A Glorious 
Fate
The Life and Legacy of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw
Robert Gould Shaw (1837–1863) is best known as the heroic colonel who led the 54th Massachusetts Infantry—one of the first regiments of Black soldiers in the Civil War—in its famous ill-fated charge against Confederate Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863. Shaw’s sacrifice has been commemorated in monuments, books, and the award-winning film, Glory. But before he became a martyr for the Union cause and emancipation, Shaw was a privileged young man who showed little interest in the reform movements that defined his parents’ lives or in the moral crisis over slavery that was tearing the nation apart. Volunteering to serve as a duty, he awakened gradually and fitfully to the demands of conscience and command. Only in death was Shaw was transformed into the champion for freedom his abolitionist parents hoped he would be.
The first biography of Shaw in a quarter century, A Glorious Fate: The Life and Legacy of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw traces his transformation from a rebellious son into one of the Civil War’s most celebrated heroes. Acclaimed historian Kevin M. Levin also reveals the sacrifice and service of the African American men who fought and died for their freedom afresh through Shaw’s eyes. Though Shaw never fully reconciled his own racial prejudices, Levin shows how the Civil War changed the young colonel as it did the nation.
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— Reviews & Praise —
“A beautifully rendered portrait. Levin reveals Robert Gould Shaw’s human complexity while keeping in view the remarkable bravery and sacrifice through which Shaw and the soldiers he commanded entered the pantheon of American heroes during the country’s Civil War. A compelling story that should never be forgotten.”—Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize winner and editor of Jefferson on Race: A Reader
A Glorious Fate is a masterful work. This authoritative and richly detailed account brings to life the remarkable saga of the young colonel who led the fabled Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry. Written with grace and clarity, Kevin Levin’s portrait of Shaw is a triumph of the art of biography.—Douglas R. Egerton, author of A Man on Fire: The Worlds of Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Propulsive and revelatory, A Glorious Fate is a nuanced portrait of a man known more for his death than his life. Kevin M. Levin shows us Robert Gould Shaw in the fullness of his experiences: an often defiant and self-centered young man and an ambitious Civil War officer who never sought the martyrdom and fame he achieved after death. A Glorious Fate is an authoritative biography and a definitive account of Shaw’s complicated life.—Megan Kate Nelson, Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Three-Cornered War
A deeply considered, thoughtfully argued biography that should delight any reader who wants to understand a subject in its full complexity. Levin repeatedly punctures myths to present Robert Gould Shaw as an exemplar for how soldiers’ and citizens’ understanding of the Union cause changed over the course of the Civil War.—Matthew E. Mason, author of Apostle of Union: A Political Biography of Edward Everett