Civil War Journals & Letters
Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune by
On the Boston Common stands one of the great Civil War memorials, a magnificent bronze sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. It depicts the black soldiers of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry marching alongside their young white commander, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. When the philosopher William James dedicated the memorial in May 1897, he stirred the assembled crowd with these words: "There they march, warm-blooded champions of a better day for man. There on horseback among them, in the very habit as he lived, sits the blue-eyed child of fortune." In this book Shaw speaks for himself with equal eloquence through nearly two hundred letters he wrote to his family and friends during the Civil War. The portrait that emerges is of a man more divided and complex--though no less heroic--than the Shaw depicted in the celebrated film Glory. The pampered son of wealthy Boston abolitionists, Shaw was no abolitionist himself, but he was among the first patriots to respond to Lincoln's call for troops after the attack on Fort Sumter. After Cedar Mountain and Antietam, Shaw knew the carnage of war firsthand. Describing nightfall on the Antietam battlefield, he wrote, "the crickets chirped, and the frogs croaked, just as if nothing unusual had happened all day long, and presently the stars came out bright, and we lay down among the dead, and slept soundly until daylight. There were twenty dead bodies within a rod of me." When Federal war aims shifted from an emphasis on restoring the Union to the higher goal of emancipation for four million slaves, Shaw's mother pressured her son into accepting the command of the North's vanguard black regiment, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts. A paternalist who never fully reconciled his own prejudices about black inferiority, Shaw assumed the command with great reluctance. Yet, as he trained his recruits in Readville, Massachusetts, during the early months of 1963, he came to respect their pluck and dedication. "There is not the least doubt," he wrote his mother, "that we shall leave the state, with as good a regiment, as any that has marched." Despite such expressions of confidence, Shaw in fact continued to worry about how well his troops would perform under fire. The ultimate test came in South Carolina in July 1863, when the Fifty-fourth led a brave but ill-fated charge on Fort Wagner, at the approach to Charleston Harbor. As Shaw waved his sword and urged his men forward, an enemy bullet felled him on the fort's parapet. A few hours later the Confederates dumped his body into a mass grave with the bodies of twenty of his men. Although the assault was a failure from a military standpoint, it proved the proposition to which Shaw had reluctantly dedicated himself when he took command of the Fifty-fourth: that black soldiers could indeed be fighting men. By year's end, sixty new black regiments were being organized. A previous selection of Shaw's correspondence was privately published by his family in 1864. For this volume, Russell Duncan has restored many passages omitted from the earlier edition and has provided detailed explanatory notes to the letters. In addition he has written a lengthy biographical essay that places the young colonel and his regiment in historical context.
Call Number: E 513.5 54th .S53 1992ISBN: 0820314595Publication Date: 1992-10-01
The Libraries of Wayne State University have a rich collection of books in print on Civil War Narratives. Here is a small selection: (Please see our Guest Borrowing policy.)
The Complete Civil War Journal and Selected Letters of Thomas Wentworth Higginson by Call Number: E 492.94 33rd H53 2000ISBN: 0226333302Publication Date: 1999-12-01Purdy/Kresge Library
Thank God My Regiment an African One by Call Number: E 510.5 2nd .D36 1998ISBN: 0807122424Publication Date: 1998-06-01Purdy/Kresge and Undergraduate Libraries
DPL - Burton Historical Collection
- Selected Resources for Civil War ResearchThis bibliography provides an overview for Civil War research in the Burton Historical Collection at the Detroit Public Library. The BHC contains a wealth of material from the antebellum and Civil War era.
"Oh, Could They But Speak..."
Excerpt from “OH, COULD THEY BUT SPEAK...”
The history and importance of Michigan’s Civil War Battle Flags
-anonymous
For the hand that has woven those colors of light,
And sent it aflame thro’ the World’s every zone,
That has led, and has kept it thro’ storm and thro’ night
Is the hand that has blest us, sweet Liberty’s own!
Thin curling in the morning air
The wreaths of failing smoke declare,
To embers now the brands decayed
Where the night watch their fires had made.
True to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers advance to the harvest of death.
Sleep well, O sad-browed city,
Whatever may betide;
Not under a nation’s pity,
But ‘mid a nation’s pride.
The vines that round you clamber,
The brightest shall be, and best;
You sleep in the honor-chamber,
Each one is a royal guest.
Their bugles sang truce for the night cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands has sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.’
We rose, and rushed unto her aid,
White faces sank into the grave,
Black faces, too, and all were brave.
Their red blood thrilled Columbia’s heart;
It could not tell the two apart.
From our dead foeman comes no chiding forth;
We lie at peace; Heaven has no south or north;
With roots of trees and flowers and fern and heather,
God reaches down, and clasps our hands together.
*Excerpt presented by Dr. De'Andrea Wiggins during the Opening Ceremony for the exhibit, March 21, 2012.
- Complete Flag PoemPortions of a poem from The Flags of Michigan, compiled by John Robertson, Adjutant
General, Lansing: W.S. George and Company, 1877.
(Note: The title and author are unknown. The eleven stanzas (2-8 lines each) are presented here
exactly as they appear in the book.)
Digital Collections on the Civil War
Wounded soldiers being tended in the field after the Battle of Chancellorsville near Fredericksburg, Va., May 2, 1863. From "Pictures of the Civil War," NARA.
- Shades of Gray and BlueReflections of Life in Civil War Tennessee
- Civil War Diaries and LettersFrom the Iowa Digital Library, University of Iowa
- Civil War Maps CollectionThe Library of Congress - American Memory
- Selected Civil War PhotographsThe Library of Congress - American Memory
- Pictures of the Civil WarNational Archives and Records Administration
- Medical Heritage LibraryCivil War resources accessible through the Internet Archive.
Smithsonian National Museum of American History
Learn how photographs shaped the public’s knowledge and experience of the war. Visit Civil War portraits: Where personal and public meet to learn more.
Death Toll Figures
A section of the Battle of Gettysburg Cyclorama by French artist Paul Philippoteaux. The painting, longer than a football field and four-stories tall, is on view at the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center.
- New Estimate Raises Civil War Death TollArticle in The New York Times published on April 2, 2012 by Guy Gugliotta - Extrapolating from new data, a historian suggests that about 20 percent more died than previously thought.
Civil War Widows' Pensions
The National Archives Digitization Project
Flags
- Civil War FlagsFor more information and images of Civil War flags, please view the document here.
33 Star U.S. National Flag
(Fort Sumter Garrison Flag)
The outbreak of American Civil War hostilities began with the bombardment of the Federal garrison at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina beginning on April 12, 1861. At that time there were a number of versions of the 33 star U. S. National flag. Illustrated above with a replica on display here is a version of the flag that initially flew over Fort Sumter as a Garrison Flag. After it was severely damaged by shot and shell, it was replaced by a smaller Storm Flag that had the stars configured as noted in the illustration below. It was this second flag that was struck and taken north by Fort Commander, Major Robert Anderson, when the Union forces surrendered on April 13 and evacuated the fort on April 14, 1861.
33 Star U.S. National Flag
(Fort Sumter Storm Flag)
Flag images and information provided by Dr. Tom Roe.
Civil War Websites
- CivilWar.com"A virtual monument to the Civil War" created by Premier Internet, Inc., a for profit business.
- FREE Teaching and Learning ResourcesAn extensive list of free Federal resources for teaching and learning about African Americans in U.S. History.
Michigan Volunteers in the Civil War
- Record of service of Michigan volunteers in the civil war, 1861-1865.Digital access to 46 volumes. The arrangement of the names is alphabetical under each regiment or other organization.
Of particular interest isVolume 46 - The First Michigan Colored Infantry
Soldiers & Sailors
- NPS Civil War Soldiers & SailorsThe Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, from the National Park Service, is a computerized database containing very basic facts about servicemen who served on both sides during the Civil War.