Albumen print carte de visite on plain card mount, retaining on the verso the printed studio imprint of "WHIPPLE, / 96 Washington Street, / BOSTON." with photographic preservation notice below. Boston, Massachusetts, ca. 1863. Mount measures approx. 2 1/2 x 4 in.

A holy grail of Civil War portraiture and a sacred visual document of the United States Colored Troops: a wartime carte de visite of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (1837 - 1863), commander of the renowned 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

Shaw is depicted three-quarters standing with his hands behind his back, looking slightly right of the camera with calm, resolute determination. He wears a field-grade officer's double-breasted frock coat with paired brass buttons and shoulder straps denoting rank, his light mustache and center-parted hair neatly groomed. Printed by John Adams Whipple from the celebrated negative exposed by Boston photographer J.W. Black prior to the regiment's departure for the South Carolina coast, this likeness is the definitive visual record of Shaw's fateful command.

Born to prominent Boston abolitionist parents Francis George and Sarah Blake Shaw, Robert Gould Shaw served in the 7th New York State Militia and as a captain in the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry before Governor John A. Andrew selected him to organize and lead the first Northern regiment of Black soldiers. On 18 July 1863, Shaw led the 54th Massachusetts in the spearhead assault against the impenetrable earthworks of Battery Wagner on Morris Island, South Carolina. Shaw was shot through the heart and killed instantly on the parapet. In an attempt to dishonor the white colonel for commanding Black troops, Confederate defenders buried him in a mass trench alongside his fallen soldiers - an act his father famously embraced, declaring there could be no holier burial ground than surrounded by his brave men. Wartime CDV portraits of Shaw are among the rarest and most desirable icons of Civil War photography. 

[Carte de Visite, CDV, Robert Gould Shaw, Colonel Shaw, 54th Massachusetts, 54th Mass, USCT, United States Colored Troops, Battery Wagner, Fort Wagner, Morris Island, John Adams Whipple, J.W. Black, Boston Massachusetts, John Andrew, Glory, Abolitionist, Civil War Officer, KIA]

Very good condition. The print displays warm tones, sharp focal fidelity and soft, honest age foxing. The card mount remains sturdy and unclipped, with clean edges.