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Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw 54th Massachusetts Black Regiment, Civil War CDV

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:1,200.00 USD Estimated At:1,800.00 - 2,200.00 USD
Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw 54th Massachusetts Black Regiment, Civil War CDV
Civil War CDVs
Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw of the Famous 54th Massachusetts Black Regiment Civil War Carte de Visite
c. 1863 Civil War Period, Carte de Visite (CDV) Photograph of Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw of the Famous 54th Massachusetts Black Regiment, Choice Very Fine.
Original historic Civil War Carte de Visite of the famous Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (1837-1863), who was the Commander of the celebrated 54th Massachusetts Black Regiment. Its card measures about 2.5” x 4” with the maker’s back stamp reading: “Cartes de Visite, by G.B. Dana, Cor. Main and Mill St., Pawtucket, R.I. - Duplicates made at any time.” Image shows a seated Robert Gould Shaw in his military uniform. The 54th Massachusetts was immortalized in the 1989 movie “Glory”. The photograph has good contrast and detail while the reverse is very clean having about .5” tall band of tone along the bottom edge. All its black printed text is sharp and clear. More recently, the story of the unit was depicted in the 1989 Academy Award-winning film Glory, starring actor Matthew Broderick as Shaw. A rare, highly desirable and important U.S. military and Black History related image.
Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837 – July 18, 1863) was an American soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Born into a prominent abolitionist family, he accepted command of the first all-black regiment (54th Massachusetts) in the Northeast and encouraged the men to refuse their pay until it was equal to the white troops' wage.

At the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, a beachhead near Charleston, South Carolina, Shaw was killed while leading his men to the parapet of the Confederate held fort. Although they were overwhelmed and driven back, Shaw's leadership passed into legend with a unit that inspired tens of thousands more African-Americans to enlist for the Union and contribute to its ultimate victory.

The 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that saw extensive service in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The unit was the first African-American regiment organized in the northern states during the Civil War. Authorized by the Emancipation Proclamation, the regiment consisted of African-American enlisted men commanded by white officers.

The unit began recruiting in February 1863 and trained at Camp Meigs outside Boston, Massachusetts. Prominent abolitionists were active in recruitment efforts, including Frederick Douglass, whose two sons were among the first to enlist. Massachusetts Governor John Albion Andrew, who had long pressured the U.S. Department of War to begin recruiting African-Americans, placed a high priority on the formation of the 54th Massachusetts.

Andrew appointed Robert Gould Shaw, the son of Boston abolitionists, to command the regiment as Colonel. The free black community in Boston was also instrumental in recruiting efforts, utilizing networks reaching beyond Massachusetts and even into the southern states to attract soldiers and fill out the ranks. After its departure from Massachusetts on May 28, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts was shipped to Beaufort, South Carolina and became part of the X Corps commanded by Major General David Hunter.

During its service with the X Corps, the 54th Massachusetts took part in operations against Charleston, South Carolina, including the Battle of Grimball's Landing on July 16, 1863, and the more famous Second Battle of Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863.

During the latter engagement, the 54th Massachusetts, with other Union regiments, executed a frontal assault against Fort Wagner and suffered casualties of 20 killed, 125 wounded, and 102 missing (primarily presumed dead)--roughly 40 percent of the unit's numbers at that time. Col. Robert G. Shaw was killed on the parapet of Fort Wagner. In 1864, as part of the Union Army's Department of Florida, the 54th Massachusetts took part in the Battle of Olustee.

The service of the 54th Massachusetts, particularly their charge at Fort Wagner, soon became one of the most famous episodes of the war, interpreted through artwork, poetry and song. More recently, the 54th Massachusetts gained prominence in popular culture through the award-winning film Glory.

A monument to Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts regiment, constructed 1884–1898 by Augustus Saint-Gaudens on the Boston Common, is part of the Boston Black Heritage Trail. A plaster of this monument was also displayed in the entryway to the U.S. paintings galleries at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900.

Of the regiment, Governor John A. Andrew said, "I know not where, in all of human history, to any given thousand men in arms there has been committed a work at once so proud, so precious, so full of hope and glory."

A famous composition by Charles Ives, "Col. Shaw and his Colored Regiment", the opening movement of Three Places in New England, is based both on the monument and the regiment.

Detail from Saint-Gauden's original tinted plaster model Colonel Shaw and his men also feature prominently in Robert Lowell's Civil War centennial poem "For the Union Dead." It was originally titled "Colonel Shaw and the Massachusetts' 54th" and published in Life Studies (1959). In the poem, Lowell uses the Robert Gould Shaw memorial as a symbolic device to comment on broader societal change, including racism and segregation, as well as his more personal struggle to cope with a rapidly changing Boston.

A Union officer had asked the Confederates at Battery Wagner for the return of Shaw's body, but was informed by the Confederate commander, Brigadier General Johnson Hagood, "We buried him with his niggers."

Shaw's father wrote in response that he was proud that Robert, a fierce fighter for equality, had been buried in that manner. "We hold that a soldier's most appropriate burial-place is on the field where he has fallen." As a recognition and honor, at the end of the Civil War, the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, and the 33rd Colored Regiment were mustered out at the Battery Wagner site of the mass burial of the 54th Massachusetts.

More recently, the story of the unit was depicted in the 1989 Academy Award-winning film Glory, starring Matthew Broderick as Shaw, Denzel Washington as Private Tripp, Morgan Freeman, Cary Elwes, Jihmi Kennedy and Andre Braugher. The film re-established the now-popular image of the combat role African Americans played in the Civil War, and the unit, often represented in historical battle reenactments, now has the nickname the "Glory" regiment.