Sketches from the Shenandoah: The Wounding of Charles Russell Lowell

At the Battle of Cedar Creek, James Taylor captured the mortal wounding of Colonel Charles Russell Lowell. Lowell hailed from Boston and was a member of one of New England’s most distinguished families. A Harvard graduate, Lowell received a commission in the Regular Army, serving in the 6th U.S. Cavalry during the Peninsula Campaign and seeing action at Antietam.  In the fall of 1862, he raised the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry. During the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864, Lowell would command the old Reserve Brigade from the Army of the Potomac. Wounded early in the fighting on October 19, Lowell refused to leave the field. He was finally shot down in what is today the parking lot of the Lord Fairfax Community College in Middletown, Virginia. He is buried in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Interestingly, Lowell was married to the sister of Robert Gould Shaw. Shaw famously died when leading the 54th Massachusetts Infantry in an assault on Battery Wagner in Charleston Harbor in the summer of 1863.