Robert Gould Shaw and Fifty-fourth Regiment Memorial
Cornish, Sullivan County, New Hampshire
Marker Inscription
Robert Gould Shaw killed while leading the assault on Fort Wagner July twenty third eighteen hundred and sixty three
The Story
Colonel Robert Gould Shaw commanded the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, one of the first Black regiments raised in the North during the Civil War. On July 18, 1863 (the inscription's July 23 marks his death and burial in the aftermath), Shaw led his men in the doomed but valiant assault on Fort Wagner guarding Charleston Harbor, and fell at the parapet alongside scores of his soldiers. Confederate troops buried the young officer in a common grave with his Black troops, an insult his abolitionist family embraced as an honor. This memorial in Cornish echoes the celebrated Saint-Gaudens relief that immortalized Shaw and the regiment.
Why it matters
The 54th Massachusetts proved that Black soldiers would fight and die for the Union, helping transform the war into a struggle for freedom and paving the way for nearly 200,000 African Americans to serve. Shaw's sacrifice became one of the enduring moral symbols of the Civil War.
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Related people
- · Robert Gould Shaw
Related events
- · Assault on Fort Wagner
- · American Civil War
Themes & tags
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