James Savage, Jr., graduated at Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1854, then studied agricultural chemistry in Europe for two years. Returning to Cambridge, he studied law for a short time, but found it too sedentary a life. He then took up farming in Ashland, Massachusetts, but being unmarried, within a few years he found that too isolated and lonely. Moving to Boston, much of his thoughts were occupied by the antislavery movement, and he became a sergeant in the Salignac Drill Club in Boston in the days leading up to the Civil War. At the outbreak of the war, he helped organize the Second Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, which was the only regiment in that state to be designed to be similar to the Regular Army, particularly in discipline. He was commissioned Captain of Company D on May 24, 1861, and mustered the following day. He was commisioned Major of the regiment on July 1, 1862, and wounded and taken prisoner at Cedar Mountain, Virginia, on August 9, 1862. In that battle, he was wounded three times, with a bullet wound on his right arm near the shoulder, a bullet wound on his right leg just above the ankle, and a contusion on his left hip from a spent ball. A week later, the bullet was removed from his arm. Two more weeks later, his leg was amputated about six inches below the knee. Some days later, the surgeons "were obliged to open the flaps and re-tie the artery." He "died of exhaustion... without acute suffering" of his wounds at Charlottesville, Virginia, on October 22, 1862, while still a prisoner of war, as Major. (He had been commissioned Lieutenant Colonel of his regiment on September 17, 1862, but not mustered as such.) After his death, his comrade Captain Robert Gould Shaw (later Colonel of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infanty) wrote: "There is no life like the one we have been leading to show what a man is really made of; and Jim's true purity, conscientiousness, and manliness were well known to us all..."
Sources: MASSACHUSETTS SOLDIERS..., 1: 98; HARVARD MEMORIAL BIOGRAPHIES, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1866), 1: 328-50.
Sources: MASSACHUSETTS SOLDIERS..., 1: 98; HARVARD MEMORIAL BIOGRAPHIES, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1866), 1: 328-50.
James Savage, Jr., graduated at Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1854, then studied agricultural chemistry in Europe for two years. Returning to Cambridge, he studied law for a short time, but found it too sedentary a life. He then took up farming in Ashland, Massachusetts, but being unmarried, within a few years he found that too isolated and lonely. Moving to Boston, much of his thoughts were occupied by the antislavery movement, and he became a sergeant in the Salignac Drill Club in Boston in the days leading up to the Civil War. At the outbreak of the war, he helped organize the Second Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, which was the only regiment in that state to be designed to be similar to the Regular Army, particularly in discipline. He was commissioned Captain of Company D on May 24, 1861, and mustered the following day. He was commisioned Major of the regiment on July 1, 1862, and wounded and taken prisoner at Cedar Mountain, Virginia, on August 9, 1862. In that battle, he was wounded three times, with a bullet wound on his right arm near the shoulder, a bullet wound on his right leg just above the ankle, and a contusion on his left hip from a spent ball. A week later, the bullet was removed from his arm. Two more weeks later, his leg was amputated about six inches below the knee. Some days later, the surgeons "were obliged to open the flaps and re-tie the artery." He "died of exhaustion... without acute suffering" of his wounds at Charlottesville, Virginia, on October 22, 1862, while still a prisoner of war, as Major. (He had been commissioned Lieutenant Colonel of his regiment on September 17, 1862, but not mustered as such.) After his death, his comrade Captain Robert Gould Shaw (later Colonel of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infanty) wrote: "There is no life like the one we have been leading to show what a man is really made of; and Jim's true purity, conscientiousness, and manliness were well known to us all..."
Sources: MASSACHUSETTS SOLDIERS..., 1: 98; HARVARD MEMORIAL BIOGRAPHIES, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1866), 1: 328-50.
Sources: MASSACHUSETTS SOLDIERS..., 1: 98; HARVARD MEMORIAL BIOGRAPHIES, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1866), 1: 328-50.
Bio by: Leon Edmund Basile
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