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Robert Gould Shaw.

Private 7th New York Volunteer Militia, April 19, 1861; Second Lieu. Tenant 2d Mass. Vols. (Infantry), May 28, 1861; first Lieutenant July 8, 1861; Captain, August 10, 1862; Colonel 54th Mass. Vols. (Infantry), April 17, 1863; killed at Fort Wagner, S. C., July 18, 1863.


during the years 1859 and 1860 there might have been seen daily on the Staten Island ferry-boat, early in the morning and late in the afternoon, a pale, thoughtful-looking young man, with a manner so quiet and serene as to seem almost lazy. His light hair and moustache, and fair complexion, gave to his face a character that might have been effeminate but for the well-defined nose, firm, clear-cut mouth, and the steady glance of the peculiarly-colored light gray eye, which, together with his alert, quick, decided step, as he moved, showed that, beneath this quiet exterior, lay all the qualities that belong to a man of more than common character. This was Robert Shaw, who now lies buried on Morris Island, in Charleston Harbor, one of the many thousand young men who have fallen victims to that Moloch, American Slavery, or we may rather say, to whose victorious lives and deaths the Moloch, American Slavery, has fallen a victim.

He was born in Boston on the 10th of October, 1837, the son of Francis George and Sarah Blake (Sturgis) Shaw. He early showed marked traits of character; he was quicktempered, but very affectionate, easily led, but never to be driven. At a very early age he was sent to the school of Miss Mary Peabody (now Mrs. Horace Mann); then to that of Miss Cabot, in West Roxbury; and finally to that of Mr. William P. Atkinson, with whom he began the Latin Grammar. When he was nine years old, his parents removed to Staten Island, where he went to a small private school, kept by a learned and very impatient old German, who did not help the little fellow to any more love of hic, hoec, hoc, and after a year, at the beginning of the summer vacation, he told his mother that he ‘hoped Mr. ’

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