Open Thread Thursday: So Many Lives Cut Short
I’ve been thinking quite a lot lately about the timing of the death of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. His death midway through the war in July 1863 is a challenge for this aspiring biographer. It raises both an interpretive challenge and excites the imagination.
In the case of the former, it is a stark reminder that many of his ideas about the war and its purpose remained unresolved by the time of his death. As for the latter, one can’t help but wonder how his life might have unfolded had he lived.
So many questions.