Shaw, Robert Gould (1837–1863)

US soldier. Shaw enlisted in the Union army early in the Civil War. In April 1863 he assumed command of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, the first northern black regiment to see combat. He was killed in July leading a charge on Fort Wagner, South Carolina. He and the events leading to this fateful charge were portrayed in the film Glory (1990). His regiment is remembered by the Saint-Gaudens' sculpture in the Boston Common.