[54th Massachusetts Infantry]: [Shaw, Robert Gould, Col.]:

$6,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

STORMING FORT WAGNER. A dramatic rendering of the first major battle in the Civil War to involve African-American troops, the attempted storming of a Confederate fort near Charleston, South Carolina on July 18, 1863. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was killed along with fifteen other officers and nearly 300 of his men. The print shows the Union troops charging the ramparts of Fort Wagner, charging into the oncoming Confederate rifle and cannon fire. A Union officer, likely intended to be Shaw, stands atop the first rampart, sword held high, the flag waving boldly next to him. Union ships float off the coast in the background, shells bursting above them.Shaw (1837-63) came from a wealthy Massachusetts family noted for upholding reform and abolitionist causes. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Shaw distinguished himself in combat, surviving the bloody battles of Antietam and Cedar Mountain. After the Emancipation Proclamation was passed in 1863, Massachusetts governor John Andrew organized the army's first black volunteer unit, the 54th Massachusetts. Despite his initial refusal, Shaw was ultimately persuaded by his family to accept the command. Sent to fight in the Union effort to seize the border islands of the Carolina coast in the late spring of 1863, the regiment proved its valor that summer by holding off Confederate troops at James Island, South Carolina. "Two days later [July 18, 1863], on Morris Island, Shaw proudly volunteered his regiment to lead the assault on the imp

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