In search of perfection, Saint-Gaudens had the original flag of the 54th Regiment, then located in the State House in Boston, sketched for him. He also modified certain areas, such as the drummer boys, whom he made shorter and thus more suited to their age, the horse, whose mane was reversed in position, and the symbolic angel above, whose embodiment of inevitable death in war so eluded him that he reworked her four times. Though its long-delayed completion exasperated the committee that commissioned it, the Shaw Memorial did not disappoint those who looked for a memory that, in sculpture, captured the spirit and sacrifice of the 54th.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Shaw Memorial (detail), 1900, patinated plaster, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, New Hampshire