St. Gaudens the sculptor was commissioned to commemorate an all-black regiment for their martial valor in the Civil War. Many of these soldiers were killed in battle in 1863, along with their white commanding officer, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, who was a Harvard student. (The film
Glory tells their story.) St. Gaudens sculpted a relief, which stands in front of statehouse on Beacon Hill in Boston, with its back to the Boston Common. If you happen to visit this relief at sunset on the day of the summer solstice, you will see that the sun's last rays illuminate the faces of the warriors as they march off to their martial deaths. That is the way the sculptor wanted it. It is as if the warriors' faces were "lit up" by the setting sun. Charles Ives composed a poem about this relief and set it to music:
"You, Images of God carved in Ebony..." "...a shadow of a sad heart, never light abandon, moving, marching faces of souls."
In terms of the Iliad, this monument represents a perfect sêma, 'symbol or tomb'. In this case, the monument is both symbol and tomb: the tombstone for those who died in the Civil War, and a symbol--as reflected by the solstice sun--of the light of those fighting to the death for what they believe in.
