‘. . . 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. . . .’
[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:—
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.