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 Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune
The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw
Col. Robert Gould Shaw
Edited by Russell Duncan
Foreword by William S. McFeely

The man who led America's vanguard black regiment

Only two months after his marriage, twenty-six-year-old Robert Gould Shaw, the commander of the Union Army's vanguard black regiment, gave his life to the cause of freedom. These letters portray the celebrated abolitionist hero in his own words, revealing a man sometimes very different from the Shaw lauded in art, poetry, and film. Shaw's frank and eloquent descriptions of his coming of age in upper-class Boston circles and in two years of battle vividly detail the transformation of a cosmopolitan son into a disciplined and devoted soldier.

Russell Duncan is a professor of history in the English Institute at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the author of several books, including First Person Past: American Autobiographies, Freedom's Shore: Tunis Campbell and the Georgia Freedmen (Georgia), and Entrepreneur for Equality: Governor Rufus Bullock, Commerce, and Race in Post-Civil War Georgia (Georgia).

Nov 1999

ISBN 0820321745 paper • $24.95

480 pp. • 6 1/8x9 1/4 in. • 43 photos • 1 map

"Splendid . . . Important . . . Superb . . . Deserves a place on every Civil War bookshelf . . . Shaw emerges more vividly in this book than he did in the film Glory."
—The New York Times Book Review

"A fine and conscientious work."
—Boston Globe

"An affecting collection."
—Washington Times

"Glory resurrected Robert Gould Shaw as a dramatic figure. This book highlights Shaw as the man he really was. The written word far surpasses the screen image in quality."
—Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Russell Duncan's outstanding edition of Shaw's letters is a model for this sort of work. . . . Sustained excellence."-Civil War Book Review

"In the film Glory, Robert Gould Shaw was portrayed as a rather stuffy but dedicated and idealistic young officer who led his regiment of African-American soldiers to a magnificent death in an attempt to take the Confederate Fort Wagner off the coast of South Carolina. The real Shaw, as evidenced by this collection of letters written to his parents, siblings, friends, and fiancee, was a much more interesting personality . . . His letters are a revealing and often moving account of a young man's growth in a time of war."-Magill Book Reviews

"In Russell Duncan's new edition of the colonel's letters, we meet Robert Gould Shaw at last as a person, not as a symbol . . . Readers of Shaw's letters will find a young man, not always deep or profound, but with a quality of character forged in conflict . . . Of course, most readers will want to turn to the letters recounting his experiences as commander of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, and they will not be disappointed in the story of how colonel and soldiers taught one another how to be men as well as soldiers . . . There is something heroic in struggling against one's limitations to achieve greatness. Editor Duncan should be congratulated for reminding us of this truth through bringing us closer to Shaw."-Journal of American History

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