Though nearly exhausted with the loss of blood, he said: "BOYS,
THE OLD FLAG NEVER TOUCHED THE GROUND!"
  The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, with its ranks recruited, re-
tained its reputation, and added to its glory in the battles of
Olustree, Honey Hill, Boykin's Mill, and in operations around
Charleston.
  A romantic interest attaches to the memory of Colonel Shaw.
He stands out prominent as one of the early white colonels of
a colored regiment.  To him attached to a peculiar degree the
profound reverence and devotion of his colored soldiers. He fell
with many of his men at Fort Wagner, and was buried in the
same trench with the soldiers of his regiment.
  It is recorded that when a flag of truce party returned to the
fort to bury the Union dead, it was found that this work had
been done already by order of General Beauregard, and in re-
sponse to a request for the body of Colonel Shaw, one of the
Confederate officers replied: "We have buried him with his nig-
gers." This expression of contempt for the noble leader and his
black heroes furnished a text which Mr. George H. Boker, a son
of Philadelphia, and the author of a number of patriotic poems,
used with good effect in the following stanzas:

            "Brothers in Death and Glory"
            "They 'buried him with his niggers!'
              Together they fought and died.
            There was room for them all where they laid him
               (The grave was deep and wide),
            For his beauty and youth and valor,
              Their patience and love and pain:
            And at the last together
              They shall be found again.

            "They 'buried him with his niggers!'
              Earth holds no prouder grave;
            There is not a mausoleum
              In the world beyond the wave
            That a nobler tale has hallowed,
              Or a purer glory crowned,
            Than the nameless trench where they buried
              The brave so faithful found.
            "They 'buried him with his niggers!'
              A wide grave should it be;
                             24




			

OHS Archives/Library Pamphlet Collection

Progress of the Negro Race: Address at a Patriotic Race Service, Philadelphia