Harvard memorial biographies ...

172

Harvard Memorial Biographies.

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 o1, 1862; Colonel 54th Mass. Vols. (Infantry), April
17, 1863; killed at Fort Wagner, S. C., July 18, 1863.
D URING 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 ioth of October, 1837, the
son of Francis George and Sarah Blake (Sturgis) Shaw. He
early showed marked traits of character; he was quick-tempered, 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, kcec, hoc, and after a year, at the beginning of
the summer vacation, he told his mother that he " hoped Mr.