Boston - Boston Common: Shaw Memorial Augustus Saint-Gaudens' memorial to Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment is considered one of America's greatest public monuments. Installed at the top of Boston Common across from the State House on Memorial Day, May 31, 1897 on a setting designed by Charles F. McKim, of McKim, Mead and White, the larger-than-life bronze relief is often laid with flowers, and sometimes a bouquet is slipped through the arm of Shaw. Robert Gould Shaw was the colonel in command of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, which entered the American Civil War in 1863 and since immortalized in the film, Glory. Black troops had fought alongside George Washington in the Revolutionary War and under James Madison in the War of 1812, but those troops were mostly slaves and not organized as a formal military unit. The 54th Massachusetts, composed of primarily free men, was organized by Governoe John A. Andrew after the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton decided white officers would be in charge of all "colored" units, and Colonel Shaw was hand-picked by Governor Andrew himself. The soldiers were recruited by white abolitionists (including Shaw's parents). The 54th left Boston to fight for the Union on May 28, 1863. It started off performing only manual labor. The regiment gained international fame on July 18, 1863, when it spearheaded an assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina. Of the six hundred men that stormed Fort Wagner, 116, including Colonel Shaw, were killed. Another 156 were wounded or captured. Although the Union was not able to take and hold the fort, the 54th was widely acclaimed for its valor, and the event helped encourage the further enlistment and mobilization of African-American troops, a key development that President Abraham Lincoln once noted as helping to secure the final victory. Later in the war, the 54th fought a rear-guard action covering the Union retreat at the Battle of Olustee. As part of an all-black brigade under Col. Alfred S. Hartwell, they unsuccessfully attacked entrenched Confederate militia at the November 1864 Battle of Honey Hill. In mid-April 1865, they fought at the Battle of Boykin's Mill, a small affair in South Carolina that proved to be one of the last engagements of the war. The monument is cast in very high relief and secured within a stone frame and backing. Seen in profile are Colonel Shaw, who rides his horse in campaign uniform and fatigue cap amid his retinue of soldiers carrying rifles, packs, and canteens and led by young drummer boys. Above them floats an angel holding an olive branch, symbolizing peace, and poppies, symbolizing death. With their commander sitting erect astride his horse, denoting the troop's civic undertaking, the men of the 54th surge forward, marching toward battle. Although rifles pepper the space above them at varying angles and the troops are diverse in expression and pose, the regiment nearly shimmers with solidarity. The realization of this brilliantly conceived piece, from original commission to completion, spanned fourteen years. American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens was introduced to the committee in charge of the memorial after completing the Farragut Monument. Saint-Gaudens saw this as his chance to create an important equestrian figure. Shaw's parents, however, felt it presumptuous to represent a young colonel in the context traditionally reserved for generals, and Saint-Gaudens then came up with the idea of placing his equestrian figure with his troops, evolving the monuments design from low to high relief. Saint-Gaudens depicted the African-American soliders' range of ages and physical characteristics with excruciating detail, hiring plain clothes men to pose for him. He made 40 heads as studies, sixteen of which were incorporated into the final composition. The beautiful gray horse Saint-Gaudens used as a model died of pneumonia during the casting process and he had to finish with a sorrel hired from a local riding club. Inscriptions on Saint-Gaudens' memorial and Charles Follen McKim's architectural exedra to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Regiment in Boston. . On the front of the monument, part of the relief itself: OMNIA RELINQVIT / SERVARE REMPVBLICAM Underneath the relief: ROBERT GOULD SHAW / COLONEL OF THE FIFTY FOURTH REGIMENT OF MASSA- / CHUSETTS INFANTRY BORN IN BOSTON 10 OCTOBER / MDCCCXXXVII KILLED WHILE LEADING THE ASSAULT / ON FORT WAGNER / SOUTH CAROLINA 18 JULY MDCCCLXIII Underneath, the verse of James Russel Lowell: RIGHT IN THE VAN ON THE RED RAMPART'S SLIPPERY / SWELL WITH HEART THAT BEAT A CHARGE HE FELL / FOEWARD AS FITS A MAN: BUT THE HIGH SOUL BURNS / ON TO LIGHT MEN / VFL.Ru