Lay This Laurel: An Album on the Saint-Gaudens Memorial on Boston Common Honoring Black and White Men Together Who Served the Union Cause with Robert Gould Shaw and Died with Him July 18, 1863

by Lincoln Kirstein, Richard Benson

One of the most compelling Civil War stories is that of the Fifty-Fourth Regiment, made up of African-American soldiers who volunteered for the Union Army. Their heroic but futile battle at Fort Wagner was memorialized by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Boston Common in 1897. Both the commemorative book and limited-edition volume depict the monument in stirring detail while celebrating its 100-year anniversary. For photography connoisseurs and Civil War buffs.

First Edition, 1973

Genres: History, Civil War, American Civil War, War

83 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1973

Reviews

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lay this laurel on the One
Too intrinsic for Renown -
Laurel - vail your deathless tree -
Him you chasten, that is He!

Emily Dickinson

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collecting wide-scope and detail focused photographs with an explanatory essay on the 54th Massachusetts in general, Colonel Shaw in particular, and the creation of this monument to both. The roll call of the dead gives insight into the fact not generally acknowledged elsewhere that while nominally a Massachusetts raised regiment, the overwhelming majority of enlisted troops came from other states for the opportunity to fight.

[John Moonitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the books the movie Glory was based on . . . incredible story of Robert Gould Shaw and the men of the 54th Massachusetts . . . (I think this is actually an album of some sort . . . but I am referring to the book by the same name)