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             out receiving his degree. From there he entered into his uncle's business in New York and became a businessman.
             In 1860, after Abraham Lincoln became President and the Southern states seceded from the Union, Shaw enlisted with the Seventh New York National Guard. He became a lieutenant and marched with the regiment to defend Washington in April of 1861. The unit disbanded after 30 days. On May 10, 1861, Shaw left the Seventh New York Regiment and joined the Second Massachusetts Infantry as First Lieutenant. As and officer he was able to attend elegant parties, eat and sleep well. Yet he also yearned for action on the battlefield. The Second engaged in battle during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign and the Northern Virginia Campaign. During his less than two years of service in the Second Infantry, he rose to the rank of captain. The regiment suffered terrible losses at the Battle of Antietam. Shaw received a minor wound but felt the excitement of battle as never before. Unable to forget the past, "Shaw often retraced the events that took place there...he located places where his co!
             mrades had fallen and retold stores of the fight"(Duncan 43).
             During the autumn and winter of 1862, Shaw and the Second Massachusetts were inactive. Missing home and family, his thoughts turned to Anne Haggerty, a young woman from a prosperous family in Lenox, Massachusetts. Haggerty had won his heart prior to the war. I late November he proposed to her in a letter and they were married on May 2, 1863.
             Following the Federal victory in the Battle of Antietam, President Lincoln had declared a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. By the end of January 1863, Lincoln authorized Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton to allow black men to enlist in volunteer regiments. Though the idea of arming black men was controversial and unpopular among many white soldiers and citizens, this move found great favor amongst the abolitionists w...