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[98] while others were discharged from parole camps or hospitals.

Colonel Shaw's fate was soon ascertained from those who saw him fall, and in a day or two it was learned from the enemy that his body had been found, identified, and, on July 19, buried with a number of his colored soldiers. The most circumstantial account relating thereto is contained in a letter to the writer from Capt. H. W. Hendricks, a Confederate officer who was present at the time, dated from Charleston, S. C., June 29, 1882; and the following extracts are made therefrom:—

‘. . . Colonel Shaw fell on the left of our flagstaff about ten yards towards the river, near the bombproof immediately on our works, with a number of his officers and men. He was instantly killed, and fell outside of our works. The morning following the battle his body was carried through our lines; and I noticed that he was stripped of all his clothing save under-vest and drawers. This desecration of the dead we endeavored to provide against; but at that time—the incipiency of the Rebellion—our men were so frenzied that it was next to impossible to guard against it; this desecration, however, was almost exclusively participated in by the more desperate and lower class of our troops. Colonel Shaw's body was brought in from the sally-port on the Confederate right, and conveyed across the parade-ground into the bombproof by four of our men of the burial party. Soon after, his body was carried out via the sally-port on the left river-front, and conveyed across the front of our works, and there buried. . . . His watch and chain were robbed from his body by a private in my company, by name Charles Blake. I think he had other personal property of Colonel Shaw. . . . Blake, with other members of my company, jumped our works at night after hostilities had ceased, and robbed the dead. . . . Colonel Shaw was the only officer buried with the colored troops. . . .’

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