Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment Memorial
Bronze bas-relief of a colonel and his soldiers marching to a battle they lost, sculpted over fourteen years.
This guide to the Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment Memorial in Boston tells the story of a defeat the city chose to commemorate: the 54th Massachusetts, the Union's first Black regiment recruited in the North, storming Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863, and losing. It follows Colonel Robert Gould Shaw's death leading the charge, the insult the Confederates intended by burying him among his soldiers, and his family's answer to it. Sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens spent nearly fourteen years on the bronze, hiring around forty Black men from near his studio and sculpting each soldier's face from a separate live sitting.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.