[If you’re in
New England, there are few more beautiful spots for a spring walk than Cambridge’s Mount Auburn Cemetery. In this
series, I’ll highlight a few American connections for this unique site and all
it includes. Please share your thoughts, on this site and any other beautiful
or evocative spaces you’d highlight, for a crowd-sourced weekend walk!]
Two prior posts
and one additional thought on the cemetery’s most tragic and inspiring figure.
Although there
is a
memorial to Robert Gould Shaw amidst his prominent
Bostonian family’s plot in Mount Auburn Cemetery, he isn’t buried there.
That’s the result of one of American history’s most inspiring parental
decisions, about which I wrote in this
February 2013 post. The memorial overtly reminds us of that amazing moment
and decision, as well as the tragic fact that Shaw was only 25 when he was
killed alongside his men during the Union assault on South Carolina’s Fort
Wagner; like the soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts, Shaw’s death is
part of the story of their sacrifice and meaning, but it’s impossible not to
wonder what all of them might have done and been if their lives had continued
into the rest of the 19th century.
Besides
highlighting the details of both Shaw’s death and his burial, the Mount Auburn
memorial also includes a quote from Scripture (John 15:13): “Greater love hath
no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Calling Shaw’s
African American soldiers (and, for that matter, the slaves for whose freedom
they and all other Union soldiers were fighting) “his friends” was a striking
and important choice, one no doubt made purposefully by the abolitionist Shaw
family in creating this memorial. And that choice complements quite directly
many of the details of the more famous Shaw
Memorial, Augustus Saint-Gaudens’
stunning sculpture across from the State House on Boston Common. I wrote about
the inspiring stories and histories behind the Shaw Memorial in this
November 2010 post, one of the handful of pieces with which I began this
blog; time has only deepened my appreciation for the work and all it includes
and means.
Much of what I
want to say about Shaw and the histories and themes to which he connects I said
in those prior posts. But when it comes to Shaw’s Mount Auburn connection, I would
add one more thing. My personal spiritual beliefs are far from the point here,
but I would note that one thing in which I do believe is the soul, the
existence of a fundamental part of our identities (both individual and
communal) that exists outside of our physical bodies and thus that can endure
long beyond our deaths. I can think of few American souls that deserve a
peaceful resting place more than Robert Gould Shaw’s, and few American spaces
that could better provide such a home than Mount Auburn Cemetery. I’m very glad
that Shaw’s body remained with his soldiers in that South Carolina mass grave;
and equally glad that we can imagine his soul among the pastoral beauties of
Mount Auburn.
Next connection
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other sites or spaces you’d share?
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