Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment – Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts

The 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that saw extensive service in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The regiment was one of the first official black units in the United States during the Civil War. Commanded by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, it sprang to life after the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton decided white officers would be in charge of all "colored" units.

The Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth Regiment is a bronze relief sculpture, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, located at 24 Beacon Street, adjacent to the Boston Common. The sculpture depicts the 54th Regiment marching down Beacon Street on May 28, 1863

By most accounts, the 54th left Boston with very high morale. This was despite the fact that Jefferson Davis’ proclamation of December 23, 1862 effectively put both African-American enlisted men and white officers under a death sentence. The proclamation was affirmed by the Confederate Congress in January 1863 and turned both enlisted soldiers and their white officers over to the states from which the enlisted soldiers had been slaves. As most Southern states had enacted draconian measures for "servile insurrection" after Nat Turner’s Rebellion the likely sentence was a capital one.

Robert Gould Shaw was born in Boston to a prominent abolitionist family. The 54th Regiment was sent to Charleston, South Carolina, to take part in the operations against the Confederates stationed there. On July 18, 1863, along with two brigades of white troops, the 54th assaulted Confederate Battery Wagner. As the unit hesitated in the face of fierce Confederate fire, Shaw led his men into battle by shouting, "Forward, Fifty-Fourth Forward!" He mounted a parapet and urged his men forward, but was shot through the heart and he died almost instantly. According to the color sergeant of the 54th Mass, he was shot and killed trying to lead the unit forward and fell on the outside of the fort.

The victorious Confederates buried him in a mass grave with many of his men, an act they intended as an insult. Shaw's father publicly proclaimed that he was proud to know that his son was interred with his troops, befitting his role as a soldier and a fighter for social justice.

The story of Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts was dramatized in the 1989 film "Glory," with Shaw portrayed by Matthew Broderick. The film also starred Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman,