One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment

Great history book.

I love this book! It is perfect for my research and it is a great read. I am excited to have been able to find this book. It is just what I need for my adaptation. I am also impressed with how quickly this product came in the mail. And it was in excellent condition! I would recommend this seller because the service was quick and the product is excellent! A very good experience!

It is a rich and detailed history of the 54th Massachusetts regiment and Robert Gould Shaw. It has deepened my appreciation for the film "Glory".

This book was at least partially the basis for the movie Glory, which starred Morgan Freeman, Cary Elwes, Matthew Broderick, and Denzel Washington (who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor). The movie is reasonably historically accurate, though there are parts where they took liberties with the truth. The book sets the record straight in a number of ways.The book, however, is largely a biography of Robert Gould Shaw. Shaw was born a child of privalege, and raised to be an abolitionist and a devout Christian. When the war started, he saw it as his duty to enlist, first serving in the ranks of a New York regiment, and later securing appointment as a Captain in the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry. When the Emancipation Proclamation was announced and the recruiting of Black soldiers began (this was part of the actual proclamation) the governor of Massachussetts decided to recruit his own regiment of Blacks, and appointed Shaw to be the colonel. The regiment served briefly in the siege of Charleston, South Carolina, before leading the charge on Fort Wagner, to the south of the city, in which Shaw was killed and the regiment decimated.This book, as I said, is mostly a biography of Shaw. Since he wasn't anyone particularly prominent, and since he only lived to be 25, there's not a lot to say, and the book is as a result rather short, about 150 pages. Shaw comes off as committed, intelligent, perhaps a bit naive, but brave and skilled. It's an interesting character study, and an interesting but brief account of this one action in the siege of Charleston. There isn't, however, much else to the book, so be warned, it's rather thin. If that's what interests you, however, it's worth the effort.

The information was factual and interesting. I learned things about Shaw and his regiment that I didn't know. The letters were quite interesting. He was a no nonsense kind of officer that you didn't take for granted . Yet he was a man of deep conviction and compassion for his fellow man.

A good fundamental book for understanding how Robert Gould Shaw came to command the Massachusetts 54th, but one that offers little about his relationship with the regiment or the issues that shaped its legends. Because this book (and point of view) formed the basis for the motion picture "Glory," many of its shortcomings were repeated in the movie and in subsequent public perceptions about the composition, behavior, and fate of the first all-volunteer African-American regiment formed in the American Civil War.I strongly endorse this as a starting point for Americans interested in the life of Robert Gould Shaw but recommend they continue to "Blue Eyed Child of Fortune," a collection of his personal correspondence. "One Gallant Rush" tends to portray Shaw as a sort of doomed saint rather than a complex character succumbing to the moral and political aspirations of his family, his own ambition, and the then-prevailing attitudes about the worth and importance of African American soldiers (and men).

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After seeing the movie GLORY I wanted to learn more about the true story!