Robert Shaw was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a prominent abolitionist family, Francis and Sarah Shaw. Shaw attended Harvard, but never graduated. Shaw joined the Union Army after the election of Abraham Lincoln and saw action at the Battle of Antietam. Later Governor John A. Andrew asked him to raise and command the first regiment of black troops for the Union.
On July 18, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infrantry, under Colonel Shaw's command, joined two white regiments in an assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina. Shaw and many of his men were killed in the fierce battle. He was buried in a mass grave along side his fallen soldiers whom he had come to respect as courageous comrades. Intended as an insult by the victorious Confederates, his family regarded it as an honor. (The fort was later abandoned after a siege of several months).
Although tactically a defeat, the actions of the 54th Regiment distinguished the black soldiers as loyal, courageous members of the Union Army and resulted in increased recruitment and an increased numerical superiority in strategic places.
Shaw and the 54th have often been memorialized in art and words. African American poets Paul Laurence Dunbar and Benjamin Griffith Brawley both wrote poems in their honor, and a 1989 movie,
Glory told their story.
From the
Smithsonian Art Inventory
Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, 1848-1907, sculptor.
McKim, Charles Follen, 1847-1909, architect.
Gorham Manufacturing Company, founder.
Relief: bronze
Frame and base: Tennessee marble and granite.
Dimensions Overall: approx. H. 11 ft. x W. 14 ft. (13.35 m. x 4.27 m.).
Description:
A high relief depicting Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and 16 members the 54th Massachusetts Regiment (one of the first African-American units to serve in the Civil War). They are preceded by a drummer boy. Colonel Shaw sits atop a horse, flanked by ranks of marching soldiers holding rifles over their shoulders. Colonel Shaw is dressed in campaign uniform and holds a sword in his proper right hand. An allegorical female figure hovers above them, holding a laurel or olive branch, and poppies (symbolic of death, sleep, remembrance and victory). An arched ceiling above the figures, decorated with coffers that each hold a star, is part of an elaborate stone frame enclosing the front and back of the bronze sculpture. The monument includes benches on both sides.
On the back of the monument is text composed by Charles W. Eliot in June 1894. There are also wreaths surrounding names of the white officers killed in action. Names of the 62 African-American enlisted casualties were not added until 1982.
Remarks:
In 1865, Joshua B. Smith, an African-American businessman, led the drive to erect a monument in Boston. A committee of 21 was formed, but the project was delayed until the early 1880s. By the end of 1883, Saint-Gaudens had produced several clay models, and on Feb. 23, 1884, a contract was signed to produce a bronze relief. The monument was cast by Gorham Manufacturing Company and the architectural setting was designed by Charles F. McKim. The memorial was dedicated May 31, 1897, with addresses by Governor Wolcott of Massachusetts, Professor William James of Harvard, and African-American leader Booker T. Washington.
The memorial cost approximately $22,000; the terrace setting an additional $20,000. The sculpture was funded by private contributions; the terrace and landscaping financed by the State of Massachusetts. The sculpture is located across from the main entrance to the State House, past which the 54th regiment marched on May 28, 1863 as it embarked for South Carolina. It was at this spot, that Colonel Shaw reportedly paused to raise his sword to John Albion Andrew, governor of Massachusetts, who saluted him from the State House steps.
In 1981-1984, a major restoration of the monument was undertaken through subscription of funds by the Committee to Save the Shaw Memorial.
Inscriptions:
On face of relief
OMNIA RELINQVIT
SEVARE REMPVBLICAM
On pedestal under the relief:
(lines from James Russell Lowell's poem "Memoriae Positum")
Right in the van of the red rampart's slippery swell with heart that beat a charge he fell forward as fits a man: but the high soul burns on to light men's feet where death for nobel ends makes dying sweet.
Carved on back of monument:
(1894 text by Charles W. Norton)
The White Officers taking life and honor in their hands cast in their lot with men of a despised race unproven in war and risked death as inciters of servile insurrection if taken prisoners besides encountering all the common perils of camp march and battle. The Black rank and file volunteered when disaster clouded the Union Cause. Served without pay for eighteen months till given that of white troops. Faced threatened enslavement if captured. Were brave in action. Patient under heavy and dangerous labors. And cheerful amid hardships and privations. Together they gave to the Nation and the World undying proof that Americans of African descent possess the pride, courage and devotion of the patriot soldier. One hundred and eighty thousand such Americans enlisted under the Union Flag in MDCCCLXIII-MDCCCLXV. signed
From a nearby plaque:
THE SCULPTOR
THE SHAW-5TH REGIMENT MEMORIAL, THE OUTSTANDING
TRIBUTE TO SOLDIERS OF THE CIVIL WAR, WAS CREATED
BY ONE OF AMERICA'S FOREMOST SCULPTORS, AUGUSTAS
SAINT GAUDENS (1848 - 1907). BORN IN DUBLIN, OF A
FRENCH FATHER AND AN IRISH MOTHER, HE GREW UP IN
NEW YORK, WAS APPRENTICED TO A CAMEO CUTTER AT 13,
AND STUDIED AT THE ECOLE DES BEAUX ARTS IN PARIS.
HIS BEST KNOWN WORKS INCLUDE THE ADAMS MEMORIAL
IN WASHINGTON, D.C., GENERAL SHERMAN IN NEW YORK AND
PRESIDENT LINCOLN IN CHICAGO. HIS HOME IN CORNISH,
NEW HAMPSHIRE IS A NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE. THE SETTING
FOR THE MEMORIAL WAS DESIGNED BY THE DISTINGUISHED
ARCHITECT, CHARLES F. MCKIM.
This memorial has also been described with more details about Shaw and the 54th Regiment in a waymark by Shorelander
Shaw 5th Regiment Memorial.