The memory of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw is a key example of an officer’s memory dwarfing the equally courageous actions of his subordinates. In the book, Where Death and Glory Meet, historian Russell Duncan argues that Shaw became the most important abolitionist hero of the war. Interestingly, Shaw became one of the first white officers to command a colored regiment. Colored troops were a symbolic statement to the Confederacy, that the Union was committed to the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Therefore, the national perception of black resolve for their freedom and equality, fell onto the shoulders of colored regiments including the 54th Massachusetts. Indeed, there is overwhelming symbolism in a black Union soldier fighting against his pro-slavery counterparts. So how could the memory of the 54th Massachusetts charge on Fort Wagner develop into the memory of a single white officer? More specifically, why is the life of a single white officer more significant than the massive show of courage exhibited by the black soldiers? Was the memory of black soldiers repressed by the inability for whites to see blacks as their equals? Furthermore, was the change in memory affected by rise of the “Lost Cause” ideology and subsequent fall of emancipationist movement?…
