Saint-Gaudens’s memorial commemorates the sacrifice of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the men of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first black regiment to fight for the North in the Civil War. Half of the 600 men in the regiment were killed, captured, or missing after their assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina on July 18, 1863. News of their bravery was spread immediately by both Union and Confederate troops. Saint-Gaudens completely reimagined the traditional equestrian monument by transforming the usual man on a horse into this frieze, which commemorates the soldiers as well as their leader, who was the first to die.