Talk:Edwin Hallowell

One person?
Does all the information in this biography refer to the same man? 19 years is awfully young to be a lieutenant colonel; in fact, this article has him commanding the regiment at 19 after Shaw's death. The Congressional biography from which all the non-CW facts are taken makes no mention of his activities during the war. It describes a man born in Pennsylvania who was involved in Pennsylvanian politics. But the Hallowell during the Civil War served in a Massachusetts regiment. Also, and this is a smaller point, the Congressman was a Democrat; somebody who fought for the Union and was abolitionist enough to be made a high-ranking officer in an experimental black regiment would (you'd think) be much more likely to be a Republican in that period. 69.227.126.47 14:33, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. The congressional biographies do tend to focus on military and other government service, so that fact that it is not mentioned in the CongBio is a strong indicator that these are two different people.Npeters22 16:48, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe your suspicions are well founded. This article is in error. Neither source cited says that Edwin was the 2nd commander of the 54th Mass. The real man in question was young--27--when he took over command but he was Edward Needles Hallowell brother of Norwood P. Hallowell. Both men were avowed abolitionists and members of the Union Club in Boston. Edward appears to have served with Freemont in Missouri before joining his brother Norwood in the 20th Mass in 1862. I am gathering information for an article on Edward and possibly Norwood as well. Other articles on Wiki give Edward as the Colonel of the 54th. Here is one cite I have found mentioning both brothers in connection with hard core Republican associations (the aforementioned Union Club of Boston): http://www.unionclub.org/history.html. Edward and Norwood were actually from Philadelphia although both had found their way to Massachusetts through Harvard. Here is one of the pages cited on the Wiki article on the Battle of Olustee: http://battleofolustee.org/54th_mass_inf.html. Also, I have gone through a lot of A Brave Black Regiment by Luis Emilio (CAPT in the 54th) and he refers everywhere to Edward not Edwin. In short, although I am not well into my research and have found little for Edward after the war I think the likelihood of his going Democrat is next to zero.Tuelj (talk) 17:18, 31 December 2007 (UTC)