The rollout of my new biography, * A Glorious Fate: The Life and Legacy of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw* [purchase from
Thanks to all of you for purchasing and reading the book.
I also want to thank Harold Holzer for his review in * The Wall Street Journal*, which appeared last week. I was thrilled with the review, especially given how much I respect and have profited from Harold’s own work over the years.
With that said, I wanted to take a minute to respond to a letter-to-the-editor at the *WSJ *that takes issue with Harold’s review and which claims a conclusion about my book that I never make.
The author of this letter clearly didn’t read my book. What’s funny is that I largely agree with his conclusions about Shaw. In fact, it roughly follows my own interpretation of Shaw’s military career that I lay out in the epilogue of the book.
The main reason that I spend so much time focusing on Shaw’s view of the war is that it speaks to the deep divide with the rest of his family over such things as discipline, Gen. George McClellan, the importance of Union, and, of course, emancipation and slavery.
In that sense, this book fits into a large body of scholarship focused on the wide gulf between the battlefield and home front that defined many families during the Civil War era, even among the abolitionists.
But, in the end, I do believe that we need to recognize the fact that Shaw stepped up when it counted. In other words, his actions matter a great deal.
His decision to volunteer his regiment to lead the assault on Fort Wagner on that July day on Morris Island—an assault that cost him his life—matters and is ultimately part of the story that leads to Union victory and the end of slavery.
The key here, however, is not that we view Shaw in isolation, but as part of a broad coalition. He may have resisted viewing the war primarily in abolitionist terms, but situated alongside his parents and the men who volunteered to serve in the 54th Massachusetts, Shaw’s importance and place in history is secured.
Together they helped to steer the nation toward a goal worthy of their collective sacrifice.
