditional kinds of affairs where the armies are lining up essentially, but it’s a war between armies.

Kevin M Levin:
[53:08] This is much more complicated and messy, and I don’t think Shaw really has any frame of reference. Now, for someone like James Montgomery, who we can trace back to Bleeding Kansas and the kind of guerrilla warfare that is taking place on the frontier in the mid-1850s, I think he was much more acclimated to, the kinds of raids that he is conducting from roughly the beginning of 1863 moving forward. And, of course, this comes to a head because one of the first military assignments that Shaw’s involved in is the Raided Darien in Georgia, just about a week and a half after they arrived in Beaufort. And, of course, this involves part of the 54th traveling to Darien, a port town in Georgia, with Montgomery’s regiment. He’s in command of one of the two contraband regiments made up of these formerly enslaved men in and around Beaufort. And essentially they get orders to burn the town down. And this horrifies Shaw because, of course, this is not the kind of warfare that he is expecting to take part in, nor is it the kind of warfare that he approves of. There’s nothing from his perspective that’s militarily significant about Darien. There are no soldiers. The civilian population is next to nothing. And, these men were not fired upon when they entered Darien. And so, they ransacked- A year or two later.

Jake:
[54:36] Sherman would have understood this method of war.

Kevin M Levin:
[54:38] But at the time, it was not the norm. Yeah, I mean, we’re sort of moving in that direction. And Shaw’s horrified by this. And, you know, of course, it threatens his sense of honor. It threatens, of course, any progress that he is going to be able to make as a result of commanding a regiment of black soldiers. Because, of course, you can only imagine the media response of black soldiers ransacking a town. These are the kinds of fears that not only animate white Southerners going back to the age of the antebellum period and the real horrifying possibility of slave rebellion. This also horrifies white Northerners. This is what they’re worried about if you arm African-Americans in the army. And so it’s going to reinforce their own racist assumptions about African-Americans. But at the same time, Shaw is taken by Montgomery. He’s fascinated by James Montgomery. He couldn’t be more different. He is someone who understands his role from the very beginning of the war. He’s a man of, dare I say, principle. He’s incredibly racist. I mean, he says some of the most racist things, but he is incredibly principled in terms of his understanding that slavery has to be abolished. And he can trace that going back to the mid-1850s when Shaw, of course, is directionless, gallivanting around Europe.

Kevin M Levin:
[55:58] On the one hand, he’s horrified by Montgomery, and on the other hand, he’s fascinated by him. His letters during this period are just wonderful because he doesn’t know what to make of this man heads or tails.

March Toward Charleston

Jake:
[56:10] And the regiment doesn’t spend that much time in the Buford area. By the time June’s turning into July, they have new orders. What’s their next assignment going to be as they move closer to Charles?

Kevin M Levin:
[56:25] They spend a little bit of time on St. Simon’s Island, a little bit further, just in, the Darien area, but they are quickly reassigned back into South Carolina because the Union Army and Navy in that area is working to break into Charleston Harbor. Charleston, of course, is – it’s not such a significant city militarily, but symbolically speaking, it is the seat of the rebellion, right?

Jake:
[56:50] It’s where the first secession was declared. It was where the first shots were fired.

Kevin M Levin:
[56:55] Exactly. I mean, it’s obviously Fort Sumter itself is right at the entrance to the harbor. And so to break through, you’ve got to take these series of islands and Confederate forts that ring the harbor of Charleston. And so that is what’s happening the end of June and into July of 1863. And Shaw jumps at this opportunity because, of course, it does offer him and his regiment a chance to fight a more traditional type of battle. And they do that on a very small scale on James Island on July 16th.

Jake:
[57:28] So how does the regiment perform under fire against Confederate regulars, not townspeople?

Kevin M Levin:
[57:33] At least in this first small engagement on James Island. But they actually perform quite well. Not the entire regiment is engaged, but they’re able to hold off a small Confederate cavalry, attack and subsequent infantry engagement. There are some reports of Black soldiers being executed, probably not true, but all in all, I think for Shaw, it’s a significant moment. He really struggled with the Darien affair, worried that this would be a stain on his reputation. And I think the performance and the response from his superiors in the days following gives him a sense that perhaps he can begin to put that behind him.

Jake:
[58:18] Well, you mentioned the rumors, which during the James Island skirmish were probably unfounded, of black prisoners being executed. And it’s worth reinforcing that point because that was a stated policy of the secessionists, right? That they were not going to treat black federal troops as soldiers.

Kevin M Levin:
[58:36] Yeah. And there are a number of moments in the war where this does come to fruition, most significantly in April of 1864 at a place called Fort Pillow in Tennessee. And then the subject of my first book, a book about the Battle of the Crater, which took place on July 30th, 1864, outside of Petersburg, Virginia, where upwards of 200 black soldiers may have been executed by Confederates. And so this becomes Confederates view Black soldiers not as legitimate soldiers, but as slaves in rebellion. And I think once these Confederates meet Black soldiers on the battlefield, it confirms for them just what’s at stake in this war. They are reminded that Confederate defeat will mean the overturning of everything they believe in. Their slave society will be destroyed and their worst racial nightmares will come true.

Jake:
[59:29] And if I read correctly, that treatment was meant to be extended to white officers who commanded black troops as well, that they would also be considered irregulars, and leading a slave rebellion.

Kevin M Levin:
[59:40] That’s right. They’re leading a slave rebellion. Now, that, of course, is more complicated because both armies have a system of prisoner exchanges at this time. That’s going to break down because of the issue of black soldiers. But that becomes more complicated because, of course, Lincoln promises that, you know, if you do execute white officers, we’re just going to do so in return. So that would have created a cycle of retribution that both sides want to avoid.

Jake:
[1:00:07] I’d say some of that to lay the groundwork, because we’re getting into sort of the final act of Shaw’s life.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:00:12] The glory, right?

Fort Wagner Assault

Jake:
[1:00:13] The glory itself, yeah. So, the regiment’s going to be ordered after this skirmish on James Island from there to Coal Island, on to Folly Island, sort of step by step, getting closer to the mouth of Charleston Harbor, and then finally, fatefully, Morris Island. Can you talk a little bit about what morris island would have looked like at the time what the fort wagner on the island would have looked like and what it might have felt like i just keep coming back to the fact that this is the peak of the summer.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:00:41] The heat the flies all of that and and this is a regiment that’s utterly exhausted they fight on july 16th they march almost immediately after that for the next two days they haven’t eaten much at all this is a depleted regiment By the time it gets to Morris Island on the after, roughly at noon on July 18th, they’re just, they’re spent. And Morris Island is not the most hospitable place. I mean, essentially it’s an Island of there’s a beach, there are marshes, um.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:01:11] But, of course, it’s occupied by thousands of Union soldiers. There are row upon row of artillery, of course, that are sort of pounding both Fort Wagner and another fort, Fort Gregg, which is on the northern point of the island. So there’s just a lot of smoke. The Union Navy is shelling it offshore. So you can imagine just the noise and the smell and just the overall sight. It’s just not a hospitable place. at this moment for the 54th, there was an unsuccessful attack on Fort Wagner just a few days earlier.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:01:48] And the union planners made no preparation for a second assault. They apparently learned next to nothing about what would be needed if you’re going to actually have a successful assault against Fort Wagner. Just to jump ahead a little bit, eventually they have to plan another assault for the night of July 18th. And basically, the brigade that the 54th is a part of, George Strong’s brigade, his brigade is going to sort of lead the assault. But there’s the question, of course, of which regiment will lead the assault. Because of course, on Morris Island, there’s only enough room for one regiment at a time to move forward. Apparently, Shaw, in conversation with Strong and a few other officers, volunteered his regiment. You know, I think we give Shaw an easy pass for doing this, right? This is his moment of glory, the beginning of that. And I have real questions about that, given…

Kevin M Levin:
[1:02:46] That the fighting on July 16th did help, of course, with the reputation of the regiment. And just the fact that the regiment is just, like I said, utterly spent. They’re just exhausted.

Jake:
[1:02:57] Yeah, they’ve marched I don’t know how many miles to get to Morris Island. Dozens, 20, 30 miles, no sleep, no food to speak of, not a hot meal in days.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:03:07] Yeah, absolutely. I’ve wondered whether this was just a downright irresponsible decision on his part. But I don’t want to take that too far. I think he meets the moment, certainly. I think he certainly understands what’s at stake in terms of the reputation of the regiment, as well as his own reputation. To what extent he understood the danger of it all, we can speculate on that. But of course, he’s already been in these moments, right? He understands the overall, the dangers of battle.

Jake:
[1:03:38] Well, you mentioned that there would only sort of be room for a regiment at a time to make the assault on Fort Wagner. And that comes down to the geography. The fort is hard up against the beach, so anybody trying to get there is sort of squeezed between a salt marsh and the beach. And then the fort itself seems uniquely resistant to being softened up by artillery. Can you describe how it’s built and why it’s so sort of cannon proof?

Kevin M Levin:
[1:04:03] Yeah. So it’s constructed with a lot of logs, rows of logs and sand in between it. So it is a formidable position. There are different types of artillery at different points on the ramparts in the fort itself that allow for inflating fire. So as these regiments are moving and the way the 54th will attack, essentially they’ll divide the command and Shaw will lead one, the left wing, I believe, and then his Lieutenant Colonel Hallowell will lead the right. But there is a lot of infillating fire as they approach where the artillery is firing on an angle. And so they’re able to mow down and hit more of these men than if they were just firing straight on. And so there’s also a number of bomb proofs in this fort. And so one of the reasons why.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:04:49] Very few of these Confederates are killed or wounded during the artillery bombardments is because they’re safe in these bomb proofs, just waiting for the notification that the assault itself is going to take place. Because when that happens, in large part, the artillery has to cease shelling or they risk, of course, hitting their own men. So as the regiment is moving in, along with supporting regiments, they’re able to quickly get to their positions. And they have a pretty formidable position trained down on these soldiers. There are gullies that the 54th and other regiments have to move through, and there are various sort of man-made obstacles of various sorts that are placed to break up the attacking force. And so this is not a long assault. I mean, I think the entire assault would have taken about an hour, if that. And I think well before the hour is up, it’s pretty clear the regiment is not going to be successful. Shaw makes it part of the way up the ramparts to the top of the fort, but he is either gunned down, more than likely he is shot. I did find one account that I was never able to follow up on or confirm, but it was an account that suggested that he was killed with a sword.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:06:04] Which, of course, paints a very different picture of his death compared to the post-war lithographs of Shaw that sell quite well and show him, of course, holding his sword when he shot down. That’s, I think, the death that we want to remember. But, you know, these are brutal battles and anything’s possible.

Shaw’s Final Hours

Jake:
[1:06:24] When the decisions made when Shaw’s volunteered the regiment to lead, how did he prepare himself mentally for that? I know there was a moment, there seems to be some quiet moments, but also maybe some time spent in conversation with Ned Hollowell. How did he prepare himself for what he thought might have been his last act on Earth?

Kevin M Levin:
[1:06:41] Yeah, that’s Hallowell’s account post-war that he confronted, came across Shaw that morning. And I think they were still on the transport coming from Folly over to Morris Island. And he finds Shaw deep in thought. And Shaw apparently said to him that he didn’t expect to make it through the next attack, right? Now, I mean, what do you do with that? I don’t doubt Hallowell’s account. At the same time, I think Shaw had experienced enough of the experience of battle, and of course, seeing his friends lying there dead, you know, between Cedar Mountain and Antietam, to know that that’s possible. He escaped battle a number of times and i i assume it’s a natural thought to think that at some point your number is coming up he’s leading this assault and so he must have understood the risk and and so yeah they do have that interaction, but compared to the the scene of the movie where he is of course encouraging his men on and all of that uh you know it’s it’s not clear how much of that is is actually true i thought.

Jake:
[1:07:44] It was interesting the detail you pointed out if He really had that thought with Halliwell that he didn’t expect to make it through. I thought it was interesting that he didn’t leave a lot of his personal effects, his rings, his watches, I forget all the things he was wearing and carrying, but he carried things into battle.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:07:59] Some of his correspondence he leaves with the reporter. But yeah, you’re right. One of the big questions, of course, after the battle is what happens to his personal effects, including his sword, which of course we now know has been returned to the Massachusetts Historical Society, because his body is on display in the day after, in or near a bomb proof inside the fort, and a number of items are taken.

Jake:
[1:08:24] I’m not going to make you give us a blow-by-blow recounting of the battle. Readers will have to get the book in and explore that themselves. But when the sun rises the next morning, how much of the 54th is fit for duty?

Kevin M Levin:
[1:08:37] Yeah, so about 40% are dead or wounded. And that is quite a percentage. That’s quite a number. You know, so they gather, you know, behind the lines the next morning. There are questions as to whether, you know, what’s happened to Shaw. No one’s exactly sure whether he’s wounded or whether he’s killed in action. I mean, and that, of course, is the result of the fact that part of this fight takes place at night. And so they reorganize. Carney, who saves the flag, the regimental colors, and eventually is awarded the Medal of Honor, he survives. And the regiment just sort of attempts to reorganize as best it can. But they can see the next morning the toll that the battle takes.

Aftermath and Memory

Kevin M Levin:
[1:09:19] I think it’s important to remember the 54th continues to fight in South Carolina, and they’re stationed there until the summer of 1865. You know, again, this is part of the dissentering of Shaw from the regiment. He’s only with the regiment three months. You know, the training, of course, going back to February. But in terms of in the field, the beginning of June and then half of July. So the regiment, it’s not necessarily his regiment, if you consider the fact that they are still in the field until the summer of 1865. And that’s important, I think, to remember because so much of the story is centered on Shaw. Certainly the men who survived the war, the veterans, understand the importance of Shaw to the regiment during the post-war period.

Jake:
[1:10:10] Let’s come back to where we started with the memorialization and myth-making around Shaw as we get into the years and then decades after the Civil War. There’s this immediate reaction among Northerners, even some Union officers, who saw the role of the 54th at Fort Wagner as evidence that the U.S. Should stop enlisting black soldiers, that this was a counterargument.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:10:35] Absolutely. The media reaction, newspaper response. I mean, we talk about, of course, the media being biased today, right? The comparison makes little sense when you’re comparing bias today in the media with mid-19th century America. These newspapers are really sort of organs of the respective political parties, and it shapes how they respond to news from the front, especially about black soldiers. So Democratic newspapers, including those in Boston, are highly critical of the performance of the 54th. And Republican newspapers tend to be more praiseworthy. But even then, not entirely. Some of them are a bit critical. So there’s no consensus on what this means in terms of the place of African-Americans in the U.S. Army in the summer of 1863 moving forward. So that’s important, I think, to recognize. Certainly, there was no question about whether or not this moment would be memorialized in some fashion almost immediately. Not just the parents, but even African Americans in Boston and some of the political leaders, they understand that something needs to be done to honor Shaw.

Jake:
[1:11:50] There’s an idea floated, and I think the family comes up with it, to place a stone monument on Morris Island. But that’s quickly sort of discarded. There’s no way to get there. It will probably wash away. Locals are going to vandalize it. How do we get from there to the turn of the

Jake:
[1:12:04] 20th century when there’s an actual bronze and stone monument installed? How does the memory stay alive? How does this reputation get recast as the martyr to abolition?

Building Shaw’s Legacy

Kevin M Levin:
[1:12:13] Certainly, his mother plays a crucial role in all this. And I should say, the father as well, first in deciding to leave their son in that mass grave on Morris Highland. Now, this is an act on the part of Confederates to insult his memory, to dishonor the memory of Shaw by keeping him buried with his black soldiers. And there’s an attempt, or it seems like there’s going to be an attempt to disinter him. And word gets back to the family, and his father writes very directly down to the general in South Carolina saying, don’t touch him. This is where he belongs. Now, eventually in 1865, the U.S. Army goes into many of these areas and disinters the bodies of as many of these soldiers as possible and places them in national cemeteries. And there’s a national cemetery in Beaufort, and that’s likely where Shaw is buried. He’s likely buried there in an unmarked grave. So that’s the first sort of attempt to honor him. You mentioned the monument, which is never built. And almost immediately, there’s sort of talk in Boston about some kind of monument to Shaw.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:13:23] And I think it’s actually Sumner, Senator Sumner, Charles Sumner, who comes up with the idea of placing it on the Boston Common. I think that’s Sumner’s idea. Certainly, Andrew is in support of this as well. And certainly, African Americans in Boston are interested. I’m not sure if they’re interested so much in honoring Shaw as much as they are interested in using it as an opportunity to honor the service of black soldiers. African-Americans in Boston use Shaw’s death, I think, to rally support for these men. And there’s a bust of Shaw that’s done by an African-American woman. There’s a painting of Shaw that’s done, which has been lost, that was on display for a short period of time, but again, has been lost. So there is always talk during the post-war period about honoring Shaw somehow, but it’s not until the early 1880s that finally Augustus St. Gaudens is given the commission. And even then, Sarah Shaw, Rob’s mom.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:14:31] And the family is still involved in what direction that will take, what form it will take. They have some influence. Uh, the father, even in the early, the case of the early monument, that’s never dedicated. He wants the officers that are killed, wounded. He wants the, even the rank and file to be honored in some way. It’s not just about his son.

Jake:
[1:14:54] In the end, that’s what we have on Beacon Street today. We have, yes, Shaw is portrayed, but there’s the ranks of soldiers marching beside and behind him.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:15:04] And that, of course, makes that memorial so incredibly unique because, of course, we have to remember, this is dedicated in 1897. The monuments that are going up at this time are, obviously, there are a lot of Union monuments that go up. I mean, no question about that. But obviously, some of the largest and most significant Confederate monuments are going up at this point in time. This is really the height of the Lost Cause movement. And certainly, the role of African Americans has been pushed aside. The memory of emancipation and the service of black soldiers has been largely pushed aside. And so to include the black rank and file in the way that St. Gaudens does is really important because the common depiction of African-Americans at this point in time is highly racist. If you think of the caricatures of African-Americans that sort of dominate popular culture. So the fact that St. Gaudens recruits black men to come and pose in his studio in New York to capture their features is really important. And I think for me, at least, when I look at that monument, that is what I tend to focus on. I mean, it’s just a remarkable piece of public art.

Jake:
[1:16:17] So by the time that monument’s dedicated in 1897, what place does the 54th occupy in public memory, if it does even have a place at that time?

Kevin M Levin:
[1:16:30] It absolutely does, especially in Black Civil War memory. That is really what you want to emphasize. It’s not clear to what extent it’s a part of the larger white memory of the Civil War. Like I said, I think there’s a tendency to sort of see Civil War memory at the turn of the 20th century as this kind of tension between emancipation and the push of reunion. So these images of white men.

Jake:
[1:16:58] The 50th anniversary of Gettysburg shaking hands across the fence.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:17:01] Yeah, you just nailed it. Even in Massachusetts, there are a number of moments where Confederate veterans will visit towns in different parts of Massachusetts. For that to happen, there has to be a conscious attempt, an intention, if you will, to put aside the issues that divided the nation going into the war. And certainly that involves having to sort of push aside, as a result, the memory of Black military service. And so I think that is certainly a part of the Civil War memory, the culture of Civil War memory, even in a place like Massachusetts. That is why that monument still is so significant, because it somehow does break through all of that. It is one of the only reminders, the next monument to feature Black soldiers to be dedicated in the United States is not until 1989 in Washington, D.C., in what just happens to be called the Shaw neighborhood of D.C., the area right around Howard University, a historically Black neighborhood of Washington, D.C. So many of the images of African Americans on Civil War monuments are on Confederate monuments, and they are of the image of the loyal slave right out of the lost cause narrative. So it’s impossible to diminish the importance of the monument here in Boston. It’s a real prize. It’s an incredible prize.

Closing Remarks and Events

Jake:
[1:18:23] So, Kevin, I will call it here and say that if people want to learn more, they’ve got to read the book. And, of course, we’ll have an affiliate link in the show notes. People can get the book that way. But if people want to follow you and your work online, where should they look to find out more about you?

Kevin M Levin:
[1:18:39] So, I’ve been blogging about the Civil War since November of 2005. It’s called Civil War Memory. It’s now on Substack. So, if you just kind of Google Civil War Memory in Substack, you will get my site. I update it on a daily basis. My personal website is called cwmemory.com, and that’s where you can find all of my upcoming book talk events. I lead tours of Civil War Boston on occasion, so you can find those. I’m on Blue Sky. You can find me there. So I try to keep up my presence on social media as much as possible.

Jake:
[1:19:13] So by the time this episode airs on October 4th, the book will be out just a few days. If people want to come out into the real world, take their headphones off and hear you talk about the book, do you have Boston area book events where they can have that experience?

Kevin M Levin:
[1:19:31] I do. And I don’t remember the exact dates. So go to the personal website, cwmemory.com. I’ve got one coming up, a local talk in West Roxbury, the public library in November. I do have something scheduled at Wellesley Historical Society. I’ll be out in Amherst in December, and then in Boston at the Boston Athenaeum early next year. And hopefully, there’ll be a few more scheduled as well. I’d like to do as many talks as possible here in the Boston area.

Jake:
[1:20:02] So keep an eye on CW Memory for all that. Thank you very much for joining us today, for talking about the book, and for being so generous with your time. I really appreciate it.

Kevin M Levin:
[1:20:11] My pleasure. I really enjoyed it.

Jake:
[1:20:14] To learn more about Kevin Levin, Robert Gouldshaw, and the 54th Mass, check out this week’s show notes at hubhistory.com slash 363. I’ll include an affiliate link where your purchase of A Glorious Fate, The Life and Legacy of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw will support the author, this podcast, and independent bookstores. I’ll also have a link to Kevin’s Civil War Memory Substack blog and a link to his cwmemory.com website, where you can learn more about his work and his upcoming book events, including talks in Wellesley on October 10th and Amherst on December 4th. Also, please remember, check out hubhistory.com slash live and register for our first-ever live episode on November 13th at Old North Church.

Jake:
[1:21:05] If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hubhistory.com. I maintain profiles for Hub History on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and over on Mastodon, where you can find me as at hubhistory at better dot Boston. The only social media site where I fairly regularly post and make a point of interacting with listeners is Blue Sky. On Blue Sky, you can find my profile by searching for hubhistory.com. If none of that’s up your alley, just go to hubhistory.com and click on the Contact Us link. No social media required. While you’re on the site, hit the subscribe link, and be sure that you never miss an episode. If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please consider writing us a brief review. If you do, drop us a line, and we’ll send you a Hub History sticker as a token of appreciation. That’s all for now. Stay safe out there, listeners.