LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 December Civil War Auction #674  / 

72151

ROBERT GOULD SHAW: EXCEEDINGLY RARE WAR-DATE ALS

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:8,000.00 USD Estimated At:10,000.00 - 15,000.00 USD
ROBERT GOULD SHAW: EXCEEDINGLY RARE WAR-DATE ALS
<B>ROBERT GOULD SHAW: EXCEEDINGLY RARE AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED.</B></I> One page, 5” x 8” dated September 22, 1862 from Sandy Hook, Maryland. Written to <I>“Professor Rogers, Lunenburg, Mass.”</B></I>, with original transmittal envelope on Second Massachusetts regimental stationery. Shaw pens (in full):<BR><BR><I>"Will you please to let me know from time to time what you hear from Jim. I am anxious to know whether he is getting along well. A rumour has just reached us that Capt. Quincy had been heard from. Did you know it? We had a terrible battle last week. May we soon see the last of them and of the war. You can hardly imagine the horror of that battle field the following day</B></I>"<I> </B></I>Signed: <I>"Excuse my hast & believe me Very respectfully, Robert G. Shaw”. </B></I>He adds in a postscript along the margin: <I>“Capt. Bangs has written to Mr. Quincy what we hard about his son.”</B></I><BR><BR>Shortly after Antietam, Massachusetts governor John Andrew chose Shaw to lead the 54th Massachusetts, a regiment of black troops. Fighting racism of Union soldiers and bureaucrats as well as the Rebels, Col. Shaw honed the 54th’s recruits into a potent fighting force. Their valor was never more evident than in a near suicidal assault on Fort Wagner, in Charleston Harbor, in 1863. Shaw, along with many of his men, lost his life in the attack. When his family tried to get his body back, the Rebel commander contemptuously advised that “We have buried him with his niggers” in a mass grave. What the Southerners saw as the ultimate indignity, Shaw’s father turned into an honor: “We hold that a soldier’s most appropriate burial-place is on the field where he has fallen.”<BR><BR>War-date letters of Shaw are extremely rare. This is the first war-date ALS of Shaw we’ve ever handled. <BR><BR><B>Condition:</B></I> In excellent condition with a handsome signature. <BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Flat Material, Small (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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