Robert Gould Shaw in late 1862 took command of a new All-Black Regiment, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. He and his troops were immortalized (and portrayed in the 1989 film Glory) on July 18, 1863, when they assaulted the Confederate Battery Wagner. As he lead his men forward he was shot through the chest three times and died almost instantly. Years later William James, the famous intellectual, spoke at a dedication of a Shaw memorial. He dismissed the notion that bravery and valor should be honored as it was a coarse "survival of the fittest" certainty and thought the "civic courage" Shaw exhibited in his taking the commission was most important. "...the survival of the fittest has not bred it into the bone of human beings as it has bred military valor; and of five hundred of us who could storm a battery side by side with others, perhaps not one could be found who would risk his worldly fortunes all alone in resisting an enthroned abuse."
A great nation is not saved by wars, James said; it is saved "by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans or empty quacks." This is the behavior that monuments should honor.
This is a lovely idea. But is it true?
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