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“Aaron Burr was one of the most controversial men of his time, as renowned for wickedness in his later years as Washington always for probity or Jefferson for patriotic fervor.”

“Murderer of Alexander Hamilton, corrupt deal-maker in the election of 1800, and would-be emperor of the American West in the eyes of his peers, Burr had earned a reputation that even the most authentic evidence could not overcome.”

Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic by Joanne B. Freeman

Someone… wants… to know… about my longest history crush?? I love this man with all my heart (ALL) even my blog title is a mention towards him?? Because I love him so much!! But here are a bunch of facts about his beautiful beautiful guy:

Robert Gould Shaw had eighty-five first cousins (McFeely 2)

Robert was a HUGE mama’s boy.

After being sent to boarding school at the age of thirteen he hated it, he hated his teachers because they “scolded [him]… because [he] didn’t do something [his teacher] didn’t tell [him] to do…” He was so terribly homesick that he cried in front of his classmates and was very embarrassed. He even ran away twice. 

He played the violin, piano and did theater.

Once at a “fancy-ball” in February 1855, Shaw shaved his blond beard and dressed as a woman. He “made such fools” of his friends, none of who recognized him until he spoke. Basically all his friends thought he was a girl and hit on him until he revealed himself. (McFeely 9)

Robert grew to be 5′5 in height and looked a lot like to his two sisters (whom he was close to). 

He confided in his letters about how upset he was at how short he was and that he was not growing anymore. 

When going to Harvard, he played football and regularly got beaten up by larger, taller players. (McFeely 12)

During the Civil War, he lost many of his close friends including Theodore Winthrop. He lost friends at Cedar, South Mountains, Antietam and Gettysburg. He felt guilt for Theodore’s death because he himself hadn’t been hurt yet and he’d been in the army for twenty months and Theodore was only in the army for a month when he died.  

He marched with a descendant of Alexander Hamilton, Philip Schuyler (1836-1906).

[Excerpt from a letter sent on November 25th, 1861: “…Often the latter sit round the fire and talk till you get perfectly sick of hearing them and wish every one of their Yankee noses were cut off. Instead of getting accustomed to the Yankee twang it becomes more and more disagreeable to me, and everything I hear a “What sayyyyy?” (every two minutes) I want to go out & kick them all round.”

At a party held by his sisters Susanna, he met his future wife Annie Haggerty. That night he decided she would be his “young woman”. 

Shaw had photos taken of him which he sent to his mother and got embarrassed when he took those photos and flaunted them around to the girl he was interested in. 

He began to teach himself how to write with his left hand in case his right hand had to get amputated one day. 

One time, he was shot by a bullet and didn’t even know he had been shot until he was undressing and found a bullet in his pocket watch that gave him just a small bruise. He lived only because he put a pocket watch in the direct place where the bullet nearly killed him. 

He also nearly died at the Battle of Antietam when a battle passed through the side of his neck. 

[excerpt from one of his letters] “I went to comb my hair, it was all frozen up”

Robert Gould Shaw is an important figure of American history and the American Civil War because he was the first to command an all black regiment of soldiers–the 54th Massachusetts. 

After he saw his mother for the last time he went into the backroom and cried. 

His reputation was slightly ripped when his regiment was commanded by General Montgomery to burn down the down the town of Darien, Georgia–to which Shaw refused but was forced too and received the blame for it. 

Before his death at Fort Wagner at the age of only twenty-five, Shaw confided to his second in command, Hallowell, that be believed that he would die in the forthcoming battle. He had this fear of death but got over this fear just before the battle occurred. He told Hallowell, “If I could only live a few weeks longer with my wife, and be at home a little while, I might die happy, but it cannot be. I do not believe I will live through our next fight.”

On the charge of Fort Wagner, 1863, Shaw made it to the top of the parapet before a confederate bullet killed him and he fell first into the fort. In his last moments, he waved his sword around, urged his men forward shouting, “Forward 54th!”

The Fort’s commander, General Gohnson Hagood, ordered Shaw’s body to be striped and thrown into a ditch with his men and then shoveled sand over him and his fallen men. They refused to return the body back to his family even though it was asked and Shaw’s father remarked that they would have no place other for him to buried than with his men. 

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