Power and glory?

Abstract

Augustus Saint-Gaudens's memorial to Civil War hero Robert Gould Shaw projects the Brahmin values of sacrifice and strict social hierarchy. It elides the African American reality of the war while creating a Christ-like central figure of Shaw. At the 1897 dedication of the monument, few speakers even mentioned the African American soldiers of the Massachusetts 54th Infantry (some of whom were present) and their sacrifice at Fort Wagner, South Carolina. Even the memorial's placement on the Boston Common links it to Boston's traditional elites rather than to the struggle for racial equality in the United States.