Taking His Time: Saint-Gaudens and His Masterpiece
Sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens spent about 14 years on the tribute to a Black regiment that fought in the Civil War and its leader
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) allowed himself the time needed for his tribute to the Massachusetts 54th Regiment to evolve something meaningful.
The regiment was one of the first to recruit black men to fight in the Civil War. In 1863, in a battle for Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina, the regiment suffered a terrible defeat.
Of the about 650 men of the 54th who participated in the battle, more than 270 soldiers were killed, wounded, captured or missing and presumed dead, according to a summary posted by the National Park Service.
Among the dead was the leader of the regiment, Col. Robert Gould Shaw (1837–1863), a white man. The Confederates put Shaw’s body in a common burial pit, intending it as an insult to the leader of the Black regiment, according to the history by the National Parks Service. When the Union gained control of the fort, Shaw’s parents requested that their son’s body not be removed and given an officer’s burial, as they considered it more fitting to remain with his men.
