The Shaw Memorial An Example of Artistic Meanings in Multiple Genres, Across Time, Around an Event of Significance

Augustus Saint-Gaudens, The Shaw Memorial,

Augustus Saint-Gaudens ( ) Saint-Gaudens born in Dublin, Ireland, to mixed Irish/French parentage Moved to US with parents while still an infant One of America ’ s best- known public sculptors in the 19 th century Commissioned for Shaw Memorial in 1884, unveiling in Boston 1898

St. Gaudens included the names of the white officers in the completed Shaw Memorial. There was no mention of any Negro officers. St. Gaudens referred to the models for the Negro soldiers as “darkeys,” and commented on their “imaginative, though simple, minds” and “amusing lies” about taking part in the assault at Fort Wagner. The bigotry of St. Gaudens is ironic, considering the message of his Shaw Memorial. Augustus St. Gaudens and Racism Slide by Nathan

Augustus Saint-Gaudens ( ) Diana Liberty Coin Farragut Memorial The Puritan

Precursors and Background

Augustus St. Gaudens depicted Shaw as an all-important figure, watched over by the divine. Robert Gould Shaw’s family objected to St. Gaudens’ making the memorial into an equestrian statue, calling it “pretentious.” They felt a man of Shaw’s rank was not deserving of such an honor. –It was in response to this that St. Gaudens included the Negro soldiers in the memorial. In his words, he “reconciled [his] desire with their ideas.” The Shaw Memorial’s Conception Slide by Nathan

Massachusetts 54 th Regiment – African-American Union Civil War Regiment – led by white officers, most notably Robert Gould Shaw ( ) 54 th organized in 1863, idea proposed and discussed by Union leaders, Abolitionists, and prominent African- Americans, including Frederick Douglass In training February-May 1863 In parade in Boston – May 1863 (Douglass and John Greenleaf Whittier present) To battlefield along SC & GA coast – June 1863 Assault on Fort Wagner – July 16, 1863 (Harriet Tubman & Clare Barton present)

Shaw and the 54 th Initially took position as commander of the 54 th to please his mother, who was an abolitionist. –Originally did not share passion for abolition. Eventually grew to respect his men and believed they could fight as well as white soldiers. Fought and held boycott until his soldiers received equal pay. On May 28, 1863 Shaw lead his troops on a parade in Boston where they departed for South Carolina. 54 th was originally tasked for manual labor and did not see action until July 16 th at James Island. Shaw and the 54 th was chosen to lead the assault on Battery Wagner. –54 th regiment proved to be as brave as any white troops, but Shaw was killed in the assault. Shaw was buried in mass grave under his black troops. Civil War Trust." Robert Gould Shaw. Civilwar.com, n.d. Web. 13 Nov Slide by: Bert Stewart

Assault on Ft. Wagner, 1863 Colonel Shaw and many of his men killed Confederate soldiers buried Shaw and Black soldiers in a common grave, considering this an insult to Shaw

William Carney Member of Massachusetts 54th First African- American to receive the Medal of Honor Noted for rescuing the flag when Col. Shaw fell at Ft. Wagner

Edmonia Lewis (ca ) Free Black father, Ojibwa mother; birth name “ Wildfire ” Among first American women to attend college, at Oberlin - first US college to admit African- Americans, and women Bust of Shaw from 1864

JoAnne Hileman Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman worked as a nurse at Port Royal. She cared for soldiers with dysentery and small pox. She worked with General David Hunter (a strong abolition supporter), who declared all slaves captured in Port Royal freed and he began gathering them for a regiment of black soldiers. Harriet Tubman was on hand for the battle at Ft. Wagner. It is believed that she served Colonel Shaw his last meal. When the battle at Ft. Wagner was over, Tubman is quoted as saying “And then we saw the lightning, and that was the guns; and then we heard the thunder, and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling, and that was the drops of blood falling; and when we came to get the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.”

The attack on Fort Wagner, while a military disaster, was successful in increasing the number of black enlistments in the Union army by tenfold after the battle. Slide by Ana Bogart

JoAnne Hileman At the beginning of the war soldiers on both sides made the same $11/month, with the exception of the black soldiers who received $10/month, minus a $3 allowance that was given to white soldiers for uniforms. In June of 1864 the Confederacy increased their pay to $18/month. The Union army raised their soldiers pay to $16/month. The only exception to the pay increase was for the black soldiers, if they were free men before they joined the military, their pay matched the white soldiers, but if they were recently freed slaves, their pay remained $10/month-minus $3 per month that the white soldiers got as a uniform allowance.

Poets Inspired by the Events James Russell Lowell William Vaughn Moody John Berryman Thomas Bailey Aldrich Paul Laurence Dunbar Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Robert Lowell So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can. Emerson - from Voluntaries Paul Laurence Dunbar

My Hero by Benjamin Brawley The poem entitled “My Hero,” published in 1922, was written by a black Harlem Renaissance writer, Benjamin Griffith Brawley, in honor of the white Civil War colonel of the all-black 54 th regiment, Robert Gould Shaw. The poem is noteworthy for the time period because Brawley gives homage to a white colonel who fought to give black soldiers the honor and respect due them, ultimately laying his life down for a cause he believed in. Slide by Ana Bogart

My Hero by Benjamin Brawley April 22, February 1, 1939 FLUSHED with the hope of high desire, He buckled on his sword, To dare the rampart ranged with fire, Or where the thunder roared; Into the smoke and flame he went, For God’s great cause to die— A youth of heaven’s element, The flower of chivalry. This was the gallant faith, I trow, Of which the sages tell; On such devotion long ago The benediction fell; And never nobler martyr burned, Or braver hero died, Than he who worldly honor spurned To serve the Crucified. And Lancelot and Sir Bedivere May pass beyond the pale, And wander over moor and mere To find the Holy Grail; But ever yet the prize forsooth My hero holds in fee; And he is Blameless Knight in truth, And Galahad to me. Slide by Ana Bogart Robert Gould Shaw

Glory, 1989 Movie Starring Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman

Three Places in New England Charles Ives ( ) (1914, revised 1929, premiered 1931) First Movement ‘ The St. Gaudens in Boston Common (Col. Shaw and his Colored Regiment) ’

Charles Ives Three Places in New England Dedicatory Poem Moving, - Marching - Faces of Souls! Marked with generations of pain, Part-freers of a Destiny, Slowly, restlessly - swaying us on with you Towards other Freedom! The man on horseback, carved from A native quarry of the world Liberty And from what your country was made. You images of a Divine Law Carved in the shadow of a saddened heart - Never light abandoned - Of an age and of a nation. Above and beyond that compelling mass Rises the drum-beat of the common-heart In the silence of a strange and Sounding afterglow Moving - Marching - Faces of Souls!

Details of Shaw Memorial

Position of Colonel Shaw Legs of Soldiers and Horses

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) The Abolitionists, both Black and white, had imagined an anti-racist future, but the white majority society moved towards prejudice after the Civil War Plessy v. Ferguson was the Supreme Court decision that legalized segregation, as long as facilities were “ separate but equal ” It represented the apogee of a resurgent white supremacism, that now pretended to scientific bases for its racism

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Excerpts from the decision “ if one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane ” “ the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff ’ s argument…(is) the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so…(it is) solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it. ” Laws upholding segregation “ do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other ”

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Lone dissenting vote on the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, John Marshall Harlan ( ) was born in Kentucky and had been a slave-holder through the Civil War, even while serving in the Union army. He wrote in his dissent “ Our constitution is color- blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. ”

“ Robert Gould Shaw ” (1900) by Paul Laurence Dunbar ( ) Why was it that the thunder voice of Fate Should call thee, studious, from the classical groves, Where calm-eyed Pallas with still footstep roves, And charge thee seek the turmoil of the state? What bade thee hear the voice and rise elate, Leave home and kindred and thy spicy loaves, To lead th ’ unfettered and despised droves To manhood ’ s home thunder at the gate?

“ Robert Gould Shaw ” (1900) by Paul Laurence Dunbar ( ) Far better the slow blaze of Learning ’ s light The cool and quiet of her dearer fane, Than this hot terror of a hopeless fight This cold endurance of the final pain— Since thou and those who died for right Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!

Vietnam Veteran ’ s Memorial

Official name of the Memorial is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial –Also known as VVM or “The Wall” Not a war Memorial but a Memorial to those who served in the war, both living and dead The names were NOT carved by hand, but by a computerized typesetting process developed by Larry Century, specifically for the Memorial, in Memphis, Tennessee Freya

Founded by Jan Scruggs On July 1, 1980, in the Rose Garden, President Jimmy Carter signed the legislation (P.L ) to provide a site in Constitution Gardens near the Lincoln Memorial Freya

Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial: Maya Lin Lin won a public design competition for the Vietnam Memorial in 1981 (21 years old) Unconventional design– Memorial is deep in the Earth to symbolize the gravity of loss of the soldiers Controversy because Lin was of Asian Decent (Chinese-American) Lin is now a prestigious architectural designer – won the National Medal of Arts in 2009 Danielle

The Irish Brigade -During the Civil War thousands of Irish immigrants and Irish-American fought on behalf of the Union in ethnic regiments -Many joined the Union to assimilate into the American culture and also to alleviate the anti-Irish prejudice in the U.S. -However, they Irish weren’t completely unsympathetic to the Confederate fight. -They viewed the fight of the Confederacy for independence against the strong government as a representation of the Irish fight against the British. -The Brigade was composed of 4 regiments: the 63 rd and 69 th from New York, and the 88 th and 29 th regiments from Massachusetts. Angie Rodriguez

The Irish Brigade: Famous Battles Antietam: On September 17, 1862, the brigade lead an attack on the Confederate army on a sunken road farm that later became known as “Bloody Lane”. They charged toward the confederate soldiers with their bayonets. However that wasn’t enough to protect them and as a result 60 percent of the New York regiments, 600 in total were killed. -Battle of Fredericksburg, 545 men were either killed or wounded of the original 1,200. -In the battle of Gettysburg, 320 of the brigade’s remaining 530 men were killed -While many Irish died fighting for the Union resulting in the disbandment of the brigade, their courage, bravery and fighting spirit made them legendary among the other units. Angie Rodriguez