for they form
a veritable poem for serenity and simplicity of tone. He took to camp
life as if it were his native element, and (like so many of our young
soldiers) he was at first all eagerness to make arms his permanent
profession. Drilling and disciplining; interminable marching and
counter-marching, and picket-duty on the Upper Potomac as lieutenant in
our Second Regiment, to which post he had soon been promoted; pride at
the discipline attained by the Second, and horror at the bad discipline
of other regiments; these are the staple matter of earlier letters, and
last for many months. These, and occasional more recreative incidents,
visits to Virginian houses, the reading of books like Napier's
"Peninsular War," or the "Idylls of the King," Thanksgiving feats, and
races among officers, that helped the weary weeks to glide away. Then
the bloodier business opens, and the plot thickens till the end is
reached. From first to last there is not a rancorous word against the
enemy,--often quite the reverse,--and amid all the scenes of hardship,
death, and devastation that his pen soon has to write of, there is
unfailing cheerfulness and even a sort of innermost peace.

After he left it, Robert Shaw's heart still clung to the fortunes of
the Second. Months later when, in South Carolina with the
Fifty-fourth, he writes to his young wife: "I should have been major of
the Second now if I had remained there and lived through the battles.
As regards my own pleasure, I had rather have that place than any other
in the army. It would have been fine to go home a field officer in
that regiment! Poor fellows, how they have been slaughtered!"

Meanwhile he had well taught his new command how to do their duty; for
only three days after he wrote this he led them up the parapet of Fort
Wagner, where he and nearly half of them were left upon the ground.

Robert Shaw quickly inspired others with his own love of discipline.
There was something almost pathetic in the earnestness with which both
the officers and men of the Fifty-fourth embraced their mission of
showing that a black regiment could excel in every virtue known to man.
They had good success, and the Fifty-fourth became a model in all
possible respects. Almost the only trace of bitterness in Shaw's whole
correspondence is over an incident in which he thought his men had been
morally disgraced. It had become their duty, immediately after their
arrival at the seat of war,