Shaw, Robert Gould

Related Category: U.S. History: Biographies

1837–63, Union hero in the American Civil War, b. Boston. An ardent white abolitionist, he was colonel of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first body of black troops raised in a free state. He was killed leading the regiment in the attack on Fort Wagner, Charleston, S.C. A sculptured figure of him by Augustus Saint-Gaudens is on Boston Common.

See study by P. Burchard (1970).