Norwood Penrose Hallowell

Hallowell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1839 to Morris Longstreth of the Hallowell family, and Hannah (Penrose).[1] Norwood and his brothers, Edward Needles and Richard Price, were raised in a household that was strongly Quaker, and strongly abolitionist; during the Civil War, their father opened his home as a hospital for wounded Union soldiers.[2] He attended Harvard College, where he befriended Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.. He graduated in 1861 and was elected the Class Orator.[3]

Hallowell's fervent abolitionism led him to volunteer for service in the Civil War, and he inspired Holmes to do the same.[4] He was commissioned a first lieutenant on July 10, 1861, joining the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry with Holmes.[5] Hallowell fought in the Battle of Ball's Bluff on October 21, 1861, in which he distinguished himself by leading a line of skirmishers to hold off Confederate forces. Hallowell then swam across the Potomac River, constructed a makeshift raft, and made several trips to the Virginia bank to rescue trapped Union soldiers before his raft fell apart.[6] Hallowell was promoted to captain on November 26, 1861.[7] He was wounded in the Battle of Glendale on June 30, 1862, and suffered more severe wounds in the Battle of Antietam on September 17.[8] His left arm was shattered by a bullet but later saved by a surgeon; Holmes was shot in the neck. Both took refuge in a farmhouse (a historic site now known as the Royer-Nicodemus House and Farm) and were eventually evacuated.[9]

On April 17, 1863, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, as second-in-command (after Colonel Robert Gould Shaw) of the 54th Massachusetts, one of the first all-black regiments in the U.S.[10] In a letter to the governor of Massachusetts, John Murray Forbes recommended Hallowell for the promotion based on his bravery, soundness of mind, and willingness to lead a black regiment despite the fact that many found the idea "unpopular." [11] On May 30, he accepted Governor John A. Andrew's personal request that he be made colonel in command of the 55th Massachusetts, another all-black regiment.[12] He and his regiment were stationed at Charleston Harbor and participated in the siege and eventual taking of Fort Wagner; Hallowell was one of the first to enter the fort after its abandonment.[13] Hallowell faced continuing disability due to his wounds, and was discharged on November 2, 1863.[14]

Hallowell moved to New York City, where he first worked for the commission house of Watts, Crane & Co., followed by a partnership with his brother Richard, as Hallowell Brothers and later Hallowell, Prescott & Co.[15] Hallowell married Sarah Wharton Haydock (1846–1934) in New York on January 27, 1868.[16] They had six children together: Anna, Robert Haydock, Norwood Penrose, John White, Esther Fisher, and Susan Morris.[17]

He moved to Medford, Massachusetts in 1869.[18] He became a wool broker in Boston, and was made vice president of the National Bank of Commerce of Boston in 1886.[19]

Hallowell died in Medford on April 11, 1914, two days before his 75th birthday. Holmes wrote several days later that his death had left "a great space bare for him." Hallowell had been his "oldest friend...[and was] the most generously gallant spirit and I don't know but the greatest soul I ever knew....[H]e gave the first adult impulse to my youth."[20] African American writer Benjamin Griffith Brawley dedicated his 1921 book, A Social History of the American Negro, "to the memory of Norwood Penrose Hallowell (1839-1914), patriot." He is buried in the Hallowell family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[21]

• The Negro as a Soldier in the War of the Rebellion. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1897.